RECYCLING DO's AND DON'TS

How to Recycle/Dispose of Aluminum foil products

Accepted items include:

• All metal food, beverage, and pet food cans.
• Aluminum foil products. (examples: foil wrap, pie plates, and other food trays) Please clean and wipe off foil.
• Tins from cookies, fruit cakes, popcorn, and similar items.

What about the lids?

• attached metal lids
  • If the lid is still attached to the can, tuck the lid inside the can. Then, place the can into your blue bin.
• detached metal lids
  • If possible, put the detached lid into the can, and squeeze the can to trap the lid inside. Then, place the can into your blue bin.
  • Otherwise, place the detached, loose lid into your blue bin along with the can.
• plastic lids
  • We do not accept any plastic lids. Please put these into your trash.

Note regarding aerosol cans

Sorry, we do not accept aerosol cans for recycling. Please dispose of these in your trash.

How to Recycle/Dispose of Glass products

Accepted items include:

All food and beverage jars and bottles made of glass. Please rinse out, and place these in your blue bin for collection.

Sorry, we cannot accept:

• Any other glass or ceramic products
• Window glass
• Mirrors

Even though other types of glass (examples include: drinking glasses, window glasses, heat-resistant ovenware (for example, Pyrex or Visionware), and light bulbs) can look very similar to the glass used in food and beverage containers, their special properties, such as heat-resistance, UV light resistance, or shatter-resistance, cause them to behave differently during processing. The resulting recycled-content glass products could be of lower quality due to bubbles, cracks, or inclusion of the "foreign" pieces. Manufacturing equipment can also be damaged.

How to Recycle/Dispose of Plastic Bottles products

Accepted:

• All clear and colored plastic bottles with necks (regardless of resin number).
• Place these in your blue bin for collection.
• Labels and the little rings around the neck from the lid/cap are ok.

Sorry,

• No other plastics
  • Examples: yogurt containers, margarine tubs, pint-sized baskets for fruit, beverage cups, salad bar containers, flower pots
• No bottles from hazardous products
  • Examples: automotive and garden products

What about the lids?

We do not accept lids/caps from plastic bottles. Please put these lids/caps into the trash.

Why only bottles?

The reason for the neck requirement, and the fact that we accept only bottles, has to do with the molding process for the containers in question.

The "necked" plastic containers are formed through a blow-molding process, for which molten plastic has a viscosity similar to that of honey. The non-neck containers, formed through injection-molding, require a more water-like consistency. Generally, these two categories of plastic containers cannot be mixed together during the recycling process; the resulting "soup" would not be suitable for either molding process.

Want to check how a container was molded? Turn it upside down:

• Blow-molded containers have a raised line across the bottom. That's where the two parts of the mold came together. The exceptions are bottles made of #1 (PET) resin: these have raised dots on the bottom.
• Injected-molded containers have a raised dot on the bottom. That's where the melted resin was inserted (injected) into the mold.

Confused about those resin codes?

Resin codes are the numbers you find on the bottom of plastic containers and bottles. To make recycling easier for residents, we no longer use these codes (numbers 1 through 7) to determine whether a plastic item is acceptable or not. Now, we use the following criterion: if the plastic container has a narrow neck opening (like a bottle), then you may recycle it in our program. If the plastic container is not a bottle, please dispose of it as trash.

Learn more about plastic resin identification codes from the American Plastics Council. [Click on "Plastics 101", and then select "Plastic Recycling Codes."  Go to the following website for more information.

http://www.plasticsresource.com/s_plasticsresource/index.asp

How to Recycle/Dispose of Paper products

All clean paper can be combined and placed in:

• small paper bags
• tied with strong twine in small bundles
• placed in small containers and/or small boxes with lids
• County-issued wheeled carts for paper recycling

Please do not use yard trim bags for your recyclable paper!

Shredded paper is accepted. Just contain it to keep it from blowing around.

Plastic "windows" and staples in paper items are acceptable. You do not need to remove them.

Accepted:

• Newspapers and inserts
• Corrugated cardboard
• Cereal & other boxes
  • note that boxes from refrigerated and frozen foods are often shiny, due to a thin plastic coating. We do not accept these plastic-coated boxes.
• Telephone books
• Computer & office paper
• Tissue paper (example: used to wrap gifts)
• Paperback and hardcover books
• Unwanted mail
• Magazines
• Catalogs
• All other clean and dry paper

Sorry,we cannot accept:

• packing material such as styrofoam or plastic
• waxed paper
• carbon paper
• beverage containers such as milk or juice cartons, and most frozen food packaging
  • These are coated with a thin plastic film, which most paper recycling processes are not set up to handle.
• paper or cardboard contaminated with paint, chemicals, food, or kitty litter.
• foil gift wrap
• paper towels, napkins, or tissues
  • These are paper products, but are frequently contaminated with food or other materials.
• Photographs/photographic paper, because of the coatings used on this type of paper. Please dispose of as trash.

Telephone Books

Telephone books are collected year-round as mixed paper in our curbside recycling program. We no longer offer telephone book drop-off sites. Please remove any plastic bags or shrink wrap before placing your books out for collection with your other mixed paper.