recycle right.
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Grades 5-7
Tutorial 2: Recyclables vs. Contamination
Objective: Post a recycling guide to help your household recycle and check your blue bin for items that don’t belong.
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Hmmm...does this go in the blue, green, or gray bin?
Sometimes the task of sorting a waste item into the correct bin seems so confusing that people end up throwing it carelessly into any bin because...hey, at least I didn’t litter! But when items are placed in the wrong bin, they may end up going into the landfill instead of being recycled. In fact, one mistake in the recycling bin can send an entire load of recyclables to the landfill. Other items, mistakenly placed in the recycle bin might even end up damaging the expensive equipment at a recycling plant. |
We know that over 80% of the materials that products are made of are recyclable, and when waste items are properly sorted, it saves precious resources and keeps landfill space to a minimum. Reducing the amount of landfills is one of the driving forces behind reusing plastics. Recycling also helps retain the value of materials by turning them into new products. For example, a plastic bottle can become a t-shirt or playground equipment; glass can become a new bottle or a kitchen tile; and computer paper can become toilet paper or tissue paper.
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The Contamination Conundrum
New products can only be made from old ones if recycling best practices are followed. When the wrong items, or dirty items, get accidentally or carelessly placed in the recycling bin, they are called contaminants. This is because they can contaminate or spoil the entire load of the recyclable material in the bin. This contaminated load must go to the landfill, taking perfectly acceptable recycling material with it. |
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Contamination is mostly an issue with the blue recycling bin. In order for materials to be recycled, they need to be clean, empty and dry. If your half-full yogurt container spills all over your newspaper in the blue bin, then the paper cannot be recycled. Even water can contaminate your paper recyclables. Soaking wet paper has shorter fibers and is less valuable as a resource. That half-full bottle of water not only wastes water, but it will also contaminate paper in the recycling bin.
Another type of contamination happens when you put non-recyclable items in the blue bin. This is sometimes called “wish-cycling,” where you put things in the blue bin hoping that they find a new life as a recycled product. Because “wish-cycling’’ might lead to complete load rejection, you may actually be causing more harm than good.
Once you have the basics down, it’s easy. It’s time to clear the air on what is recyclable and make it easy to remember. Let’s get started!
Once you have the basics down, it’s easy. It’s time to clear the air on what is recyclable and make it easy to remember. Let’s get started!
The Blue Bin - Recyclable
If you have thin, squishy plastic, like a bread bag or baggie that crinkles in your hand, this type of plastic is handled differently. Film plastics are much more difficult to recycle. The better choice is to try to avoid them. If you can’t avoid soft plastics, you can collect them separately and bring them to a grocery store to recycle or place them into the gray landfill bin. |
Glass, Aluminum, and Tin
Glass, aluminum and tin go into the blue bin but make sure the items are fairly clean. Check that your bottle is empty and give that tomato sauce jar a quick rinse before placing it in the bin. Foil and cans are easy to recycle. Glass is also easy to recycle into new products but glass bottles need to be whole and unbroken. Recycling these materials is important because they can take several hundred years to break down in a landfill. When we recycle, not only are the materials made into something new by using waste as a resource, but we’re also saving space in the landfills. It’s a win-win! Rigid Plastic
Unlike metals and glass, which take a really long time to break down, plastics never fully break down. It’s important to recycle plastic because plastic pollution is one of the top threats to our oceans’ ecosystems. Not all plastics can be recycled, so how can we tell? Is it a rigid plastic food or drink container that makes a “thunk thunk” sound when tapped on a counter or hard surface? Yes? RECYCLE it in the blue bin, but again, make sure it’s clean, empty, and dry to avoid contaminating other recyclables in the bin. After all, you don’t want that leftover salad dressing cup to explode all over the place! Paper and Cardboard It’s important to recycle paper products because, well, who doesn’t want to save a tree? You can recycle many different forms of paper including computer paper, newspaper, junk mail, cereal boxes, egg cartons, soda boxes, and cardboard, just to name a few. Pro tip: break down your cardboard boxes before you recycle them and you’ll save space in your blue bin! Paper contamination isn’t as much of a problem as the other items in the blue bin, but if you’re going to recycle your pizza box, just make sure it’s not greasy. Rip off the top portion of the box that is not soiled. The greasy part of the pizza box goes in the gray landfill bin and the clean top portion can be recycled. |
The Green Bin - Green Waste (That's easy!)
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Do you know what happens to your yard trimmings after the Waste Management truck empties your green bin? In Oceanside, it goes to a huge facility called El Corazon (maybe you’ve played at the soccer fields nearby?) where it is recycled into high quality compost and mulch, and available for free to City residents. When used in your yard, these products will improve your soil, help retain moisture and save water, and add vital nutrients, reducing the need for extra fertilizers and pesticides. This is another example of how the City recycles resources. Not to mention that composting green waste also saves on landfill space.
The types of materials that belong in your green waste bin are … you guessed it, green waste. There are the obvious things like lawn clippings, leaves, weeds, tree branches, and garden trimmings. But did you know that you can also put sawdust and wood (untreated, unpainted) in the green bin too? |
The Gray Bin - Landfill Waste
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Now that you’ve separated your recyclables and green waste, what do you have left? Hopefully, you don’t have very much because after all, over 80% of our materials are recyclable. Anything that doesn’t belong in the blue or green bins needs to go in the gray waste bin. This can include a variety of items, but some of the common ones are food wrappers, foam food take-out containers, broken glass or mirrors, pet waste, floor sweepings, plastic utensils and straws, squishy plastic like bags and packaging, and diapers. Until you have a brown food scraps recycling bin, food scraps and food-soiled paper products will also go in the gray bin. In the meantime, you might think about composting your food scraps in a pile in your yard or learning how to vermicompost on your patio. Vermicomposting is using worms in a container to help breakdown kitchen waste.
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Beyond the Bins
You may have some other items that don’t fit into any of the categories, and there are certain things that do not belong in the gray bin because they need to be disposed of properly.
You may have some other items that don’t fit into any of the categories, and there are certain things that do not belong in the gray bin because they need to be disposed of properly.
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Tutorial Challenge
- Take a peek in your household’s blue recycle bin and see if you can spot any contamination. The list below has things that are commonly put in the blue bin but don’t belong there. If you find any of these items, put them in the gray landfill bin or set them aside for proper disposal. How many items did you find?
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2. Print this guide and place it somewhere your entire family can see.
