You recycled an engine? What were you thinking?
Aluminum cans are recyclable, and they’re made of metal. So this golf club, which is also made of metal, must be recyclable too. Right?
Wrong.
The folks who sort through all of the stuff put into the county’s blue recycling bins classify the golf club and a lot more junk as “wish-cycling” — tossing any and everything into the carts hoping that someone will find some way to keep it out of a landfill. But too often Charleston County’s Material Recovery Facility (MRF), a 2-year-old, state-of-the-art recycling center, gets sent items that not only can’t be recycled, but often cause serious damage to its expensive sorting machinery.
“It’s people thinking, ‘I know this is plastic; I’m pretty sure they can recycle it. I’m crossing my fingers and sticking it in,” said Christina Moskos, the county’s recycling coordinator. “But it causes more problems at the recycling center than if they were just to leave it out. And we see some crazy things. Everything and literally the kitchen sink — we had two stainless steel kitchen sinks come in yesterday.”
Cinder blocks, medieval weapons and car parts make up some of the more off-the-wall contaminants that make their way to the facility. But by and large, Moskos said, the most common and most harmful contaminants are good-old plastic bags.
“We get a lot of good recyclable items, bottles and cans, bagged in plastic bags,” she said. “And unfortunately, for worker safety, we can’t break those open. We don’t know what could be in them. So more often than not, the whole bag has to be landfilled. We do not want to see any plastic bags [in the blue bins].”
Plastic bags, as well as cables, belts and wires — are called “tanglers,” Moskos said. And they’re a huge deal because they literally tangle up in the machinery, leading to plant-wide shutdowns that can last over an hour while employees cut an item free. It happens almost every day, she said.
“If you think about six-pack holders and plastic bags, even cinder blocks, the best case is we shut the plant down to yank that stuff out,” said West Ashley county Councilman Brantley Moody. “The worst case is it gets through and breaks the machine.”
More education needed to help people recycle better
Moody chairs the county’s Environmental Management Committee and has been a big supporter of the MRF’s efforts.
“The biggest challenge we have now is the continued education of people,” he said. “Everybody just assumes because there’s a little triangle on the item that it’s recyclable, but that’s not the case. People just don’t get it, but we’re only as good at recycling as what we get sent by our constituents. So if they’re sending us a bunch of crap, we’re not doing so good.
“You dump 20 contaminated carts into a stack of good recyclables, it can contaminate the whole thing,” Moody added.
The machines in the MRF use artificial-intelligence-driven optical sorting, which automatically matches like-items together to be crushed into bales. A live crew helps to sift out nonrecyclables, but some items slip by. Crushed cans can be mistaken for sheets of paper or pieces of cardboard by the robotic sensors, for example.
What really complicates matters, Moskos said, is that just about everything you can think of can be recycled somehow. But different facilities aren’t equipped to handle the same things in the same ways.
“Recycling programs vary vastly from city to city, state to state,” she explained. “It’s important to educate yourself on what’s accepted here in Charleston County. We have so many new people moving to Charleston County, and what you may have done in your previous recycling program, it could be a whole different process.”
What Charleston County’s facility can recycle
The MRF is able to recycle paper products like magazines, newspapers, office paper, envelopes, junk mail and paper bags; plastic bottles and containers; paperboard and flattened cardboard; aluminum, tin and steel cans; glass bottles and jars; and cartons for milk, juice, stock or even eggs (so long as those containers are empty).
And Charleston County has other recycling programs to handle some other items. Convenience centers are located throughout the Lowcountry for items like batteries, light bulbs, paint, electronics and more.
“They just don’t go in the bin,” Moskos said.”
These convenience centers can be found in the following locations:
• Signal Point, 1723 Signal Point Road, James Island
• Bees Ferry Landfill, 1344 Bees Ferry Road, West Ashley
• Awendaw, 6380 Maxville Road
• Wadmalaw, 1558 Liberia Road
• Hollywood, 5305 Highway 165
• Adams Run, 8776 Old Jacksonboro Road
• Edisto, 2844 Highway 174
• McClellanville, 1775 River Road
How we can be better
A large portion of the MRF’s physical building is dedicated to an interactive education center, complete with visual aids, games and real-life examples to teach kids and adults about the impact of recycling in their community.
“We want as many people to come in here and see this great education center as possible,” Moskos said. “Seeing where the items you toss in your blue cart are going and how they’re being processed is really critical for understanding and buying into the whole process. You’re an important cog in the wheel to Charleston county environmental management.”
Moskos said the program works closely with several school organizations in the Lowcountry, bringing students to the education center or visiting their schools.
“I can’t tell you how many people have come to me saying they need to start recycling because their kids are making them feel bad about it, and we love that,” she said. “We want to come out and speak to people and answer questions because that’s how people learn. I always tell people, ‘I hope you learned something new today and you tell at least three people that, and I hope those three people tell three more people each.’ That’s how information spreads.”
Why recycling correctly matters
And it’s imperative that the information spreads as quickly as possible.
Improperly recycled batteries and propane tanks can cause fires or worse. And the daily shutdowns and constant wear and tear on the machines can and will begin to add up.
“The onus is on Charleston County residents to make this program successful,” Moskos said. “Our success really depends on the type of material Charleston County residents are putting in their recycling carts.
“This can all certainly cause serious damage to the equipment and program, and that’s costly,” she added. “We want to keep those costs as low as possible, of course, and the biggest thing that’s going to lead to that is understanding what you should and should not put into your recycling cart.”
To learn more about how to recycle properly, go to charlestoncounty.gov.
Help keep the City Paper free.
No paywalls.
No subscription cost.
Free delivery at 800 locations.
Help support independent journalism by donating today.