“Empty, clean and dry.” That’s the message Republic Services wants to get out to its customers through a national campaign it kicked off this month. The idea is to encourage consumers to change the way they think about recycling. In response to an evolving industry, Republic has experienced the demand for better, quality recycled materials and wants to maximize what can actually be used for new materials. As the largest recycler in Benton County, and the second-largest waste-hauling company in the country, Republic is focusing on educating consumers on how to properly discard and sort materials. “It has to do with why you prepare recycling to ensure it is usable at the processing facilities,” said Julie Jackson, municipal manager at the Corvallis office.

With 14 million customers in 39 states and Puerto Rico, Republic has over 15,000 trucks moving materials to 67 recycling centers across the country. That correlates to 5 million tons of materials processed each year. Last year, Benton County created 7,076 tons of co-mingled materials and an additional 3,000 tons of cardboard. This year, discarded cardboard is expected to continue to increase. “It’s interesting that there’s more cardboard then we were seeing before,” Jackson said. “My theory is that Amazon and Amazon Prime may be contributing to this increase.”

In the past, many stateside recycled materials in poor condition were sent across seas. Because there was a home for low-quality materials, the push for high-quality materials had not been on the industry’s radar. But now countries are changing their recycling regulations to be similar to those in the United States. “It used to be that we as an industry could send not-so-clean materials to Asian markets,” Jackson said. “Anymore that is not the case. The Asian markets, and all markets, are now demanding a cleaner product.”

“When we talk to people about it, it really resonates as to why they are doing it,” Jackson said. “A big piece of it is, I think, for a long time we haven’t been as transparent as an industry as to how recycling really works.”

Once put into recycling bins, if materials are not empty, spilled contents may contaminate others in the same bin. If materials are not clean, for example, and paper is not white, then they may require extra bleaching or chemicals to restore it. If materials are not dry, they may become degraded and unusable. “You have to think about recycling as a commodity like any other that is bought and sold,” Jackson said. “The product that is not so clean and of good quality won’t be sold as much. We have to think about our recycling the same way.”

Republic has found that many consumers don’t know the basic steps they can take to keep their recyclables in a condition that makes them a likely candidate for reuse. The 2017 campaign is designed to help increase awareness.

To read the full story, visit http://www.gazettetimes.com/philomathexpress/local/republic-services-kicks-off-empty-clean-and-dry-recycling-campaign/article_81d0e4f4-91c4-5022-bfa0-0ec744252ded.html.

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