Last year’s pilot study aimed at raising awareness of proper recycling of plastic bags, wraps and films had positive results, according to the city of Vancouver.
The “Recycle Right Beyond Bags” program goal is to keep those materials out of blue recycling carts because they clog the equipment at the regional West Van Materials Recovery Center, resulting in shutdowns while workers cut away the tangled plastic.
Under the program, which launched in September, all 12 Safeway stores in Clark County began accepting clean, dry plastic polyethylene wrappers and bags. The stores send the material to the Trex Company’s manufacturing facility in Nevada to be made into wood-alternative decking and lumber. It takes roughly 2,250 plastic bags to make a standard 16-foot composite lumber board, which also contains sawdust.
During the program’s six-week test study, the amount of plastic bags and wraps customers recycled at Safeway more than doubled from their August levels, according to Rich McConaghy, the city of Vancouver’s environmental resources manager.
The region will continue to work on expanding plastic bag and film collection at other stores, and organizers hope to address commercial plastic film as well, McConaghy said.
In addition to packaging film that encases items such as paper towels, polyethylene plastic is used to make disposable grocery bags, bread bags, dry cleaning bags, plastic envelopes and newspaper bags. Recycling polyethylene into other products consumes less energy than making new products from scratch.
75 percent decrease
The Beyond Bags program meshed with Clark County’s regional “Recycling Done Right” campaign regarding what should and shouldn’t go into blue recycling carts. The Recycling Done Right program showed a 75 percent decrease in plastic bags in the recycling carts of customers who had received informational notices.
The effort has spread to schools. Students at 12 Clark County schools certified in the Green School Program are collecting plastic film for delivery to retail stores this spring as part of the Trex Recycling Challenge, which Clark County is organizing locally.
The Beyond Bags program was a partnership of the city of Vancouver, Clark County, Waste Connections, the American Chemistry Council’s Flexible Film Recycling Group, Safeway and the Trex Company.
