Follow the Four R’s to Recycle Right
Next week is Recycling Week which is a great time for the community to remind themselves of the four R’s.
“It’s four R’s nowadays and the first one is probably the most important, refusing things to start with, not buying things that don’t actually need,” Muswellbrook Shire Council sustainability officer Mick Brady shared.
“So really thinking about what you need or buying good quality stuff that lasts for a long time.”
This is in addition to the more traditional message of reduce, reuse, and recycle, to help cut back on landfill.
Discussing the recycling habits of Muswellbrook Shire residents with Mick and waste depo operator Dylan Harrington there are a few things we are still not getting quite right.
“If you go through the (cardboard) bin, you’ll probably see the plastic and everything in it that you can’t actually have in with it, it does have its own spot to get recycled but people just dump it into one spot,” Dylan explained.
Muswellbrook Waste Facility accepts many items for recycling for free, including paints, oils, gas bottles, batteries, phones and smoke detectors.
There are collection points throughout the community or they can be taken directly to the Coal Road facility to be disposed of.
The Waste Facility staff are always on the lookout for items that have made their way to landfill but are still in good condition to stock the Muswellbrook Reuse Shop.
They don’t take donations, but clean up items that make their way to them to make available for others in the community, playing on the old adage of ‘one mans trash is another mans treasure’.
There are some things that may cause confusion when it comes to recycling.
- Pizza boxes cannot be recycled due to the grease that soaks into the cardboard.
- Foil lined cardboard boxes cannot be recycled as the foil and cardboard can’t be separated.
- Styrofoam boxes can be recycled but they need to be separated from the cardboard box they often come in.
- Soft plastics can be recycled but need to be taken to specific bins that are often found at supermarkets.
- Recycling collected at home should not be put in plastic garbage bags, it is not able to be sorted and ends up in landfill.