Ongoing bad habits plaguing Greencastle recycling efforts

With curbside recycling available in Greencastle for more than 20 years, you’d think the basics of the process would be second nature by now.

It’s pretty simple. Plastics, paper, cardboard, yes. Styrofoam, limbs, grass clippings, no.

Yet the Greencastle City Council learned recently that city residents have either gotten lazy or don’t pay close attention to local recycling guidelines.

A recent audit by Republic Services, the city’s contracted firm for trash and recycling hauling, revealed more than 100 households have failed to comply with the rules and ended up with banned items mixed in with their recycling, the Council heard.

“People, for instance, dump their grass clippings into their recycling (the yellow-topped toter), along with trash and garbage and various other things like that that don’t belong,” City Attorney Laurie Hardwick told the Council during its October meeting.

“So what happens,” Hardwick continued, “is that it (the recycling collected citywide) gets placed into these big containers and taken to the recycling center, and then the whole shipment gets rejected.”

Adding to that frustration for Republic is that the cost of recycling pickup and disposal is twice that of trash collection, she added.

“So it’s at great expense to them to take it and then have it rejected,” Hardwick explained.

To search for potential problem areas, Republic recently conducted an audit of what all is in residents’ yellow-topped toters so they have a record of who is complying and who is not.

“In the future,” Hardwick added, “if you find that your recycling has not been taken, the reason is because it’s got things that shouldn’t be in there.”

She ticked off such items as leaves, grass clippings, tree limbs, styrofoam, and yes, even dirty diapers.

Some of that lack of compliance may be an innocent mistake by just not knowing the rules, it was suggested.

But dirty diapers? Yeah, the City Council was not amused by that.

“Yeah,” Councilman Mark Hammer responded, “diapers don’t fall into good intentions.”

At least initially, Republic will tag rejected toters to let homeowners know why they did not get picked up, the city attorney noted.

“That should start the next time they pick up the recycling,” Hardwick said.

Councilman Steve Fields asked for a quick clarification.

“So I pick up a stick in my yard,” he supposed, “and I throw it in my regular trash (blue-topped toter), and that’s fine?”

“Yes,” Hardwick responded, “and they prefer that sticks and leaves not be bagged. They prefer you just put grass clippings and leaves in the trash as is.”

Speaking of plastic bags, Mayor Bill Dory noted that plastic grocery sacks are not to be put in the recycling because they pose a threat to jamming up the conveyors at the recycling center.

“Kroger sacks, things like that,” the mayor said, “we’re suggesting people can take those out to Walmart or Kroger (where they are collected).”

Glass, meanwhile, is now welcomed again after it was not considered acceptable for recycling for a while due to breakage issues and a supposed lack of a market for recycled glass.

Mayor Dory pointed out that city utility bills have been carrying a post about glass being acceptable again over the last couple of months.

The mayor also warned that styrofoam cups and styrofoam packing materials are not to be put into the recycling bin. That’s seems to be a prevalent issue.

“There’s no market for it,” Dory explained, reminding residents to put such cups, plates and packing materials only in the trash.

“Now that they (Republic employees) have done the audit,” the mayor said, “we’re going to be much more specific in the guidelines.”

Some of deciding what goes and what doesn’t has to be common sense, it was pointed out.

“Electronics? You can take that to Tox-Away Day,” Mayor Dory said. “People had rubber hoses, and there were plastic play structures and things like that where people cut them up and put the pieces in their recycling. They may have a recycling symbol on them but the problem is, the recycling systems where all this stuff is taken is really targeted at food (packaging) and products like that. It’s not designed to take big plastic play structures and stuff like that.”

The mayor said he doesn’t mean to be critical because some of the problems are the result of good intentions that don’t fit within guidelines of the recycling system.

“People have just gotten sloppy,” he suggested.

On its website, the City of Greencastle lists accepted recyclables, now also including glass.

Your recycling toter can be used to recycle the following types of household waste:

• Newspapers, colored and white paper, magazines, catalogs, junk mail and phone books.

• Lightweight cardboard, such as cereal boxes.

• Corrugated cardboard, please break down the boxes.

• Plastic containers, Nos. 1-7, including milk, water and soda bottles.

• Milk and juice cartons.

• Aluminum, steel and tin cans.

All items can be mixed together in the designated recycling toter. Recyling is picked up every other week in the City of Greencastle.