Commingled Recycling Should Not Include Boots, Food scraps, or Soiled Diapers

(After running our article about improper trash dumped in the recycling bins in the village, The Mirror has been asked to help the WWRA get the word out about proper recycling etiquette. For the next several weeks we will be running articles approved by the WWRA. These articles originally appeared in The Chelsea Update, and we are proud to be sharing them with you.)

The Western Washtenaw Recycling Authority (WWRA) has had a couple articles in the last weeks addressing the issue of trash in our recycling bins.

It appears, for reasons that are not readily defined, that there are people who think WWRA now accepts anything, and it’s up to us to separate the trash from the recycling.

Nothing could be farther from reality.

For the 20 years that WWRA has been providing recycling, with sources separated by product type, we have never experienced the level of trash in our bins that we’ve seen in the last two years.

And, this trash problem has grown at an alarming rate for the last 6 months. The cost of trash disposal has also grown at an alarming rate and those costs come back to the residents of the WWRA district.

Please review the following list of what we are now seeing in the bins and explain to me why anyone would think these materials are considered recyclable:

suitcases, shoes, boots, clothing, ice/roller skates, Porcelain toilets and sinks, blankets, towels, rags, wooden entertainment systems, roofing shingles, plywood, light bulbs, bowling balls, hockey sticks, plastic tarps, swimming pools and covers, vehicle oil filters, furnace filters, household glass, auto glass, windows, animal carcasses, spoiled meat, and household scraps, bags of used infant and adult diapers, syringes and sharp needles, contaminated kitty litter, and bags of dog feces

How would you like to be the recycling sorter and come across used diapers or rotten meat when working the sorting line?

The real question is whether your feeling is “I don’t work there and do not care?”

I truly hope this is not what you’re thinking, and that those people with little moral fiber represent a small minority of WWRA area residents.

Your assistance in bringing this issue to a halt or at the very least minimizing it, would be greatly appreciated by everyone at the WWRA facility.

For as little as $1 a month, you can keep Manchester-focused news coverage alive.

by Fritz Swanson

Fritz Swanson has written for The Believer, the Christian Science Monitor, Print Magazine, McSweeney's, Esopus, LSA Magazine, and The Mid-American Review. He serves as a trustee on the Manchester District Library Board. He's the designer and publisher of The Manchester Mirror.

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