Recycling educator talks trash -- a no-no

Don't turn recycling bins into garbage dumps, the Green Team says.
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
CANFIELD -- The Green Team wants the public to be enthusiastic about recycling, but it also wants to be sure people are recycling the right things in the right places and keeping trash out of the recycling bins.
Because some people have been placing inappropriate items, known as contaminants, into recycling bins, Peg Flynn, a Green Team environmental educator, appeared at a recent Canfield Township trustees meeting to clarify what does and does not belong in the bins.
Two cans with liquid paint still in them were found recently in the recycling drop-off bin at the township road department on Messerly Road, Flynn said. "If the liquid would have opened in that container, everything in there would have had to have been thrown out, even the recyclables," she told the trustees.
Grave concerns
"We're excited about recycling in Canfield Township," said Gary Cook, road supervisor. However, he added, "There are some grave concerns because we don't want contamination in our container, and that's what we're having a problem with."
Cook urged the public to keep plastic bags out of the drop-off container. The bags have been jamming in the container's partitions and preventing the container from being dumped properly, he explained.
Newspapers, metal food and beverage cans, glass bottles and jars and certain plastic containers may be placed in curbside recycling bins for pickup or taken to one of 23 recycling drop-off locations in Mahoning County, said Flynn, whose Austintown-based agency is also known as the Recycling Division of Mahoning County.
The only plastic containers the program accepts for recycling are those showing the number 1 or 2 inside the triangles on their bottoms, she said.
Newspaper disposal
If they're bagged, newspapers should be in brown paper bags, not plastic bags, she said. Caps, lids and neck rings should be removed from containers and kept out of the recycling stream, she said.
In addition to the above items, all of the drop-off centers accept corrugated cardboard, which should be flattened to make more space in the container, and many of them accept phone books and magazines.
Household batteries may be recycled at any of the 17 branches of the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County. Plastic bags may be recycled at supermarkets.
Special collection
Each year, the Green team has a special hazardous household waste collection day, during which county residents can recycle oil-based paint, pesticides and automotive fluids and batteries, which aren't accepted at curbside or regular drop-off locations.
Latex paints are no longer accepted for recycling, but should be dried with cat litter or sand and thrown in the regular garbage with the paint can lids removed, Flynn said.