Plastic Bag Recycling

PLASTIC BAGS ARE NOT ACCEPTED IN RESIDENTIAL CURBSIDE RECYCLING!

Why are plastic bags not accepted? 

Any soft plastic (plastic that you can tear or stretch with your hands) gets tangled in the recycling equipment at the recycling sorting facility. Soft plastic can easily get stuck in gears and as it stretches can jam equipment resulting in an automatic shut down. 

Plastic bags also act more like paper during the sorting process and can easily get sorted into the paper and cardboard streams. This is called contamination and significantly reduces the value of our paper and cardboard streams. This makes is more difficult to find companies to take our paper and cardboard for recycling and can lead to recyclables going to the landfill if they are too contaminated with soft plastic. 

What type of plastic bags are not accepted?

You cannot put any type of plastic bag in your recycling cart. Do not put grocery sacks, trash bags, newspaper bags, or biodegradable plastic bags in your recycling. Also do not put any type of soft plastic in your recycling cart. This includes ziplocs, saran wrap, bubble wrap and other plastic packing materials. 

How can I recycle plastic bags?  

You can recycle plastic bags by taking them to Kroger, Wal-Mart, and Target. Each of these stores has a large cardboard or plastic bin located inside of the entrances just for plastic bags. The Green Station is also accepting plastic bags now.

Plastic bags can be recycled into more plastic bags or into composite lumber. Composite lumber is the plastic feeling wood that you can find in decks, benches, picnic tables, and much more! 

What about shredded paper? 

If you are trying to recycle shredded paper it must be in a sealed paper bag, marked "paper shred" or otherwise indicating the shredded paper. You can tape or staple the paper bag shut.