Did you know that if you clean and dry your Starbucks cup and lid that they can both be put in the blue recycle bin? I didn’t. I also thought that I could put my clean empty bread loaf bag in the blue recycle bin. Not so!! It jams up the sorting machine which they then have to stop and manually pull out of the mechanism. That’s If it hadn’t been pulled off the conveyor belt by human hands prior to mechanical sorting.
I learned this and a lot more during our ECAM (East Shore’s Earth Climate Action Ministry) organized class at the Republic Services Learning Center in Seattle on January 31st. Republic is the company that picks up all the items that East Shore members and staff put in the gray, blue and green bins for weekly pick up.
Eight of us car-pooled to the Learning Center for a 90 minute, very informative class taught by Kaylie Wallin our Republic Sustainability Ambassador.
We also learned about some new technology that is coming on line. Here’s a link describing the Polymer Center in Las Vegas: https://youtu.be/qPlgCrK8gZs. Interested in future tours of recycling facilities in the Seattle area? Contact me by text at 425-830-1266.
by Mark Norelius, Earth & Climate Action Ministry Team