Recycling is a great way people can take action in their personal lives to limit waste and help the planet advance into a sustainable future. With the introduction of recycling cans around the campus, learning how to recycle is important to learn both on and off campus. Frank Nelson the Humboldt Representative for Recology Humboldt Came to talk about how students can work towards a more sustainable future.
Recology is the biggest waste management company in the Humboldt County area. “Recology performs 70,000 collection services in Humboldt County per month,” Nelson said.
18,000 tons of recycling is brought into their facility from around Humboldt County and other areas but lots of this recycling is contaminated. “It varies from month to month, but it’s roughly 27% or 4,800 tons,” Nelson said.
Most of this trash that is recycled is single-use plastic that has no real commodity value. Or its is food products that break open and spill over paper and cardboard ruining the commodity value of the goods, and trash bags in the recycling. “ [Trash bags] will jam the equipment if it’s full of material. That will not get processed and recycled because we’re not going to rip that bag open, it’s just too dangerous,” Nelson said.
When recycling, first ensure that the items you discard are recyclable. “The best way to do it is to go to our website, print it out, and put it on your recycling can and when something [special] comes up you can go to www.whatbin.com and put the description in and it will tell you what bin it can go into,” Nelson said.
Recycling is about respecting the environment and your paycheck “It takes less carbon to make out of recycled materials than raw materials. It also affects your garbage rate, recycling brings down the cost of garbage and wastes itself. Recycling has a lot of potential for growth and engineering,” Nelson said.
Nelson gave his advice for students who wanted to help with recycling and waste management: “Get educated and be an environmental advocate at the places you work, at home, at the places you like to shop, and give feedback that the materials they use are not recyclable in our area and [ask if] there any way they could switch them,” Nelson said.
