09/14/23 The Importance of Clean Recycling

What's the importance of Clean Recycling?

Stability in the recycling market is of upmost importance when it comes to what can or cannot go into your curbside recycling roll cart (the green lid ♻). With that said, we know it can be confusing when this list changes and we want to help explain the WHY behind the change to make sure you as the recycler are educated!

"Clean Recycling" is defined by: high-quality, uncontaminated plastics, metals, or paper. The current accepted materials in your curbside roll cart are:

• Newspaper
• Corrugated Cardboard
• Scrap Paper
• Tin Cans
• Aluminum Cans
• Plastics Jugs #1 & #2

What constitutes as contamination?

• Glass (Pro-tip: It can be recycled at our Recycling Center located at 1726 SE Hwy 101)
• Plastic Film or Bags (Pro-tip: We recommend reusing these in your small trash cans at home or for dog/cat feces pickup patrol, just to name a few ideas)
• Styrofoam
• Food Waste (Pro-tip: This can go in your mixed compost roll cart)
• And anything not listed on the currently recycling list

The reason we have to provide Clean Recycling to our Material Recovery Facility (MRF) is because they have to eliminate any contamination in order to have end market materials (recycled products) that are of high value to the consumers of those new recycled products. At MRFs, they work hard to remove all of the contaminated items from the sorting machines. They not only have high-tech robots to sort and remove the materials, but hard-working sorting positions to hand pick the items the robots miss. If any of NLSS's recycling is contaminated when it reaches the MRF, it then has to take a very long and expensive energy use path to get to the landfill instead of staying at the MRF to be made into a new product.

The Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) mandates that NLSS do what we can to cut down on contamination. This means we need to make sure to educate our customers and not allow continual repeat contamination.

Thank YOU for doing your part to keep the recycling clean! Your impact is bigger than you know and we appreciate your efforts 🙏