Changes in What's Recyclable
Since 2019, the markets for recycling have changed quite a bit due to a new policy in China (the largest purchaser of recyclables). One of the largest changes to impact us was the removal of paper cartons** from the acceptable list.
However, there is a new change effective immediately. Black plastic containers are not accepted in recycling. Why? The recycling facility sorts plastics by bouncing a beam of light off them. Since black plastic absorbs light, it can't be sorted and will end up in the trash. We had hoped that the retrofit at Casella would allow for these to be captured for recycling, but the market for recycling black plastic is not good. The pigment in the plastic makes it nearly impossible to be recycled into a new product.
While we hope you exclude black plastics in your recycling, it's more critically important to remind friends and neighbors to not recycle the following damaging items:
- Batteries (these can cause fires if compressed at facility!)
- Plastic bags and films (i.e. shipping pillows, bubble wrap, bubble envelopes, etc)
- Tanglers (i.e. cords, e-waste, hangers)
**Paper cartons are containers used to contain liquids (milk, juice, soup, ice cream, etc). Paper cartons are not the same as paperboard (i.e. cereal boxes, cracker boxes) and cardboard; both of those are recyclable.
See here for more info on recycling in Cambridge.
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