Solid Waste Services Manager Steve Skinner at Monday’s Board of County Commissioners regular meeting.
A collaborative effort by the Department of Ecology and Lewis County’s Solid Waste Services to reduce contamination in collected recycling products — intended to reduce the cost of sorting and separating recyclables — was unanimously approved by the Board of County Commissioners at Monday’s regular meeting.
The grant agreement between the state and county entities will consist of a total of $80,000 in funding — with $60,000 being provided by Ecology and with the county paying the balance — that will be used to hire an individual that will attend public events, such as local farmers markets, to help people identify what’s recyclable and what isn’t, according to Solid Waste Manager Steve Skinner.
“It will inform and educate and how not to contaminate,” he said.
Lewis County is currently paying $180 per ton to sort through household recyclables that are picked up curbside. Many people bagging their recyclable waste are reportedly commingling it with “other types of garbage” that has to be separated from each collection.
All of the recyclables emanating from Lewis County, said Skinner, is eventually transported to a sorting facility in Tacoma, where the waste is sorted and later baled by another site before it ends up being shipped to China.
However, Chinese importers, he added, will sometimes reject recyclable hauls coming from the U.S. if they detect that .05 percent of any bale or sample of material is contaminated with non-recyclable items.
It was noted that China is the world’s biggest producer of goods made from recyclables exported by foreign countries.
“If everyone complied with (recycling guidelines),” as per Skinner, “within a year, the (local) recycling market would be clean and then we could start seeing costs diminish.”
In stating an example of how residents often mismanage their recycling disposals, the Solid Waste manager mentioned how some folks are including plastic and wax materials in with their paper waste.
In addition, monies from the $80,000 grant will reportedly go toward educating Lewis County students to become better recyclers through videos, demonstrations and other methods.
The goal is that the youngsters go home and spread their newfound knowledge to their parents and other family members, said Skinner.
Currently, Ecology is also working with other counties in Washington in the interest of entering into partnerships to further educate people on how to properly recycle through their Contamination Reduction and Outreach Plan (CROP).
