Tips on how to recycle correctly offered by environment leader

THE IMPORTANCE OF RECYCLING CORRECTLY HIGHLIGHTED BY COUNTY LEADER IN CABLE SHOW

Important tips offered

Westchester County’s First Deputy Commissioner of Environmental Facilities, Louis Vetrone, met with Greenburgh Town Supervisor Paul Feiner and Pace Professor co-host Pauline Mosley for an informative episode of “Solving Problems.”

You can watch the show here on YouTube:

The Environmental Facility manages all the county’s refuse disposal, recycling and sustainability programs. Vetrone, a self-described “recycling nerd” is obviously passionate about the subject and offered much insight on the topic at a time when many citizens might be worried that the items they sort and leave curbside don’t actually go where promised.

Vetrone’s mission is to educate the public that recycling really does make a difference; these items are getting recycled. The effort keeps your taxes down and truly helps the environment.

Municipalities collect garbage on the street-to-street level but then it’s the county that deals with further disposal or distribution of these materials next. They own and operate the Materials Recovery Facility in Yonkers (MRF) where all the districts’ curbside recycling goes. Solid waste goes to a private facility in Peekskill that is a waste-to-energy plant that generates electricity for 34,000 homes–a number that used to be double when households didn’t use as much energy as they do nowadays. The county also runs the Household Materials Recovery Facility in Valhalla (H-MRF), accessible by appointment for residents to easily dispose of almost any item not collected from your curb, from tires to batteries. They will also shred up to four boxes of paper, and there’s never a line.

The main message is: The less regular waste you leave your sanitation crew on general collection days the better. The county pays a dollar amount to dispose of waste by the ton–trash is expensive. Whereas recycling materials actually brings in revenue, as there’s an international market to sell the sorted materials. The cleaner the better. Vetrone advises people to please rinse everything. If you can’t bother getting the peanut butter out of the jar, sadly it’s better to just throw the jar away since the sorters will have to toss it later.

Some interesting statistics:

• Lighter, lower quality plastics (rated 3-7 on their label) win a lower price in the market but they comprise only 2-3% of the recycling stream. Still, 75% of these lesser materials still get sold and recycled. Of the 1-2 type harder plastics that are more desirable, a much higher percentage of these is getting recycled. “We know this,” says Vetrone, “because it sells.”

• Our recycling rate is comparatively high here. We have a 50% rate in the county (57% in Greenburgh) vs. 43% statewide, and much lower nationally.

• We’ve reduced waste by 27% since 2005, despite an uptick in population by 7.6%.

• Stonybrook conducted a study and discovered that despite our high recycling rate, still 20% of what goes in the regular garbage could have been recycled. Once it’s in there there’s no getting it back. So that’s a lost opportunity to capture this “low hanging fruit” through more citizen education and better habit formation.

Food waste programs and textile recycling are priorities for further development. Though Greenburgh currently carts any collected food waste (which can be left at public bins at Town Hall and Veteran’s Park) to a facility in Ulster County, the carbon drain from driving is still outweighed by the benefits of separating out food waste from the regular garbage, says Vetrone. However, the more local the facility, the better, so the county is eager to help municipalities develop more of these for organic matter.

Vetrone encourages everyone to keep recycling and help others get in that mindset, both to reduce living costs and help the planet. He also reminds everyone of the “upon request law” whereby places like takeout restaurants should only be offering you disposable extras like sauces and plastic forks if you ask.

To learn more, or make an appointment for the household facility, call 914-813-5425 or visit environment.westchestergov.com.

Paul Feiner