Once Upon a Greasy Pizza Box: Reduce Recycling Contamination

By Makani Speier-Brito on July 13, 2015

Once Upon a Greasy Pizza Box: Reduce Recycling Contamination

We all chipped in. With three ten dollar bills, we ordered delivery pizza from Woodstock’s pizza. The pizza arrived and we relished in pesto-chicken on whole wheat dough. We took the slices outside and lounged on the porch, watching the cars whoosh by, feeling pretty good with ourselves.

Crumbs and grease smeared on the pizza bottom box. Satiated, I walked to the driveway, box in hand and confronted a blue bin and a brown bin. Do I discard the pizza box in the brown or blue bin? Well, it’s a cardboard box so it must be recyclable. I lifted the blue lid and threw the pizza box inside.

Whoops, I was wrong. I put the greasy pizza box bottom into the blue bin. I probably contaminated an entire truck load of recyclables. Whoa, we were only enjoying pizza. It’s okay, slugs, do not feel guilty about your dumping things into the blue bin. We are learning.

What is contamination?

Contamination happens when garbage gets mixed in with recyclables. Recycling people want clean materials. What does that mean to you? How can you prevent less garbage from being dumped into a landfill?

Wash your plastics. The plastic containers that hold your delicious orange chicken and white rice, rinse clean that sticky orange syrup from the plastic container. Or the plastic containers you eat salads from that you buy from Trader Joe’s. An easy rinse in the sink, and your plastic is clean to discard in the blue bin. The blue bin holds materials to be recycled. The brown bin holds materials to be dumped into a landfill.

Attached to this article is a list of items to place in the blue bin and which items to place in the brown bin. Please print out the list below. Once the list is printed, I recommend placing the list on your fridge. When reaching for their carton of milk in the morning, you and your housemates will have a reference list. They will easily see what to put in the blue curbside recycling bin.

SCMU Review

Santa Cruz Municipal Utility (SCMU) review touched on the topic of contamination in their article, ‘Contamination’ is a Dirty Word. Concise and informative, SCMU review is written and published twice a year and delivered to the homes at Santa Cruz city. Check your mailboxes for the Spring 2015 review. Look for a white newsletter with blue lettering.

E-mail your questions about what to put in the blue bin: scmu@cityofsantacruz.com or visit their website at www.cityofsantacruz.com.

 

 

Blue Bin

Clean, dried, bagged and tied plastic bag bundles

Bottles

Cans

Containers

Clean pizza box tops

Empty toilet paper rolls

Empty tissue boxes

Empty plastic bottles

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

Brown Bin

Food scraps

Food-contaminated items

Greasy pizza box bottom

Tissues and toilet paper

Paper cups

Plates

Napkins

Single plastic bags

Waxed paper

Waxed cardboard

Broken dishes

Ceramics

Chip bags

Paper towels

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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