Hillsborough County wants to reduce recycling contamination.
That effort begins with educating the public through an online survey and various focus groups scheduled throughout October and November.
A focus group is meeting on Nov. 5 from 10:30 a.m. to noon at the Northdale Recreation Center, 15550 Spring Pine Drive in Tampa.
(Photos courtesy of Hillsborough County)
Information gathered through the survey and focus groups will be used to design behavior-based education and outreach messaging to reduce recycling contamination, which occurs when non-recyclable items or heavily soiled items are mixed with clean recyclable items during collection.
“We’re basically just trying to get feedback from the public with the ultimate goal of using that information to deliver information to them in a way that’s going to be more impactful for them, and hopefully increase (recycling) participation,” said Travis Barnes, recycling coordinator for the Hillsborough County Solid Waste Management Division. “We’re…trying to hone in on a baseline of what the public’s understanding of our program is right now: What are their existing habits? How are they disposing of things?”
The county’s recycling contamination rate is about 19 percent, Barnes said. The national average is reportedly about 16 percent.
“For every 100 tons we bring in, about 19 of those tons end up having to go back to our waste energy facility to be incinerated,” Barnes explained. “That could be people throwing in an actual bag of garbage…or it could be things that people presume to be recyclable, but aren’t in our program.”
Barnes noted county residents and businesses often try to recycle items such as construction and demolition debris, yard waste and scrap metals.
“Those things can’t be recovered by our single-stream (recycling) program,” said Barnes. “Those items are problematic because they get into our sorting equipment…and basically end up shutting down the whole line. A couple times a day, we’ve got to physically remove and cut that stuff out of the sorting line. In that whole time, we’re losing productivity and the ability to recycle more tonnage in a given day.”
The county introduced automated curbside single-stream recycling in October 2013. The program has resulted in an 82 percent increase in recycling tons collected. The current average tons per year of recyclables rose to 64,000 in 2016.
Program recyclables should be placed in the blue cart clean, dry and unbagged to ensure proper sorting. Officials say a good rule of thumb is “when in doubt, throw it out.”
Survey links, focus group schedules, and registrations are available at HCFLGov.net/RecyclingSurvey.
For more information on the county’s recycling program, visit HCFLGov.net/Recycling.
Blue Cart recyclables include:
- Clean plastic bottles and containers
- Clean aluminum cans
- Clean glass jars and bottles
- Dry paper, newspaper and junk mail
- Steel and tin metal containers
- Clean milk and juice cartons
- Dry flattened cardboard
- Dry paperboard boxes
Gray cart, for household garbage, can include:
- Food waste
- Windows, mirrors and ceramics
- Clothing, shoes and textiles
- Fake plants
- Soiled paper items
- Cords and wires
- Plastic items that fit in the cart including old grocery bags
- Diapers
- Rope, twine or straps
- Garden or pool hoses
- Yard waste up to 2-cubic yards can be put out for curbside collection
- Small appliances
- Incandescent light bulbs
Published November 2, 2016
