Think plastic bags are a hassle? Ask a recycler

Ubiquitous trash downgrades materials and clogs machinery

By Kate Gawf

Pamplin Media Group, Aug 14, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (2 Reader comments)

L.E. BASKOW / PAMPLIN MEDIA GROUP

At a Far West Fibers sorting facility, about a quarter of workers’ time goes toward taking plastic bags out of the sort line and the machinery.

If you routinely assuage your recycling conscience by tossing everything even remotely recyclable into your curbside bins, you might in fact be the source of huge recycling problems — especially if one of the items you toss in is plastic bags.

Just because you toss something into your yellow bins does not mean it will find its way to reincarnation and evade the landfill. Residential curbside recycling goes one way, other kinds of recycling go another.

When recycling is picked up from the curb, it goes to a sorting facility. Far West Fibers has four such facilities in the Portland area, equipped with state-of-the-art sorting and screening machinery that works quite well — except when it’s clogged by plastic bags.

For curbside recycling to work, the public needs to know three rules, says Jeff Murray, Far West Fibers’ vice president of business development. He says Portland-area residents are doing pretty well with the first two.

Rules run from trash to glass

Rule No. 1, Murray says, is don’t put garbage in with your recycling.

It contaminates the recyclables, and some unfortunate human being has to pull out both the garbage and the recyclables, and throw out the whole mess.

Rule No. 2 is, don’t put glass in with other materials. Glass should be completely separated from everything else, and placed on the curb in its own bin. If you run out of bins, you can put glass in a bucket or some other rigid plastic container, which the haulers will leave behind.

You can put all other recyclables directly into the bins, without bagging them. Plastic bottles, tin cans and paper can go together. If you’re worried about paper blowing away, you can put it in a paper bag in the bin.

Rule No. 3 is more problematic: Don’t put plastic bags in with your curbside recycling. This is the one that Oregonians aren’t doing so well with, and it’s causing problems at the sorting facilities. “Plastic bags thrown into the curbside bins are currently our biggest actual challenge,” Murray says.

“Don’t do it,” concurs Metro’s recycling hot line supervisor, Judie Miller. “There are other ways to recycle plastic bags of all kinds, but curbside is not it. Many grocers and recycling depots take them.”

Plastic bags never belong

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