AKRON, Ohio - Akron has a recycling problem - contaminated materials are being put into recycling bins around the city, driving costs up and productivity down.

Contamination is any material that's not on the list of acceptable items, even the wrong type of plastic bottle. Akron's public works department says about 30 percent of what we drop into our blue bins - even if it's rinsed out and dry - is garbage.

Waste Management of Ohio, which runs Akron's Greenstar Recycling Center, calls it "wishful recycling." And it's not just Akron, it's happening around the world. The national average for contamination is about 25 percent, or 500 pounds of garbage per ton of recyclables, Waste Management reports.

"People are throwing whatever they want in those bins," said Kathy Trent, Waste Management's director of government affairs.

One look at a pile of contaminated material pulled from the recycling stream at the Greenstar Center on the Exeter Road reveals it's true - empty propane containers, garden hoses, tires, kids swimming pools and even clothing are thrown in with aluminum cans and cardboard.

And the bane of all recycling centers' existence is plastic bags - the kind stores put your bought goods in. They jam up the machinery and slow processing considerably, said Waste Management's District Manager Eric Palmer.

The Greenstar Center is designed to accept unseparated, curbside, residential materials only. It is the largest single-stream facility (there's no landfill or garbage component) in Waste Management's Michigan, Ohio, Indiana market. It accepts recyclables from Akron, as well as many surrounding municipalities.

"Our job at this facility is to try and pull out as much recoverable and marketable material as we can to help sustain those recycling operations at the local municipalities," he said. "For us to have a product that is marketable we need to have a high quality material coming into the plant, so we can send high quality material out of the plant."

The Greenstar Center has about 190,000 square feet to receive and process more than 10,000 tons per month of recyclable materials. Once they're separated, the recyclables are baled and sent off to paper mills, plastics manufacturers and various buyers of metals who expect to receive clean materials.

The problem is, as more junk comes into the center, facility managers must bring on more expensive, specially designed equipment to sort through the recycling stream to ensure the wrong materials don't get in.

Waste Management recently invested more than $600,000, it paired with a $250,000 Ohio EPA grant, for sorters and other equipment, Palmer said. The center also has added staff, which ramps labor costs, to help separate the materials.

Making matters worse, in January, China - the largest buyer of mixed paper and plastics in the world - stopped accepting recyclable materials from the United States, said Vince Crawford, Waste Management's public sector representative for Northeast Ohio. That's because the amount of contamination coming into China was ramping up the country's pollution levels.

"So now we're doing this great job of extracting this material we want to recycle and we want to send it off. Well, there's nobody buying it," he said. "Some of these materials are being landfilled because there nowhere for them to go."

As a result, recycling centers around the world also are facing stricter quality standards imposed by buyers in the end-markets, he said. Sorted recycled materials - whether they are plastic, glass or paper - can now only have one-half percent of contamination per bale.

And, because there's a glut of recycled material with fewer buyers, the value of recyclable materials has dropped about 40 to 60 percent, Crawford said. In some cases, officials have to pay to get rid of the materials.

The bottom line is municipalities must do a better job of educating residents about what they can recycle. In Akron, materials must be rinsed and dry. Then, they must be placed loosely in the recycle bin without a garbage bag.

Akron accepts:

Plastic bottles and contains, like ,milk jugs and laundry bottles

Food and beverage cartons, such as milk and juice containers

Flattened cardboard, paper board and mixed paper

Food and beverage cans

Akron cannot accept:

Plastic bags

Food

Clothing

Yard waste and construction materials

Foam cups and cartons

Hypodermic needles

To learn more about Akron's recycling program, call 3-1-1 or visit the city's website.

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