NJ Town is Slapping Stickers on Recycling Bins to Facilitate Better Sorting

Sometimes recycling trash or contaminated recyclables can end up trashing all the recyclables.

This is basically the point of a new sticker being circulated in the Cherry Hill Township of New Jersey. “The stickers are part of an education campaign we’ve been doing for a couple of months on clean and proper recycling,” said Erin Gill, chief of staff to the township mayor. “We’re picking the days when the recycling is out and putting stickers on the cans.”

The goal is for “cleaner” recycling bins. When soiled items or garbage are mixed into the recycling bins, it contaminates the recycled goods. For example a dirty pizza box in the paper recyclables is not acceptable. “If a load is considered contaminated, then the entire truck is deemed unacceptable so all materials, solid waste or recycled content is considered trash,” Gill said. Plastic shopping bags, are especially problematic when they are mixed into the recyclables, as they clog processing facilities. While most of these guidelines were always true, now officials are citing tighter constraints from China. Until recently, China was taking in almost all of the recycling from America and most of the world. Now it is rejecting all but the cleanest recyclables.

As per a recent article in NJ.com, the township is part of a recycling co-op led by Camden County. The township pays $5 per ton to process recycling, compared to $64.50 per ton for solid waste, Gill explained. The recycling market has changed in the past decade. It started off bringing in revenue for towns, but now it costs a fee to dispose of it, albeit a lower fee. Now, with increased restrictions, and less recycling the cost of disposals for the township could likely increase in the future. The less a town can recycle, the more it ends up spending throwing them away as trash into landfills.

“What we are seeing now is recycling companies pushing back on municipalities and the county, pushing back to get level of contamination down” Gill said. “We’re trying to do best now minimize.”

The county’s new motto for recycling is: “When in doubt, throw it out.”

“We are working with towns and residents to recognize the new rules as we reengineer what can and cannot be recycled,” said Camden County Freeholder Jon Young. “We can no longer afford for individuals to push the limits of recycling with plastics that will undermine and adulterate a truckload of recycling products.”