Recycling is a community effort

Editor:

Yes as was highlighted in last week’s Sun, I got my bell rung at the August landfill meeting in Saratoga for not offering my recycling services at the Bullfest and National Night Out event.

In chairman Raymer’s angst over my failure to volunteer some more, the real problem was overlooked. The proper handling of the recyclable trash at all public events rests solely with the event organizers.

The responsibility to recycle all we can from our trash rests, not with an old man and his old truck but with each of us, our businesses, and the leadership of any public events this community puts on. If we generate trash we have the responsibility to remove all recyclable items form this waste stream and to deliver these items to the landfill recycling center in the manner they will be accepted.

Acceptable manner is the key phrase in the previous sentence. The plastic bags from the recycle barrels can’t just be pulled out and dropped off at the recycling center. They have to be prepped for recycling. Therefore they must each be dumped out and sorted into 5 or 6 different piles, with all caps removed and contents emptied. It’s great fun on a hot summer day. It only takes an hour or two if you’re lucky, so put on your rubber gloves and apron and dive in.

For the record, in the 5 years Paperman’s Recycling has been promoting recycling in the Platte Valley, we have never received any government subsidy from the Landfill District or the Town of Saratoga. We also do not profit from the recycled items when they are sold. Any profit from the sale goes to the landfill contractor.

We do offer event recycling for a fee when contacted in advance. This fee might be cash or a couple of free tickets to the paid event or some other creative compensation to recognize my time and effort to keep the cans and bottles of the landfill.

And yes, Randy, I am “waiting for a personal invitation to these events”, and if I decline to participate, as I did this year when asked I if was coming to Bullfest, then it is the event organizers responsibility to get it taken care of so the “beer bottles and cans (don’t get) put in the dumpster” by the event cleanup crew, when they could be delivered to the recycling center.

I am always happy to discuss recycling problems and solutions.

Richard Hodges

Paperman’s

Recycling Service

Saratoga