“One Man’s Trash …” Your guide to reducing, reusing and recycling Southeastern Indiana Recycling District Serving: Franklin, Jefferson, Jennings, Ohio, 800-997-4793 Ripley, Scott & Switzerland Counties www.seird.org Winter 2019 Quarterly Newsletter David Biderman, Solid Waste Association of North America’s Executive Director and Big changes for plastic recycling CEO. “We can continue to complain about the restrictions and the loss of our largest export market, or we can use innovation, technology, and experience to build a stronger domestic recycling system,” Biderman noted. One way to offset the problem is to improve the quality of materials that residents recycle. Currently, recycling contamination is at an all-time high, with levels of contamination over 30% in some areas. In other words, a whopping one- third of the material going into recycling containers doesn’t even belong there! Contamination results when the wrong materials and dirty items are placed into Effective January 1, 2019, the ONLY plastics accepted at all District Recycle Centers will recycling bins and carts. We can do better. be #1 and #2 plastic bottles and jugs. All other shapes of #1 and #2 plastics and all #3-#7 To face today’s challenging recycling plastics of any shape should be thrown into the trash until further notice. Thank you! markets, we all need to be recycling better, In addition to #1 and #2 plastic jugs and bottles, we will continue to accept paper keeping recyclables clean and contaminant- products, cardboard, glass, and cans. Visit www.seird.org for current lists of recyclables. free. Follow these simple guidelines to create high-quality, market-ready recyclables: Plastic Container Guide • Recycle these items: paper and cardboard, metal food and beverage cans, glass bottles and jars, and #1 and 3 3 #2 plastic bottles and jugs. Recycling quality must improve • Toss other plastics, including those that to meet marketplace challenges aren’t bottle-shaped and any numbered 3-7, into the trash until further notice. You might have seen recycling in the news • Make sure recyclable bottles and lately. Across the country, the demand for containers are empty of any contents, Look for these symbols and codes on plastic bottles and jugs. recyclables has dwindled because China is clean of any residue, and dry before no longer taking many materials from the placing them into the recycling bin. U.S. China’s new policy, referred to as the • Keep it loose! There is no need to bag “National Sword,” has disrupted markets your recycling. Simply toss paper, nationwide. With an oversupply, factories flattened boxes, and containers directly Thank you, Community Advisory Committee members! can be very choosy about the articles into recycling bins. they accept. Adding to the problem is the • Know what should never be placed current low price of oil, a key ingredient in in the recycling container! Never mix making new plastic, which has made selling food waste, clothing, cords, hoses, recycled plastic more difficult. tissues, paper towels, hazardous waste, Front row (from left): “The deepening impact of China’s or electronics with your paper and Millie Martin, Stephanie waste import restrictions is being felt in containers for recycling. And, please, Hellman, and a growing number of communities,” said absolutely NO diapers! Marty Mullin Back row (from left): Mandy Creech, Jared Rogers, Velda Miller, Sara Hare, and Sharon Hansel Mobile household hazardous waste collections will resume in April 2019. Watch the spring newsletter or check our website, Our Community Advisory Committee • Aimee Boiman, Ohio County www.seird.org, for dates and (CAC) is comprised of residents from • Mariah Jade Campbell, Scott County each of our district’s counties. We meet • Teri Doran, Jennings County locations. In the meantime, if quarterly to discuss recycling efforts in • Sharon Hansel, Switzerland County you have household hazardous our seven-county area. These valuable • Sara Hare, Jefferson County volunteers provide input on the needs of • Stephanie Hellmann, Jefferson County waste that needs to be specific communities within the district and • Jeff Kelley, Scott County disposed right away, you can assist in providing direction and vision for • Mildred “Millie” Martin, Ohio County drop it off at the Jefferson SEIRD. We also look to our CAC members • Velda Miller, Ohio County to participate in community activities when • Marty Mullin, Franklin County County Recycle Center (see possible and serve as SEIRD ambassadors. • Steve Plasse, Scott County back page for location and Thank you to these CAC volunteers • Jared Rogers, Ripley County hours). for their hard work in partnering with us in protecting the earth: Page 2 Winter 2019 What to do with online packaging You’ve taken advantage of the convenience of online ordering. The gifts were a hit, but now the holidays are over and you are left with a huge stack of boxes and packing materials. Before tossing boxes into the recycle bin, please first consider how you might reuse them instead. Free online market- | iStock Getty Images Plus Credit: William_Potter places like Freecycle, Craigslist, or Nextdoor often allow you to connect with neighbors who are moving and need boxes. When efforts at reuse are exhausted, here is what to do with what remains: • Cardboard shipping boxes should be recycled. Please Turning e-waste into art flatten the box before recy- cling. Captain Charles Moore answers students’ questions at a youth summit. • Receipts you don’t wish to save can for recycling at grocery or department (Photos courtesy of Algalita) only be recycled if they are printed on stores that offer recycling bins. To find regular paper. If the paper is coated a film drop-off recycling location near or shiny, it is thermal paper and not you, go to Plasticfilmrecycling.org. recyclable. Receipts printed on large Check out this same website to see all stickers are also not accepted. Shred of the types of plastic bags and films Plastic Ocean any receipts containing credit card they accept. numbers or personal information. • Packing peanuts are typically made of • Deflated plastic packing pillows, bub- expanded polystyrene foam and are not A sea captain’s chance discovery launches a ble wrap, and plastic mailing envelopes accepted for recycling. These are often can be recycled in the same way you accepted at your local package shipping determined quest to save the oceans would recycle plastic bags and other store for reuse. Call ahead to make sure “It was and is a thin plastic soup, a soup replacement to serve the illumination and plastic film. Collect the bags and film they are currently accepting the items lightly seasoned with plastic flakes, bulked lubrication needs of the 19th century. Some in your house and then drop them off you have. out here and there with ‘dumplings’: buoys, of these by-products made natural rubber net clumps, floats, crates, and other ‘macro more elastic and useful. Later, entirely debris,’” writes Capt. Charles Moore. He synthetic products were produced from oil. was recalling the first time he noticed what By the early 1920s, 8.8 million pounds per is now called The Great Pacific Garbage year of Bakelite, an early plastic, found its QUOTES Patch. The patch is located in an itinerant way into electrical insulators, automobiles, area of the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii home appliances, pens, and jewelry. REQUOTED and California known as a gyre and char- But, according to Moore, “This story acterized by high atmospheric has never been only about pressure, with little or no wind plastics. It’s about an epic and calm seas. He concludes, shift from austerity and “Other people had seen what frugality to abundance and I saw, but I hadn’t a clue of profligacy.” He documents the this. Looking and seeing are “Invention of Throw-Away two different things, just as Living,” a process that started thinking something’s wrong during the Second World is a ways away from trying to War and accelerated through make a wrong right.” the 1950s and ‘60s. Plastic After first noticing this products were cheap, durable, Credit: SanderStock | iStock | Getty Images Plus debris across a thousand and lightweight, perfect for miles of ocean in 1997, Capt. packaging and disposable “There’s a lot of optimism in changing Moore began plans for a return products. “With disposability trip to quantify the extent comes litter,” says Moore, scenery, in seeing what’s down the road.” of the problem. In 1999, he “litter being errant eyesore assembled a scientific team garbage.” ~ Conor Oberst that randomly sampled 3-foot Moore was not the first wide strips of the ocean’s to study marine debris and surface and found that micro-plastic bits its effects on wildlife. He reviews findings outweighed plankton by a ratio of six to from the 1960s documenting that marine one. This showed the potential for plastic mammals, turtles, and many seabird species ingestion begins at the very lowest rungs are frequent victims of entanglement and/or Weighing our options of the food chain. In Plastic Ocean: How a ingestion of plastic. While these events are Sea Captain’s Chance Discovery Launched tragic and provide the kind of photographic In Plastic Ocean, Moore and Phillips propose that we evaluate and label products based a Determined Quest to Save the Oceans, images that can stir public opinion into on these six criteria: Moore and his co-author, Cassandra action, Moore connects the dots that show • Closed loop recyclability: How easy is it to recycle this product? Phillips, combine two narratives. The potential danger to our food supply. He cites • Extended replacement time: How long will this product last? first story is that of plastic in our modern evidence that plastics can act as sponges, • Reduced maintenance time: Is the product maintenance-free? economy, including how it evolved and soaking up toxins.