Recycling is a great — and easy — way to help improve our planet. It feels good to “Go Green,” knowing that separating stuff from our garbage and throwing it into a bin so it can be used again instead of polluting our environment.

But we must be careful about what we put into those containers. No matter how much we want to prevent toxins from leaching into our soil or contaminating the water table, not all “recyclables” are treated equally, at least not in central Illinois.

“We use the term ‘Wish-cycling,’ ” explains Green For Life Environmental spokesman Eric Shangraw about people putting all kinds of plastics and glass and metal and paper products in their bins in the hope of getting them recycled.

“With wish-cycling, all you’re doing is making more work down the line,” said Paul Jaquet, whose family runs Eagle Enterprises out of Galva. “It creates contamination.”

Recyclable plastics are mainly limited to containers — bottles, bowls and tubs — with the familiar triangular symbol with a number in it. Area recyclers take Nos. 1-5 and 7 — not No. 6, which is polystyrene (Styrofoam cannot be recycled around here).

That means no hangars, or plastic utensils or most of the plastic packaging that is so ubiquitous in this day and age.

“When in doubt, leave it out,” Peoria County Sustainability Coordinator Becca Cottrell said. “Check with your vendor or check our website.”

Indeed, peoriacouny.gov has put together a cool “Recycling Guide” page. Its brochure lists the companies which serve county communities, drop-off locations, and goes much farther than plastics, glass and paper. Cottrell works with communities to coordinate all kinds of drop-offs — electronics, hazardous waste, appliances, medications, metals, yard waste, tires, etc. The “Recycling Guide” lists places that also take these items.

“Our worst thing is plastic bags,” Jaquet said. “We can’t recycle plastic bags of any kind.” That goes for bubble wrap and any other kind of cellophane, like dry cleaning bags (which now, by the way, are mostly made biodegradable).

“We only recycle plastic containers,” Jacquet continued. “When we say containers, that throws out a lot of things. There are over 200 types of plastics made, and we only recycle six. Things don’t reprocess the same. “People have to look at the label.”

GFL’s Shangraw advises people stick to the kitchen and stay out of the basement or garage when picking out plastics to recycle. Glass bottles can be recyclable, but most other glass is not. The more hardened plastic containers like buckets and shovels and rakes will probably not have the proper recycling triangle on them.

“Those things are just not designed to be recycled in our system,” Shangraw said. “Follow what’s on the label.”

Stick to plastic bottles and glass ones, cardboard, newspapers, magazines and plain paper like junk mail. No bath tissue or paper towels or anything wet. Those fibers are too short to be able to be used again. Home bins and drop-off sites most likely will have instructions as to what is recyclable. Not all GFL customers, for example, can recycle glass bottles, which is listed as “sometimes” recyclable on its website.

Take plastic bags to big grocery stores like Hy-Vee, Kroger, Schnucks and Wal-Mart, as well as Goodwill Donation Stores. Cottrell advises checking with other local grocery store, too.

“The biggest area of confusion is plastics. Some people think anything plastic goes in the bin,” said Todd Shumaker of Midwest Fiber Recycling. He has similar advice as to what plastic is recyclable: “Containers bought in the grocery store like tubs or containers and bottles with the neck narrower than the base.”

Nos. 1 and 2 plastics include water and detergent bottles. No. 5 includes yogurt cups and other tub-style food containers.

The way it works now may be limited, but is nonetheless impressive — Midwest Fiber’s website has an excellent video of the process from bin to truck to facility to market. Truckloads of “recyclables” are run through a two- or three-story Material Recovery Facility. Conveyor belts run the material first past workers who pick out obviously unrecyclable items before it heads through various sorting machines with discs and magnets and air guns that separate the plastic, glass, metals and paper. Then each different, i.e. sorted, recyclables are gathered in big bales — truly a marvel of engineering.

The big facilities, like Midwest Fiber and GFL, which now handles most of the disposal in central Illinois after the Canadian company bought Peoria Disposal and AREA in recent months, sell these sorted bales of recyclables to manufacturers.

Shumaker says the Material Recovery Facility at Midwest Fiber’s plant in Normal processes one semi-truck load of recyclables an hour. Midwest does 16 truckloads a day.

Smaller companies, like Eagle Enterprises, which takes 600 tons of stuff to market every month, do not have the sorting capabilities like GFL or Midwest Fiber. The smaller entities rely more on consumers to do the separating to get the best market price from the bigger enterprises.

“We want a good, clean product to sell,” said Jaquet, who notes the cleaner his 1,200-1,500-pound bale are, the better the price, which is best for his business. “We have to sort out the nonmarketable (garbage). If we can’t market it, we can’t recycle it.”

Speaking of clean, it helps both the big and small companies. So rinse out your bottles and wash off the food containers. Break down your boxes.

“We don’t want food (no pizza boxes!),” GFL’s Shangraw said. “Organic material spoils and gums up the works.”
Cottrell’s county “Recycling Guide” advises that “recycling creates jobs, reduces pollution, extends the life of landfills, saves natural resources and energy and stimulates the economy.”

But there’s some work to do on the consumer end so the professionals can put together their product. Less sorting leads to more recycling. Contamination increases the cost and can actually create more waste, which defeats the whole purpose, right?

“Follow what’s on the label,” says Shangraw. “Break down cardboard and rinse off plastic.”

Reduce, Reuse and Recyle:

Recycling isn’t the only thing we should be doing to help limit our waste to protect our planet.

In fact, recycling is last on the list of the three R’s — Reduce, Reuse, Recycle — of waste management, according to Peoria County Sustainability Coordinator Becca Cottrell. “Reduction is most important: Buying things that are not only recyclable but are made of — and packaged in — recycled materials. Reuse everything, and then, of course, recycle.”

The Recycling Guide on the Peoria County website advises to reuse as much as you can by taking your old stuff to places like Goodwill, the Salvation Army, Southside Mission, Habitat for Humanity and Excel Recycled Office Furniture and Peoria and Whiskey City architectural salvage.

Cottrell recommends doing a “Waste Audit.” She recently held one at the Health Department — that’s where her office is located. “After you reuse and recycle, what is left over?” she advises. “What are you throwing away over 24 hours?

“It was eye-opening for them to realize what was being thrown away. It all comes back to reduction.”