Recycle Utah gives an update about plastic, dumpster days and Halloween pumpkins. Melissa Allison has more:
The world of recycling plastic has gotten a little bit more demanding since countries like China will no longer accept materials with more than a pointi-five contamination level.
Recycle Utah Director Carolyn Wawra said she isn’t worried about the increased requirements.
“Already this community is awesome at sorting, and we’re actually going to make it easier for you and I’m going to walk you through it,” Wawra said. “Many of you are familiar with the plastic set. If you go in – on the left-hand side there are plastic bags. And then there is the 3 through 7 mixed plastics. And then on the right-hand side, it used to be number 1’s and 2’s and we’re going to change that to calling it, “drink bottles.” So, like a 2-liter soda bottle, bottled water, bottled soda, its kind of a thicker plastic. That will go in the bag on the right in the back. The bag in the front on the right is just for foggy milk jugs only.”
She said you no longer need to look at the numbers on the plastic – cause now it’s all about whether it’s a drink bottle, milk jug or anything else.
“Hopefully it will make things a little bit easier for you,” Wawra said. “The reason we’re switching this is because there is still a market for number 1’s and number 2’s - the drink bottles and the milk jugs. There’s still a good market for that globally but it needs to be really clean, so we need to make sure that its indeed only drink bottles and milk jugs.”
Your last chance for dumpster days is October 25 through 27 from 9 to 4 p.m. She said its for residential waste only. Businesses need to go to the landfill.
If you missed Hazardous Waste Day she said you can hold on to it until the next one in the spring but recommends you take advantage of the free service at the Summit County Landfill Monday through Saturday, 8 to 5 p.m.
Lastly, Recycle Utah has partnered with Wild Harvest Farms to recycle your pumpkins.
“They are a composting facility run by our friend Phil out in Browns Canyon,” Wawra said. “And he’d love to take our pumpkins in the community and turn them into compost. So, we’ll be recycling pumpkins at Recycling Utah From November 1st through the 7th so, after Halloweens over, bring your pumpkins by. We do take them only during operating hours because we don’t want to leave the bins out for the pests to get in it overnight. So, bring them by when we’re open. And then another note that our summer programs like our bike tires, our planter pots and pallets is over for the season and we’ll start collecting skis and snowboards November 1st.”
I’m Melissa Allison, KPCW News.