Mixing Wrong Materials With Recycling Can Damage Sorting Equipment

With many people continuing to work from home, recycling companies still see an increase in disposables.

Craig Lutz is the municipal services manager for Republic Services, which collects and processes trash and recycling. He says putting the wrong items in recycling can damage sorting conveyors.

“So, anything in a bottle or anything in a jug would be good and acceptable in the plastic lines," Lutz says. "Cardboard itself is great. The packaging material inside is not acceptable. The plastic pillows, the grocery bags that are plastic, those things actually contaminate and damage the lines.”

Lutz offers some tips to help the recycling process.

“Steel cans, aluminum cans; we ask for a light rinse to keep that food waste material out of the stream," he says. "One of the big misnomers is bagging the recyclables, we ask the materials need to be loose.”

Republic Services has a website, recyclingsimplied.com, with information about responsible recycling and virtual field trips for school children.