What Can and Cannot be recycled.
FYI for Thurston County residents:
The Fourth of July is quickly approaching and fireworks will soon fill the air. Thurston County Solid Waste would like to remind residents what to do after the smoke settles. Once you clean up the debris from your fireworks display, these materials go in the trash bin only. Please do not place them in the recycling or the organics. While some fireworks packing does indeed contain paper or cardboard, there are many other items attached that make it non-recyclable such as the shiny coatings, plastic bases or tubes, and explosive residuals. These other materials contaminate the recyclables.
Speaking of contamination, we want to remind residents to please follow the recycling rule of “when in doubt, throw it out”. When residents are uncertain about the recyclability of an item, they often place it in the recycling bin “just in case”. Unfortunately this theory adds great expense to the recycling process due to extra sorting and having to dispose of the non-recyclable items.
The only plastics allowed in recycling are diary tubs and the narrow neck bottles and jugs. Plastic bags, deli containers, clamshells, toys, Styrofoam, and of course, diapers are prohibited. Ammunition and hypodermic needles do not belong in the recycling either and pose a danger to staff that work on the sorting lines. Placing incorrect items in your residential recycling may result in your bin being tagged by the hauler or not collected.
There are plenty of resources to help you determine what can and cannot be recycled. Just go to the Thurston County Solid Waste website at http://www.co.thurston.wa.us/wwm/Recycling_and_Disposal/Recycle/Prepare_Materials_Home.htm for the Yes/No list. This information is also on your bin label and comes as a billing insert on the back side of your annual calendar. If you don’t find the answer for a specific item, please call your hauler or Thurston County at 357-2491 and we will be happy to help.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 at 10:38 am and is filed under Uncategorized.
