RECYCLING

So, you dutifully sorted through all the old papers, tin cans, bottles, and jars, put everything into separate grocery bags, and threw them into the blue bins out back for recycling. Instead of adding to the garbage you have done your bit for the environment.

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Probably not. More than likely all you did was arrange to have your garbage put into a garbage bin at the recycling center.

Did you carefully read the labels on the blue bins that you put your recyclables into?

Let's start with the one that says `Newspaper Only". We open the lid and see the bag of newspapers that you threw in. So you got that right. Wrong.

The label says `only'. Only means, news type paper. Not the plastic bag. And not the advertisements. Oh, sure, the flyers were in the newspaper when you got it but some of them are on shiny paper, they are not printed on pulp paper. The flyers should be sorted, the shiny ones go in the mixed paper container, the pulpy ones go in the newspaper container, and the plastic bag should go in the garbage.

Now lets look in the mixed paper container. Yup, there's the plastic bag you hauled them out in. And, look, some flyers printed on news paper. So, don't be so picky, you say. Hey, you're the one that wanted to cut down on garbage and help the environment. By not sorting the recyclables according to the labels on the recycle containers you have not helped the environment at all. When your recyclables get to the recycling station they won't get recycled, they will just go in the garbage.

The recycling station will not pay someone by the hour to empty your newspapers out of the plastic bag or to sort the shiny flyers and throw them into the mixed paper crusher. It is quicker and cheaper to toss them, unsorted, into the garbage bin.

I know you picture the bottles and jars going to a plant that washes them and reuses them but that is not the case. Most recycled glass is sorted by colour, put into a crusher, and melted. The melting process can only handle 10 % of its batch as crushed glass and the rest has to be new ingredients. If you want your glass to be part of that batch it has to be clean.

It sounds strange but cigarette butts, labels, and bottle tops will survive the 2,400 degree F. furnaces that melt the sand. New bottles will come out of the moulds with garbage imbedded in the glass which means the jar has to be rejected and sent to the garbage.

To eliminate this, the glass company sorts for garbage before sorting for colour. If the lid is on, if the label is on, if there is garbage inside, the container will never see the crusher. It is simply sent to the garbage where you would have sent it in the first place.

If you really want to help the environment, if you really want your waste to be recycled, read the labels on the recycle containers and separate accordingly. Clean the inside of containers, lids and plastic labels go in the garbage, paper labels go in the mixed paper container.

Newspaper only. News type paper. No: shiny flyers; plastic bags.

Mixed paper. Virtually any paper or thin cardboard. No: news paper; corrugated cardboard; tissue; coated paper such as milk cartons; plastic bags.

Cardboard only. Corrugated cardboard. No: paper; thin cardboard; plastic bags.

Containers, only. Clean: tin cans; glass; bottles; and jars. No: labels; contents inside; plastic bags.

Also, whenever possible, flatten: small and large boxes; tin cans; plastic jugs. Flattened, they take up less room and you can get more recyclables into one container.

We all want to help the environment but if we don't do it correctly we only waste our time as well as that of others and don't achieve our goals.

Oh, by the way, those plastic bags I said should go in the garbage, you can take them to Safeway, they have a bin for them. The bags actually are recycled. They are melted and the plastic is moulded into poly boards.