Recycling right may involve learning curve

Scott Swanson

I clearly remember the first time I visited a landfill.

I don’t remember why, exactly, but I recall driving up a winding dirt road into the hills of Central California, where I lived at the time, and seeing … a giant flock of seagulls descending like fleas onto a poodle as trucks dumped massive quantities of, well, a lot of really good stuff on the ground and giant earthmovers shoved dirt over the pile.

Think about your last trip to the transfer yard and multiply that by about 100. That’s about the scale of refuse I’m talking about.

I was a poor recent college graduate at the time and I’d grown up in a family that didn’t have a lot, so I wasn’t used to seeing really usable stuff just get thrown away.

It was actually kind of sickening.

That’s when I got interested in recycling. I think most people would consider me a pretty conservative person, but I’m really into making natural resources stretch, even if it costs me a little more. I hate waste.

All those resources – oil and minerals particularly – that come out of the ground and go into all the plastic we use and the cool gizmos we play with, then eventually throw away, aren’t being replaced.

So yeah, maybe I’m a little nutty when it comes to this issue.

But I’ve recently realized that I’m also a little off-base, along with most local residents, I’m guessing, in my understanding of what it takes to recycle in Sweet Home.

I’ve come to that realization as I’ve watched this “China-induced recycling market crisis” that our local garbage company is experiencing, which is the topic of our story on page 1.

If you haven’t been following closely, what’s happening is that China is tired of getting jars with peanut butter caked on the sides and coffee cups mixed in with fast food containers half full of french fries that we’ve all assumed our friends overseas put to good use.

Hitherto, the Chinese companies that handle most of the recycling from the U.S. have taken in massive quantities of discarded paper, cardboard, plastic, glass and metal from U.S. households and businesses. But, apparently with some prodding from their government, they’ve drawn the line on dirty catsup bottles and soiled paper plates – and lots more.

Contamination isn’t really something I’ve heard a lot about, personally, over the years from our garbage collection agencies until recently, but it’s become very apparent that it is a big deal.

This issue is going to hit close to home for all of us. If we don’t clean up our act, we’re going to be paying more to get our trash hauled away.

I’ve always considered myself a pretty serious recycler, for the reasons described above.

In fact, when I moved to Sweet Home, I was a little miffed that they didn’t take plastic bags like my previous garbage company had. It was irritating, thinking of those grocery bags going into a hole somewhere for perpetuity when all that plastic could be used otherwise – maybe for a little more cost, but at least not being buried eternally in the ground.

Since it’s usually my job at home to take care of the trash, I pick through my family’s discards and get everything sorted. (Our dogs always get really interested at at this point.)

Occasionally, I’d even wash out some container that was still dripping with sauce. What I didn’t realize, though, because nobody had made a big issue of it, was that all that jelly on the jars I was dumping into the recycling can wasn’t a good thing.

Councilman Bob Briana, apparently, is coming to the same realization. In the City Council meeting last week where the recycling crisis was being outlined by Scott Gagner, manager of our local Sweet Home Sanitation, Briana asked “What about a tuna fish can? If I don’t rinse it out?”

“It’s contaminated,” Gagner replied.

So there we have it. No more dirty tin cans in the recycling bin.

Personally, I think recycling is more than just an issue of convenience or cost. I think there are moral considerations here.

We’ve been given resources that are finite in the sense that they recreate themselves, like is the case with trees and lumber. When we tell the grocery clerk we want plastic, not paper, and we then toss that into the landfill, those molecules of whatever plastic that is are gone – unless one of our descendants gets desperate enough to dig them up and reuse them 200 years from now when all the oil is gone.

So whether you’re operating from a presumption that we need to be good stewards of what God has given us, or whether you’re simply concerned about how your great-great-grandkid will be forced to spend his free time, there is a righteous element to recycling.

But, as we’re finding out, there is also a cost.

I think we’re going to be hearing more from our garbage haulers about what it’s going to take to get back on track here, and I will be happy to do what I need to. The bottom line, which is pretty clear from what Gagner said the other night, is that if we don’t, we’re gonna pay.

I’m kind of a process guy and I like problem-solving, so for me, personally, this is a challenge. How do we quickly and efficiently get that mustard squeeze bottle cleaned up before we dump it? Soak it? Run it through the dishwasher? (I have to remember, too, that if I exceed 300 cubic feet of water per month, I’m paying more – see page 9.)

Obviously, those who decide to take this thing really seariously will have to figure out ways to efficiently clean and correctly deposit our used receptacles and other recyclables.

The downside, of course, is convenience and, maybe, cost. The upside is less garbage dumped in our local landfill and less waste that our grandkids will pay for.

At least we can feel like we’re doing our part.

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