Recycling - clarity in the big picture

I have the answers to my questions! It turns out that if someone is willing to take the time and explain it, almost all of it makes sense.

First a little background. Here in Dallas we have a contractor "the processor" who handles all our recycling. They have a seven year contract. That means they are stuck with whatever we put in our bins and stuck with however the city oversees them.

Given that, we do have restrictions on what goes into our bins. The city publishes a list that I copied into my previous post. But more importantly, we have do be diligent about a few unstated or unclear things for our "processor".

First is no plastic bags, none, zero. The processor already has problems because they gum up the machines and create downtime. That means we need to strip the bag off of newspapers, out of cereal boxes, off of door hangers, etc. (The blue bags are of course, okay.)

Second is that they want clean recycling. If it can't be cleaned, or you don't want to clean it, it's trash. It's important because single stream recycling allows everything to be transported together and cross contamination is the issue. If your plastic bottle of motor oil isn't clean it will leak on paper and make it unusable. They would prefer you threw away a mayo jar rather than send it all greasy and dirty. So you have to judge whether using that much water for cleaning is better than throwing it away. (I tried to make the point that the processor cleaning it with recycled water might be better than us cleaning them, but no go, we still have cross contamination).

Third, our recycling program is targeted at household waste. So containers that are found in your house are fine as long as they are clean. Containers found in your garage or garden shed are not. You don't want to try and rinse out pesticide bottles, paint cans, etc. They are bad for the water system and bad for you to be messing with. These items are recycled or disposed of in a different manner.

Bottom Line #1 - Our recycling processor is a business partner with our city. The better we make it for them the better it is for our program. The better our program does the better we can add items to the list (plastic bags and Styrofoam), and expand it's reach in our city.

Now some more details:

Plastic - Containers only! It's not written clearly but that's what they mean. Everything else that's plastic is a no. Remember, household products only. They must be clean and you can leave the labels on.

Glass - Again they mean containers, clean containers. Labels are fine. Anything else that is glass is a no.

Metal - Again, household containers. They don't want any other metal. Clean only, labels are fine.

Paper - Shiny, dull, printed or not. Clean paper only, no food or other contamination.

Cardboard - Clean only, (no pizza boxes) and any that is foil coated for freshness or wax coated to hold liquid is a no. No juice boxes, milk cartons etc. Printed cardboard is fine. Remember, you have to take out any bags inside the boxes (cereal).

Bottom Line #2 - Giving me a long lists of do's and don'ts was hard to remember. Now that I know what we are really doing and why, it's easy. Household containers, non coated paper and cardboard...all clean, anything else is garbage.

We are working on recycling plastic bags and Styrofoam just like everyone else in the US. It just requires another step (or two) by our contractor to pre-sort etc. Your batteries, electronics, paint etc are all best held for the quarterly city drop offs.

One recycling issue that has yet to be addressed is paper money recycling. But I am an official drop off location...