Kendall and Taylor Binkley, both age 6, of Shingletown, prepare the family’s recycling for pick up. Submitted photo

Facts are facts, and when it comes to recycling here in Centre County, the numbers don’t lie.

Centre County does recycle and Centre County does do recycling well.

According to Shelly Mato, refuse and recycling program administrator from the Centre Region Council of Governments, so far in 2019, county residents have kept more than 7,400 tons of material out of landfills through recycling efforts. That number, according to Mato, doesn’t take into account heavier items that are brought to the county’s recycling and refuse authority on Transfer Road near the Nittany Mall, such as electronic devices, appliances, wood and tires.

“That’s a whole lot of bottles and cans and paper and boxes,” said Mato.

Each month, she said, the county recycles 17 tons of glass bottles, 65 tons of plastic bottles, 60 tons of metal cans and 480 tons of mixed paper and cardboard.

So where does all this recycling come from?

According to Mato, about 40 percent of all recyclables collected in the county are from residents putting materials in their curbside bins.

“To recycle well, we bag paper and boxboard and clean out the bottles and jars,” said Mato, “and the majority of residents with curbside collection are recycling correctly every week.”

Whereas curbside collection is rather easy, many other county residents have to work hard to recycle by sorting and then transporting their recyclables. Mato said more than 20 percent of the county’s recycling comes from rolloff containers strategically placed in different areas of the county.

The other 35 percent of Centre County’s recyclable materials come from businesses, apartment buildings and public spaces.

“What all that translates into is Centre County residents are making real efforts to recycle,” Mato said.

And the material is, in fact, recycled.

“Here in Centre County, we are fortunate that what we put in the recycling bins does indeed get recycled, so that for each of us, recycling truly means both cost and energy savings,” she said. “Just recycling one cereal box saves enough energy to power your laptop for over an hour. And recycling one ton of paper saves 17 trees, which means together each month we save a small forest — 8,000 trees.”

Of everything recycled, Mato said recycling cans prove to hold the greatest benefits. Recycling aluminum cans saves 95 percent of the energy that is required to make new, metal cans compared to using virgin materials. Recycling tin cans is a little lower, at about 70 percent in energy savings.

“Overall, reusing one can saves enough energy to power your television for two hours, and together (aluminum and tin) we have recycled 510 tons of cans so far this year. That’s a lot of TV,” said Mato. “Our monthly metal can recycling saves enough energy to provide electricity to 112 homes for one year, or to the entire town of Milesburg for a month, or to power all of Park Forest for three days.”

In addition to the participation of county residents in recycling, Mato said local families also contribute by producing less trash than the average American household. She said on average, a household in Centre County produces about 60 percent of what the average family produces nationwide.

“Yet for all that success, we are still producing about four pounds of trash for every household, every day,” Mato said.

Mato offered the following tips to country residents to keep Centre County recycling at the top of its game through the rest of 2019, and beyond.

BE AWARE

Mato said just being aware gives you a one up on recycling duties. She said lists of items that can be recycled in the red bins can be downloaded, printed then posted somewhere visible. She said at her home, the family posts the lists inside of a cabinet door.

“Make recycling easy by having a basket for all recyclables on the counter,” she said, noting to sort the items later and store them in a garage or in a closet. “Collect miscellaneous plastics and then share the chore of taking them to the drop off. Start a ‘bring your drop-off recyclables to work’ campaign and take turns dropping off, or take turns with the neighbors. The trick is to make recycling easy.”

BE AN ADVOCATE

All businesses and institutions in the Centre Region are required to separate recyclables and trash, but some, according to Mato, do not. Some have recyclable containers but aren’t placed in an area for ease of use by the general public.

“So, let’s ask them to,” she said. “Customers have strong voices and we should use them. And, we can use the voice of our wallets as well, noticing which places we patronize recycle and which do not, then rewarding those that do with our business.”

BE ADAPTABLE

Mato said being adaptable comes with thought, and thinking about how to reduce both the recyclables and the non-recyclables in our daily lives gives a better understanding of how and what to do with unwanted and unneeded items.

She said when most people clean out their refrigerators, they go straight to the trash can with old pizza, moldy cheese and yogurts long past the sell date.

“And that four pounds of trash my house produces every day is not just food and containers,” Mato said. “It is clothing and packaging and paper towels and all kinds of stuff.”

She said buying only things we use and then using the things we’ve bought is a good strategy to save on household waste.

“Reuse and repurpose items when we can, buy things produced from recycled materials whenever possible and replace single-use items with use-again items, like cloth napkins for example,” she said. “We can be more careful about what we bring home. It’s better to let the restaurant throw away our half-eaten fettuccini alfredo than take home that Styrofoam container, only to toss it a week later.”

Mato asks all county residents to celebrate their successes in being better stewards of the world.

“Thanks for recycling, Centre County,” she said. “Let’s keep it up.”