Let’s talk trash, plastic trash.
What senior citizen doesn’t remember the one word of advice delivered to Dustin Hoffman at his graduation party given by his parents in the 1967 movie, The Graduate? “Plastics.”
In almost six decades since then, the petrochemical industry has created an ingenious number of uses for it; so many that each year more than 8 million tons of plastic enter the ocean, according to the World Economic Forum.
It estimates that in 2050, by weight, there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean.
How do we prevent plastics from overwhelming the oceans? Not through recycling. “The majority of plastics cannot be recycled— they never have been and never will be,” according to a 2024 research report by the Center for Climate Integrity (The Fraud of Plastic Recycling).
It reviews the fraudulent attempts by big oil and the plastic manufacturers over the past half century to make you believe in recycling plastics so they can keep turning out single-use plastic products.
The most recent estimate by the U.S. Department of Energy is that we create 48 million tons of plastic trash each year in this country; only 5-6% of it is recycled.
There are thousands of types of plastics, but the only plastics that can actually be recycled are the #1 PET (Polyethylene Terephthalate) plastic water and soda bottles and the #2 HDPE (High-Density Polyethylene), most milk bottles, detergent containers and oil bottles.
Janus Olive, recycling coordinator for DON’T MAKE WASTE BANDERA, answers some questions from recycle customers: So, why go to the trouble of recycling?
· Recycling takes time and effort, but it saves water, energy and valuable landfill space.
What items are accepted at the Bandera County recycling center at this time and what happens to them?
• Aluminum drink cans into more aluminum drink cans.
• Corrugated cardboard into new cardboard, paperboard, and cereal boxes, etc.
• #1 clear plastic drinking bottles (no caps) into new plastic containers, carpet, poly-fil for jacket insulation.
Why do I have to take off caps/lids from plastic bottles?
• If caps are left on bottles, air is trapped and the bottle will remember its shape and expand, possibly causing an entire bale of plastic bottles to break loose! Besides, caps are #2 plastic and should not be mixed with #1 bottles.
What should I do with plastic bags?
• Take home the plastic bags and reuse them or bring your own box and recycle it.
• You can return plastic bags to your local retailers that recycle them (HEB), but with no guarantee they will be recycled.
Why are other plastics--as well as #1 plastic clamshells and #2 plastic milk jugs--not accepted in Bandera?
• There are many different plastics compositions, most of which cannot be recycled at all. To date, there are only markets for PET (#1) and HDPE (#2) plastic bottles and jugs. While some recycling programs may collect #3-#7 plastics, they are either incinerated or sent to landfills.
• Plastic clamshells, while they are #1, sometimes come with food residues that can contaminate in the processing; milk bottles (#2) also must be rinsed.
Why do I need to empty/rinse my plastic bottles and aluminum cans?
• Materials are sometimes stored for months prior to shipment. Bottles & cans that are not properly clean and rinsed can create issues with pests, insects, smell etc.
Is there a fee to recycle?
• Recycling is free to the community, but donations to keep Bandera County recycling are accepted at DMWB.net Recycling in Bandera County is done with a promise that 100% of the items we accept are taken to an end market to be recycled.
In January, 48 bales of cardboard were shipped to a recycling plant in Oklahoma (see photo). In February volunteers recruited by DON’T MAKE WASTE BANDERA began to take over the baling of materials brought in for recycling.
Last week, 49 bales of aluminum cans and #1 plastic bottles were loaded and shipped to the Waste Management Recycling Facility in San Antonio (see photo).
Bandera County works with Keep Texas Recycling, a statewide cooperative to assist rural counties in recycling. KTR finds the highest market price and returns 90% of what was collected to the county for its recycling center. Currently there are over 300 visits per month to the recycling center, situated between Mansfield Park and the Bandera Electric Coop. The hours are 9 am to 3 pm each Saturday. In the fifteen months since it was reopened, more than 37.5 tons of recyclables have been collected.
If you have additional questions or want to volunteer, contact us on our website (DMWB.net) or write Janus at dontmakewastebandera@ gmail.com
