Challenge at the Curbside

Recycle Right, Ewing Township!

Mayor Bert Steinmann encourages Ewing Township residents to “recycle right” to keep New Jersey’s recycling stream free of non-recyclables. 

In January 2018, China stopped accepting recyclable materials from the United States and countries around the globe except for a very small percentage.  It closed its doors to many types of recycling materials and is requiring that the materials be 99.5% free from contamination.  According to the staff at the Mercer County Improvement Authority (MCIA), the contamination rate for recycling collected from Mercer County communities is 11.4%.  This means that we have significant work to do to make our recycling acceptable for the market.

What is recycling contamination? 

It is anything that ends up in your recycling can that doesn’t belong there.  Typical contaminants include plastic bags, bags of recyclables, pizza boxes, car parts, Styrofoam cups, food waste or other trash, and even things like garden hoses, bowling balls, old clothes, paint cans and more.   You’d be surprised at the things that we see at the curb.

These contaminants jam up processing equipment at recycling centers and create serious quality control and staff safety issues.  This not only drives up the costs but may also result in greater number of loads of contaminated recycling ending up in our landfills.  

Be a part of the solution

How can you be a part of the solution?  Simply put, we all need to do a better job of recycling or face higher taxes as a direct result of skyrocketing recycling costs; more landfills to bury contaminated recycling; and greater risks for our wildlife, waterways, oceans and the quality of life in our community and on our planet.

Confused about what goes where and when?

We believe that recycling contamination is due in a large part to confusion over what goes where.  Different communities have different recycling guidelines, due to resources that they have been able to corral to accept their recyclables.  In Ewing, the Mercer County Improvement Authority manages residential curbside recycling as well as household hazardous waste and e-waste disposal.  This means we need to adhere to the MCIA recycling guidelines. These are available at http://mcianj.org/content/119/306/default.aspx. 

Follow these simple recycling rules to ensure that the jumbled mass of recyclable items in your curbside can will have a useful second life.  This will save you taxpayer dollars and help you do your part toward saving the planet. 

• No plastic bags (ever)!!!
• Recycle all glass bottles, cans and paper
• Recycle cardboard, flattening it into manageable bundles
• Never recycle containers with food still in them
• Recycle plastics with the numbers 1 and 2 in the little triangle on the bottom only.

Most people think that it is better to err on the side of “over-recycling” rather than “under-recycling” and that more is better.  They don’t realize that one piece of garbage contaminates the whole load and that the whole batch could end up in a landfill.  We encourage all residents to observe the following rule:

One piece of garbage makes it all garbage; so, when in doubt, throw it out!

Still confused?

Over a year ago, the NJ DEP released a new state-wide recycling app, Recycle Coach. The user-friendly app displays both recycling and trash collection information based upon your street address.  It will also let you know if there are any changes or delays in the collection schedule due to holidays or weather.  Much appreciated trash and recycling reminders faithfully appear in your inbox the day before collection, effectively providing an answer to the perennial question of whether recycling is this week, or next.

Recycle Coach also ends recycling confusion with a What Goes Where? Search tool to type in your recycling question and it will tell you how to dispose of it.  For example, if you want to know how to dispose of tires, simply type it into the search box and you will learn that you can bring them to the Ewing Recreation Maintenance Building and that there is a $2 per tire charge.  No rims allowed.

“Recycle Coach is available at no cost to Ewing residents,” says Mayor Steinmann.  “It will take the guesswork out of trash and recycling pickup and help improve our recycling efforts.  As most residents are no doubt aware, recycling contamination is a major factor in China’s refusal to accept US recycling resulting in markets that are drying up for recycling handlers.  We all need to do a better job recycling to help reduce escalating costs.”