This article was edited on February 6, 2018 to fix errors concerning the recycling of caps, lids, and bottle tops.
There’s not much any of us can do every week, all year long, that helps keep Andover’s tax rate down. But there is one thing, and it really helps: Recycle It!
Because Single Stream Recycling (one big compactor for all recyclables) has tripled in cost over the past several years, the Transfer Station has switched to Sorted Recycling to save tax dollars. It’s more complicated for us and for you, but who said saving money is easy?
Here’s how you can help keep your tax bills low:
It Must Be Clean
Keeping rats and mice at bay is a big problem for the major recycling facilities that accept our recyclables, so they insist that we only send them clean stuff.
Glass, metal, plastics: Rinse it thoroughly, then Recycle It.
Paper and cardboard: If it’s wet, oily, greasy, or has food on it, then Trash It.
Glass
If you can only manage to recycle one thing, make it glass. Because it’s so darned heavy, it costs a fortune if it goes in the trash hopper!
Recycle It: Clean glass bottles and jars with their caps and lids removed. Recycle the metal caps and lids separately.
Trash It: Window glass, mirrors, ceramics, cookware, dinnerware. Also trash the plastic caps and lids: they’re too small to stay with the baled plastic bottles, jugs, etc., and having them falling out everywhere is a nuisance and a hazard.
Paper and Paperboard
Probably 40% of the stuff you get rid of every week is paper. So if you can only recycle two things, make them glass and paper.
Recycle It: Clean newspapers, magazines, paperbacks; cereal, pasta, etc. boxes (even with the flimsy plastic window); mail, business papers, and folders; paper egg cartons.
Trash It: Any paper that’s wet, dirty, oily, greasy, waxed, or lined so it can hold liquids; gift wrapping paper; milk and juice cartons; Tyvek or bubble-padded mailing envelopes; vacuum-packed milk, soup, juice, etc. cartons.
Corrugated Cardboard
Recycle It: Clean, empty, dry corrugated boxes, flattened, with the tape and staples removed.
Trash It: Pizza boxes or other food containers that are wet or contaminated with water, grease, oil, or food.
Metal
Recycle It: Clean steel cans, tin cans; metal caps, tops, or lids; pet food cans (whether steel or aluminum); any aluminum that’s not a regular drink can.
Trash It: Any metal that’s dirty, greasy, oily, or contaminated with food.
Aluminum Drink Cans
Recycle It: Clean, empty beverage cans.
If it’s clean aluminum, but it’s not a beverage can, then it gets recycled with the other metals.
Plastics
Ignore the little recycling symbol and number molded into the plastic; at the local level, the rules for recycling plastic are not based on that symbol or that number.
Recycle It: Clean bottles, jars, tubs, and jugs that held food, drink, or laundry products, with their caps and lids removed.
Trash It: Plastic bags, wrap, film, or foam; any plastic that’s black (the automated sorting equipment can’t “see” it); flower pots; buckets and pails; anything that held hazardous products like oil, drain cleaner, etc. Plastic caps and lids also go in the trash: they’re too small to stay with the baled bottles, jugs, etc., and having them falling out everywhere is a nuisance and a hazard.
We have a handy “cheat sheet” you can post near your trash and recycling spot at home so you don’t have to remember all these details. Just ask one of us at the Transfer Station for a copy. And thanks for doing what you can to keep our tax bills low by recycling!