Thanks for following recycling guidelines

Friday, February 7, 2003

Guidelines, rules, parameters - call them what you will, your faithful attendance to them is what makes our community's recycling program one of the most successful in the nation. Because of your dedicated efforts, recycled materials processed in Boulder County have a reputation for being among the cleanest this side of the Mississippi . Now that I've gotten you buttered up and ready to follow those guidelines, let me explain some of the "whys" behind some of them.

Why can't you recycle dark colored or bright colored papers? What if white paper has bright inks on it? Does that make it "bright" paper?

In the recycling process, dark colors are to white and light colored paper what a cherry red T-shirt is to your white underwear in the laundry. Wash them together and you get pink skivvies. The recycled paper manufacturers don't like this effect anymore than you do. Fluorescent papers, dark colors (such as the reds and greens you see during the holidays), and those orange-brown envelopes like those used by the IRS, are all colored with what we call "beater dyes."

To get those dark or bright colors, the fibers must be so thoroughly saturated with dye that it's just not possible to remove all the color in the recycling process. When heavily dyed papers are included with office paper and junk mail, Eco-Cycle needs to pick them out by hand so they don't degrade the value of the material. It's best to avoid buying these papers and choose white or pastel colored paper instead. If you find these papers in your mail (thank you, IRS), either reuse them for crafts or throw them away.

When the print or graphics on a white piece of paper are brightly colored, but the colors were just printed on rather than the fibers themselves being dyed, it's not an issue. These materials are fine for the recycling bin.

Why can't you recycle a broken drinking glass or a ceramic mug with other glass?

Similar to the issues associated with recycling different types of plastics together, drinking glasses, vases, mirrors, ceramic mugs, light bulbs and windows (we call it non-container glass) melt at a different temperature than glass bottles and jars. When non-container glass is mixed in with bottles and jars, they create an inconsistency in the new recycled glass, making the new product useless. These materials raise such a red flag at the glass plant that if there is so much as one ceramic mug spotted in the load, they may refuse the entire batch. We make sure this doesn't happen by pulling any contaminants like these out by hand, but ask recyclers to help us by not tossing them in.

Are metal caps OK? Some of them have plastic or rubber on them, does that make them unrecyclable?

Metal caps = good. Plastic caps (just a reminder) = bad. As long as metal caps are first removed from their glass jars or bottles, we'll take them - even if there's a rubber or plastic lining inside. Just recycle the lids loose in the commingled containers bin, unattached to the glass jar or bottle, or they'll become a serious glass contaminant.

Why do the guidelines tell you not to crush aluminum cans?

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind literally. At the new Boulder County Recycling Center , commingled containers are initially separated through an automatic sort system. First, the containers are all placed on a conveyer belt that goes under a magnet where steel (tin) cans are snatched up. After that, the remaining items move over a "shaker," where the heavy glass shakes to the bottom and the lighter plastic and aluminum containers remain on top. These light materials are then blown off the top by a blast of air which shoots them through a tube to another conveyer.

When cans are crushed, they tend to sink with the glass and then end up on the wrong conveyer belt, increasing our production costs when a sorter has to pick them off by hand and put them on the correct conveyer belt. So we appreciate it if you help keep those cans uncrushed.

So there you have them. A few more guidelines which, if followed, will continue to make Boulder County 's recyclables the award-winning, clean materials they are, and you, the award-winning recyclers you are. (Flattery gets you everywhere, I've heard.)

E-mail your eco-questions to marti@ecocycle.org .