From Shey Roth: Can it recycle in Sonoma County? Plastic bags- Yes, but ONLY if they are clean and dry. If you take them to any grocery store and put them in the specified bin, their recycle rate goes way up. The plastic bag ban starts tomorrow BTW, so BYOB and please do not argue with the cashier or blame politicians and complain about the inconvenience needed to drastically reduce the 250 MILLION PLASTIC BAGS going into the Sonoma County waste stream every year. Thank you. Crinkly plastic- NO. If plastic is stretchy it can recycle, so do the stretch test. If it breaks apart like a chip bag, it is just trash. Napkins- NO!!! Please help tell the 99% of people who seem to think otherwise. Their fibers are too thin and have been processed to many times to add value to recycling. In addition to that, most of them are freakin nasty. Disposable gloves- No, never. They are scary. Empty plastic/glass/aluminum drink containers- yes, of course. Full coffee cup- No no no! Are you kidding me? For crying out loud, dump the leftover coffee into a sink! Or better yet, only fill your cup half way if you only drink a half a cup every day. Sadly, the cup is most likely a mix of paper and plastic so it goes in the trash. The lid is recyclable though. Better yet, BYOC. Full drink containers- use common sense, empty out containers before putting them into the recycling. You actually might be ruining other potentially recyclable items when you dump liquid into the blue bin. Aluminum cans- YES!! Valuable metals are so crucial to save yet I see so many people just chuck theirs in the trash if that is the only bin nearby. Just empty out the can before you put it in the recycling, or its contents could spill on other potentially recyclable things and ruin them. You guys, we need to be able to walk 10 freakin feet to the right bin to conserve resources, it is literally the least we can do. Thank you. Basically a recycling bin should not even need a plastic liner, because no weird dirty grimey liquidy things should be going in there. The plastic liner just gets ripped up and thrown in the trash at the facility anyway, so it is best to just dump recyclables loose into that blue cart outside. If any of this seems incorrect please let me know and lets have a discussion, this is my understanding of some of the basics of how this highly confusing system works.
Posted on: Sun, 31 Aug 2014 18:01:59 +0000