Decatur Recycling Now Accepting Some Pizza Boxes
Decatur Metro | August 18, 2011Beth writes in that she recently spoke with the City of Decatur’s Lena Stevens about Latham Home Sanitation’s recycling guidelines, and “long story short, pizza boxes with minimal food contamination are now acceptable to recycle here in Decatur.” She also notes that the city’s recycling webpage has been updated to reflect the change.
My wife also recently noted that envelopes with plastic windows are also now accepted. (That wasn’t the case before, as I recall.)
I’m trying to get clarification regarding milk cartons, since they aren’t on the city’s lift, but the PDF flyer on the website clearly shows a picture of an OJ and milk container under “paper”, even though they aren’t listed.
Latest from Decaturish
Good news! I’ll be really excited if they take wax-coated cartons, though. We consume so much OJ that the cartons are a major component of what ends up in the PAYT bags.
Last year I heard a story about municipal recycling on NPR. The city service manager they were interviewing talked about how he’d rather have people trying to recycle things that weren’t recyclable that they would sort out, than having recyclable items put in the trash.
His logic was the city makes money on recyclables. It spends money on trash.
Not saying this applies to Decatur. Not saying everyone should do this. But since hearing that report, I’ve always erred on the side of when in doubt, recycle it.
COD pays the recycling company; we do not get money from recycling. It is an economic benefit in that we don’t have to pay landfill fees for what isn’t put into the landfill.
Steve – my understanding is that that is not exactly true. A recycling company can resell some of their collections so as COD collects more the company charges us less.
I understand that Decatur does in fact make a nice profit from our recycling program.
Stroller-mom- I don’t think it’s always preferable to put things in recycling that are questionable and let them “sort it out.”. I used to run a recycling center for a large Sweedish furniture retailer that stoves to recycle 90% of their waste. The companies we dealt with would only tolerate so much “contamination” (ranged from 10-20% by company) before considering the whole load contaminated and tossing the whole thing. Hence the reason I was known to climb in the roll off container to pull out a sofa that had been tossed in the metal bin.
Sorry. I meant Stroller_motor & stoves=strove. Autocorrected.
Two things:
1. Our family bought a Jack Lalanne juicer and have turned crushing fruits into a fun family activity, increased our 100% juice intake and cut way down our waste.
2. The pay-as-you throw/recycling program makes so much sense. Why is this not the model for all municipalities? In DeKalb they charge users for bags to place recycling, but you can throw away as much as you want (and they come get it twice a week). That incentivizes throwing things in the landfill and de-incentivizes recycling. But as Stroller says, they can actually sell some of the recycling and have to pay to take all things to the landfill. Makes no sense to encourage trash and not recycling – not for the good of the community nor for the community’s pocketbook.
I meant to add this to the entry from a few weeks ago, so I am glad I have an opportunity to post it here now. The following is my e-mail to Latham Home Sanation and the reply from Bear Keeling with Latham…
I live in the city of Decatur and I am wondering if you can clarify if the following are recyclable…
Cardboard milk and orange juice containers (the kind with the plastic pulls that are removed to open them)
Pizza boxes
(I sometimes rip the oily part of the pizza box and throw that away and recycle the part that has no pizza residue.)
Shredded paper ( I shred old credit card receipts and other paper)
Thanks
Bear Keeling’s reply…
It sounds like what you doing is perfect. The pizza boxes with torn out contamination, shredded paper, and the milk cartons are all fine to recycle. Thanks for checking. If you have any more questions feel free to call me at 404-319-3131.
Bear
Thanks, neighbor! Now I can stop throwing away milk cartons.
Cool! Also for added verification: According to the Carton Council (a group of carton manufacturers promoting carton recycling) Decatur *is* one of the muncipalities that accepts plastic-lined beverage cartons for recycling. I had checked their database several months ago and we weren’t. Very glad to learn of this change.
What about a Decatur Recycling 101? I need a training where I can ask questions and the many postings on this blog suggest that others could use instruction as well. E.g. what do those recycling triangles on plastic mean? If one is present, can it be recycled or only certain no.s? What is the definition of cardboard and which kinds can be recycled–shipping boxes I know are a yes but what about cereal boxes? What about styrofoam? Outside of recycling events, where can we recycle batteries? Electronics? Printer cartridges? Clothes/rags/towels too battered to donate to charity? We could bring in samples of items we have questions about.
That’s a great idea Karass!
My husband and I often stand in the kitchen debating between throwing items in the trash or recycling them.
Wow! I always read my ok to recycle list before placing in my bins….I have only had it happen once (that I can recall) that the recycling company removed an item and left it behind. I have been recycling pizza boxes (sans the cheesy parts) all along. My husband even placed an HVAC filter in this past week’s load, right on top and not hidden at all) and I figured if it wasn’t ok, they’d leave it behind as before. They took it! I’m nit saying I’m being lazy and leaving the workers to sort curb side, but I looked at the filter, which appeared to me to be all paper, and I decided to give it a try. Now, if we have a 101, I’d like to know if the rumor I heard is true: that water bottles etc., have to be placed WITHOUT the cap on, or else it won’t be recycled. Sounds nuts to me, but is it true??
Holly, you may leave the bottle tops on. They have new technology that pops them off!
First of all I would like to thank all of you for putting so much thought into best practices for recycling. I am continually impresses by the sustainability efforts of residents, businesses, and government employees in my new hometown. As the City’s Resource Conservation Coordinator I think I can address a few of the questions that have come up in this thread.
Pizza Boxes- They are acceptable as Beth said. Use your judgement, and make sure that they have minimal food contamination. I usually rip off the top if I feel the bottom is too greasy. Big thanks to Beth for bringing the issue to my attention.
Plastic/Wax Coated Paper: These types of cartons CANNOT be recycled at this time. SP Recycling has told me that they are looking into a partnership that may allow them to accept these next year, at which point they will update me on the change. This means that cartons for things like juice or soy milk should be put in the trash.
In regards to the funding model for the the residential recycling pick up, we currently contract with a private hauler and do not receive any direct financial benefits from the processing company. We continually renegotiate the contract to ensure that we are offering high quality service at the lowest possible cost. Recently we were able to reduce the hauling fees due in part to increases in the market prices for recyclables.
We will definitely take the Recycling 101 suggestion into consideration. i think it’s a great idea! If you have any other questions or ideas, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Lena Stevens
Resource Conservation Coordinator
678-553-6577
After I thought I had it all figured out your telling me that we can’t put the juice and milk cartons in recycling. If you scroll read my earlier post above I got an email reply to this exact question from Bear Keeling at Latham Home Sanitation and he said it was okay to recycle these containers. So what gives, isn’t Latham doing the city’s recycling or is SP dictating what can go in the recycle bins? I though SP onld recycles newsprint.
I can certainly understand that frustration, and I apologize for the conflicting messages. Latham Home Sanitation is the hauler for our recyclable items, while SP Recycling is the processor they work with. What we can and cannot put in our bins in Decatur is dictated by the materials the SP is able to process and resell. While Latham works hard to remain updated on the list of acceptable materials, there does appear to have been some mis-communication on this issue. I have contacted SP Recycling directly and they have confirmed that plastic/wax coated cartons are not acceptable at this time. They are working on a strategy that may allow them to accept this material in the future.
Knowing what to recycle can be tricky sometimes, and we very much appreciate your efforts to become educated on these matters. Decatur currently recycles around 20% of it’s municipal solid waste, and composts another 20%. We want to grow those numbers, and continue to divert more and more waste from landfills.
Lena, thank you for the clarification.