R THE TRUTH Recology. ABOUT PLASITC BAGS WASTE ZERO Putting plastic bags in the blue and green recycling carts hurts the recycling effort. This is the story of how a lightweight grocery bag becomes a heavyweight problem at the Yuba-Sutter Transfer Station. For years we have asked residents to put garbage into plastic bags before dumping it in garbage carts. This lesson has been well learned as this practice is second nature to most of us by now. But when it comes to recycling, plastic bags are on the list of BIG offenders in the recycling system, along with garbage Why is this so? THREE SIMPLE THINGS WE CAN ALL DO TO BE BETTER AT THE BIN Empty soda cans and bottles of all liquid Plastic bags are considered "contamination," that is, foreign material that is mixed in with recyclables, reducing the quality of recyclable materials and raising processing costs. Of course, you can recycle your plastic grocery bags PROPERLY by returning them to the store they came from Question: Does this mean that plastic bags are actually desirable recyclables that will somehow make their way back to the store via your local residential recycling cart? They Don't. And now you know the rest of the story. Empty food containers before recycling them When residents place cans, glass, plastics and newspapers in plastic bags they deposit in recycling containers, the recyclables travel to the MRF (Materials Recovery Facility) trapped in those bags. As the bagged recyclables enter the processing line there is no time to remove them from the bags and it's unsafe for our employees to open them The recyclables thus cannot be sorted and end up moving down the line...right into the garbage. A sad story on all counts: the time you spent recycling is lost, material revenue is lost, and disposal costs run higher. Compost all food scraps Better At The Bin is our call to action in response to this growing challenge of too much trash and its impacts on our environment. For more, check BetterattheBin.com 3001 Levee Rd, Marysville, CA 95901 | Mon-Fri: 8AM-4:30PM . (530) 743-6933 Waste Zero. R "y