A mixed bag for recycling in Washington State
Washingtonians, take a bow.
We've raised our rate of recycling to the highest level in state history 44 percent. That's way above the latest reported national average of 29 percent.
Now the bad news: The Evergreen State's recycling rate still lags behind the 50 percent goal established by the Legislature back during the first Bush administration. Worse, a new assessment by the state Department of Ecology shows that we're producing more waste per person than ever before almost eight pounds per day.
"That's doubly disturbing because we have more people than we've ever had before," said Cullen Stephenson, manager of the state Department of Ecology's solid waste program.
"We're still in the throw-away society," added Pete DuBois, a waste reduction specialist for Clark County. "We haven't made the shift."
In Clark County, where the recycling rate for last year amounted to 37 percent, officials are considering ways to make recycling easier. The county may junk the current three-bin collection system which requires residents to separate newspaper, mixed paper and containers and then lug it all out to the curb in favor of a system in which residents pour all their recyclables into a single roll cart.
Mike Davis, who administers recycling contracts for the county, said there is a major drawback of the single roll cart system.
"Glass is a real problem when it's mixed in with the other recyclables," he said.
That's why the county also is looking into a dual-stream system in which residents would continue to separate breakable or hazardous materials such as glass, oil or antifreeze. Some municipalities have adopted the single-stream system, but waste managers said such systems almost inevitably devalue the recycled material. In paper mills, glass shards can wear down machinery and result in tears within the giant rolls of recycled newsprint.
Pulling the shards out is no simple matter.
Continue reading this article from The Columbian:
One more time for recycling
