By Ingrid Schnader
When you recycle incorrectly, you may be costing your city money.
Current contamination rates for recyclables in the Over the Mountain area are 32% for Vestavia Hills and Homewood and 37% for Mountain Brook and Hoover. This is compared to a 25% industry standard.
Contamination refers to materials that are not recyclable that make their way into the recycling supply.
Not only do high contamination rates make it harder for the people at Birmingham Recycling & Recovery to do their jobs, but it also gets charged back to the city from which the contaminated recyclables came.
In an effort to bring local contamination rates down, these four Over the Mountain cities are coming together for an Intercity Recycling Challenge that kicked off Nov. 1 at Homewood City Hall.
“We all want recycling to remain sustainable and cost-effective,” said Hoover City Councilor Casey Middlebrooks. “And at the rate we’re going now, I’m concerned that may not be the case. So we have to do a better job of clean recycling and producing a better end product for (Birmingham Recycling & Recovery).”
Each month, those involved in the challenge will publish each city’s new contamination rate. They also will post infographics with tips on how to recycle better. After six months, the losing cities will make a donation to a charity of the winning city’s choice.
At the challenge’s kick-off, Homewood Councilor Jennifer Andress said she wanted to start with one simple tip that would immediately affect recycling success rates: don’t put plastic bags in your recycling bin. These are not recyclable, and the entire bag will be thrown away, even if the bag contains items that are recyclable.
Leigh Shaffer of Birmingham Recycling & Recovery set up two tables at the event to demonstrate what can and can’t be recycled using the curbside pickup services in the Birmingham metro area.
Pretty much any kind of paper product can be left in a curbside recycling bin, except for wax-coated paper or paper that has been contaminated with food.
Metal cans that can be recycled locally include steel, tin and aluminum. Shaffer said these cans should be clean and dry.
No. 1 and No. 2 plastics can be recycled. You can look at the bottom of any plastic container to see what number it is. The only exceptions to this rule are clear plastic cups and black plastic containers. These should both be thrown away with trash.
Things that should not be recycled using a Birmingham metro curbside pickup service include milk cartons, pizza boxes that have grease on them, styrofoam, glass and plastic bags.
Shaffer said Publix accepts plastic bags and styrofoam egg cartons and meat trays for recycling.
“Some of the items on this table are the least of our worries,” Shaffer said. “Bags are a serious issue. … Even if you’re bagging your material inside, when you take it outside to your bin, dump it out of the bag. Let it be loose.”
While this intercity recycling challenge is only among Homewood, Hoover, Mountain Brook and Vestavia, Andress said at the event that any other municipality is welcome to join in.
“Our citizens want to do the right thing. They do,” she said. “They just need to know how, and that’s our job.”
