Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Learning of recycling
I’m starting to sound like my father and all those old guys. Oh my! How times change.
While a Boy Scout in the Seventies we collected newspapers to pay for our camping trips. Our neighbors would bundle up old newsprint and leave it at the curb on Saturday mornings. Selling old newsprint was very profitable.
This was the first time I’d ever heard of recycling.
Fast forward more than four decades later. I recently attended a virtual candidate forum. The candidates were asked about recycling and talked about the need to better educate.
So, I called Patti Lynn, recycling resources manager for the Chester County Solid Waste Authority, at the Lanchester Landfill, in Narvon.
I heard how to better recycle and what has changed since we collected those old obits and funny pages and sold them for a profit. We talked about how recycling saves energy and renewable and non-renewable resources.
“It’s all behavior,” Lynn said. “Thirty some years ago recycling was a job no one wanted to do.
“Now it’s a habit that people want to keep doing and do correctly.”
Lynn told me that sometimes it is difficult
to see the benefits of recycling. She said that almost everything is valuable. Most of a television can be torn out and recycled and in turn we are saving resources.
Lynn stressed the importance of “avoid, reduce, reuse” and not creating waste in the first place.
She suggested we buy recycled content. Those supermarket plastic bags are used to make decking and that plastic is nearly indestructible — with are no splinters.
Even coffee grounds can be spread out to rid ourselves of critters.
“What do you need?” she said. “Can you afford to buy something that will last a little bit longer?”
During 2020, Lanchester recycled more than 69,000 tons generated by residents. That does not count commercial and institutional entities. That’s stuff that stayed out of the landfill.
Things changed with an increase in e-commerce during the pandemic. We now have more clothes and electronics delivered to our homes and consequently more packing material.
From 2019 to 2020, Styrofoam, or expanded polystyrene, collections were up 50 percent, corrugated cardboard drop-offs increased by 42 percent and plastic film bags jumped in collections by 58 percent at CCSWA’s drop-off recycling facility in Narvon.
But still, we sometimes incorrectly recycle. Toss those take-out pizza boxes with food waste in the trash. And wash out those mayonnaise jars before recycling.
With more people eating at home, learn how to compost, cook better, while wasting less, and rotate stock in the freezer. Don’t leave those plastic film bags in the blue bin at the curb. Every supermarket in the county collects them.
Change the way we think and don’t give ourselves a pass. Although they are recycled, why buy all those water bottles by the case when we can get a reusable cup instead?
Yes, we’re doing the right thing by leaving those bottles at the curb, and doing something good, but Lynn said it’s like we just took a three mile walk and then rewarded ourselves with a double scoop ice cream cone.
The way some manufacturers think has to change. For some medical devices there is no consideration given to the end life of a product and somethings need to be tossed in the garbage.
“It’s more important to recycle the good material than it is to recycle more materials,” Lynn said. “Not everything can go out in your curbside bin.”
Tossing lithium batteries in the trash or blue bin is a huge no-no and batteries should never go in the trash or recycling bins. Those babies can start fires. Instead, they should be recycled at a Household Hazardous Waste Collection sponsored by the county.
And why should ten neighbors all buy individual lawnmowers and weed whackers? Why not chip in and share? Lynn calls this “collaborative consumption.”
We should continue to ask: “Is there something else we can do with this?”
Lynn strives for a zero waste plan and said there needs to be more accountability. She also told me that we are doing a good job recycling.
My Saturday mornings are now free. We do the work at the curb ourselves rather than let the Scouts pick up our old newspapers.
Oh my, how times change! We’re improving.
The solid waste authority is giving monetary grants for its Zero Waste Grant program. For more information, or an email address, go to chestercountyswa.org.