Guest Editorial: ‘Reduce, reuse, recycle’ are the new 3 R’s

Have you noticed that “the three “R’s” have changed?

Do you ever hear anyone say, “Reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmetic” anymore?

But what you do hear and see quite often these days is “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”.

This is an essential part of “going green.” Few people can afford a hybrid car or solar panels for the roof (although this technology is slowly becoming better and more affordable), but everyone can strive to buy less “stuff”, be aware of packaging and choose products with less of it, use plastic bags and containers over and over, and recycle what is recyclable.

And while recycling could be easier in Red Oak if we had curbside, it’s really not all that difficult and thankfully, we have roll-off containers in most of our communities just waiting to be filled with valuable commodities, otherwise known as “recyclable materials.”  

Roughly 50 percent of what we throw away could be recycled. With landfills costing around a whopping million dollars per acre to develop and with the price of raw materials skyrocketing as you read this article, recycling only makes sense.

It’s true, recycling is a bit of a chore—cleaning cans and bottles, tearing down boxes, finding a place to store the materials, sorting them and hauling them to the roll-off containers—sometimes, only to find the containers too full to receive your materials.

And nobody likes to feel obligated to do something—like, “I should recycle because it’s the ‘right’ thing to do, but it just takes too much time!”

Try to see recycling as a “challenge” to see just how little garbage you can send to the landfill. Even if you start small and decide to just recycle paper and cardboard and paper packaging, you’ll be astonished at how much that reduces the amount of garbage you put out on the curb.

And then as you progress to “avid recycler status,” which sometimes has you going through the household garbage to extract what’s recyclable, you’ll be wanting to call your garbage hauler to ask for a discount!

So what exactly is recyclable at the roll-off containers in Red Oak, west of the Fareway grocery store parking lot? And where do these materials go?

There are stickers on most of the three roll-off containers that explain what can go in the different compartments.

The stickers also inform that the containers are for “residential use only.” To clarify confusion, the meaning of the word “residential use,” most commonly means “private household use.”

Because the contract that the City of Red Oak has with Batten Sanitation doesn’t specify that only private households are allowed to use the roll-off containers, the word “residential” must refer to “residents of Red Oak.”

Small businesses and schools and any other entity or person in the City of Red Oak can freely deposit recyclables in the containers. And here are the materials that are accepted:

Paper: All kinds of clean paper, cardboard and paper packaging are accepted in the “paper and cardboard” labeled compartments. Basically, any kind of paper that tears can go here. Office paper—even with some staples; envelopes—even if they have the plastic windows; magazines, newspaper—even the slick inserts; paperback books, cereal and food boxes, soda pop and beer can containers, paper towel and toilet paper rolls, and all types of cardboard—even if there’s some tape on it. If you it in a paper bag and label it. Waxy paper—paper that doesn’t tear when you try to rip it—should NOT go in the containers, but in the garbage if you can’t reuse it.

Tin and Aluminum: Clean tin, steel, and aluminum cans and clean aluminum foil can go in these compartments. Aerosol cans can be recycled here, too.

Plastic: The roll-off containers inform that plastics numbers 1-7 are okay to recycle.

Not all plastic is recyclable. If you can’t find a number (usually embossed somewhere on the plastic—inside a little “recycling” triangle) then that plastic is most likely not recyclable and it probably should be thrown in the garbage.

Try to buy items packaged in recyclable packaging, if you have a choice. Most plastic is made from non-renewable petroleum and the number refers to the combination of materials that went into making the plastic.

We’re lucky in Red Oak that plastics 1-7 are accepted. In some places, only numbers 1 and 2 are taken, since they are the “most valuable” types of plastic and are more easily turned into other products. Plastic is a particularly important material to recycle, as it never fully breaks down in the environment. Millions, maybe billions, of pieces of plastic end up in the ocean.

Do an internet search on “the great garbage patch” or “the Pacific gyre” and it might give you more incentive to recycle plastic.

What about plastic bags?

Plastic bags do not belong in the recycling containers. Try to use plastic bags over and over if you can, even if you have to clean and dry them.

Luckily, there are places to recycle clean plastic bags. Both Hy-Vee and Fareway grocery stores have containers, as you enter the store, to deposit both numbers 2 and 4 plastic bags. Look for the numbers—they will be printed on the bags, in the “recyclable” triangle, just like on plastic containers.

If the bags don’t have a “2” or a “4”, they probably aren’t recyclable and shouldn’t go into the containers that are provided for recycling plastic bags at these stores.

Glass: Glass is made from relatively cheap raw materials. Glass is accepted at the roll-off containers, but it is not necessarily “recycled” here in our area. Most likely, the glass that is collected is crushed and used as cover at the landfill.

Even though this glass may not be recycled and turned into new glass, at least it serves a purpose—instead of just going into the landfill and taking up space.

So where does Batten Sanitation take all this stuff?

Contrary to some rumored belief, these recyclables are not just taken to the landfill.

The roll-off containers are driven to Page County Landfill and Recycling Center located outside of Clarinda.

The charge for Batten Sanitation to deposit the recyclables at the high-tech sorting center is around $10/ton. This is still a “bargain” compared to nearly $60/ton that is charged to dump at the Montgomery County Landfill, and that charge will most likely continue to increase.

This is another reason recycling makes sense: It is less expensive for our garbage haulers to drop off recyclable materials than to drop off garbage at the landfill.

The more we recycle, the more we can help garbage collection costs from rising.

If you don’t feel like you need or want to help save the planet by recycling, maybe the potential cost savings is more compelling. And with the price of goods ever-rising, product costs can be kept down, too, by recycling because goods made with recycled materials usually cost less to produce than goods made from raw materials. So from the “green zealot” to the “penny pincher”, recycling is a good idea.

Are you interested in learning more about and becoming involved in how we handle our waste in Montgomery County?

We are forming a “Landfill Diversion Committee” and would like to hear from you! Please call Jenny Horner at 712-310-1748 or Perry White at 712-621-0606.

Happy Recycling!
By Jennifer Horner