Ambler EAC members Estelle Wynn Dolan and Susan Curry outside the Republic Services, King of Prussia Recyclery.
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All of Ambler must really love filling up those big, blue 65-gallon
roll-offs with paper, plastic, glass and metal. Ambler’s recycling
has increased 60% in the time since borough residents began using the
single-stream bins.
Recently Borough Manager Mary Aversa, Mayor Bud Wahl, Councilwoman
Fran Tomlinson, Planning Commissioner Josh Kanaplue and three members
of Ambler’s Environmental Advisory Council toured the recycling
processing center in King of Prussia where curb-side recycled
materials are taken. The center takes everything that is put in the
bins, but everyone should be aware that some of it fouls up the
machinery. Some of the material would be better recycled elsewhere,
or even put in the trash.
Below is a list of items that the recycling center cannot use. This
material is ultimately sorted out and ends up being treated as
garbage. Worse than trashing some items, however, is when those items
end up jamming the sorting machinery, which causes the entire
automated sorting system to shut down at some point each day!
• Plastic Bags, such as grocery bags, garbage bags, plastic
packaging: The flimsy plastic that is used to make plastic bags
routinely gets caught in the gears of the recycling center’s sorting
machines and jams them. The bags cannot be included in Ambler’s
single-stream recycling, so residents should figure out another way
to reuse them. Many stores recycle plastic bags by having a bin near
their entrance. Otherwise, reuse plastic bags as trash bags. There is
one exception: a sturdy, clear plastic bag is the best thing for
containing shredded paper as the employees who are hand-sorting the
recycling can see there is shredded paper inside, grab the bag and
pull it off the conveyor belts to get it to the proper location in
the sorting warehouse.
• Plastic Bottle Tops, such as are found on soda bottles, orange
juice and milk containers, and some jar lids: These small plastic
pieces are two tiny to get processed properly. They fall through the
automated system and end up as trash. To save everyone time and
effort, just toss these lids in the trash same as before.
Definitely, remove the tops since they are a different plastic than
the containers.
• Scrap Metal, such as car parts, fans, house pipes, and any other
metal that isn’t steel (magnetic) or aluminum. All of these items can
be recycled directly at a scrap metal yard, but not through Ambler’s
single-stream recycling program. Best of all, your taking these metal
items to a scrap metal yard might yield you some extra cash! There
are many small companies that will pick-up your scrap metal for free
for this reason.
• Styrofoam, such as cups, packaging, boogie boards, etc.: In the
recycling processing center, what happens is the Styrofoam
disintegrates in the machinery, and poof -- those little white fluffy
balls are all over the place and in the air. All things made of
Styrofoam also are better disposed of in the trash.
• Food Waste on recyclable materials, such as un-rinsed jars or
cardboard [pizza boxes with grease or cheese stuck on the cardboard]:
Food waste is compostable, not recyclable. It cannot be processed at
the recycling facility and should be put in the trash or, better yet,
in a backyard compost bin. Greasy pizza boxes, unfortunately, belong
in the trash, not the recycling bin.
Some other items that should not be put in the recycling bins: wood,
concrete, rope, film, video tape, or cassette tape, bubble wrap,
kiddy swimming pools, CD disks, telephone cords, strings of Christmas
lights, tires, asphalt, construction materials and house
deconstruction debris, 3-ring binders, any multiple element product,
such as an ink pen.
Answering the eternal question of “paper or plastic” when making
purchases - as mentioned above, the recycling center is able to
recycle paper bags, but not plastic bags.
Lastly, if you collect your recycling items inside the house in a
plastic bag to carry them to the outside bin, it is better to dump
whatever you have collected directly into the blue recycling bin, so
that your recycled materials are loose, and then toss the wet plastic
carrier bags into the trash container. |
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