One of the biggest issues with recycling at WSU is dealing with contamination, said Nathan Kite, WSU waste management transportation supervisor.
“[There’s] trash in the recycling,” he said. “Everything is pretty well-labeled, but contamination is an issue.”
Something to keep in mind is in the event of overly contaminated garbage, which happens quite often, the materials are no longer recyclable, Kite said.
“If we can pull it out, we do. If not, it all becomes garbage,” he said.
The City of Pullman also faces this issue, said Jerrot Dixon, Pullman Disposal Services office manager. PDS often encounters loads of contaminated recycling beyond what they can accept.
“Any load that has [about] 5% or more non-recycled materials is essentially immediately considered to be an entire load of garbage. That is the threshold at which point the amount of labor that would be required to sort out contaminated materials exceeds the value of recyclables that could be sold,” he said. “People who don’t pay as much attention to what they are recycling can basically ruin the efforts of hundreds of other households.”
The issue can be attributed to limited attention paid to signage on trash cans and residents not being informed on what counts as recyclable. For those who are confused on whether something can be counted as recyclable, especially if it may be contaminated with something, it may be better to throw it in the garbage, Kite said.
While things like aluminum cans and plastic bottles are generally recyclable, it should be noted things like Starbucks cups are not, Kite said.
“They say recyclable on them but we can’t recycle them. The plastic ones aren’t plastic that we accept,” he said. “That’s kind of a misconception [because] there’s a lot of things that say recyclable or just have the logo on them. In our stream of recycling and our markets, there’s just some stuff we can’t take.”
This misconception largely applies to plastic bags. Despite how they might be marketed or labeled, plastic bags are not recyclable in Pullman. The same is generally true for glass, as it can contaminate loads when it is crushed in truck compactors, Dixon said.
