New Hanover County landfill employees say none of the recyclables that are thrown in a recycling bin in Wilmington or taken to one of the county’s seven recycling drop sites is ever thrown in the landfill. Instead, they are baled and taken to market.
In Wilmington, the city picks up your recycling and takes it to Recycle America, which handles it and takes it to market.
Now, that doesn’t mean recyclable materials don’t end up in the landfill and the WASTEC trash incinerator, said Environmental Management Director John Hubbard.
But that’s because those recyclables were thrown in the regular trash. Hubbard said they have no way of knowing how much of the general trash could have been recycled.
Date posted: July 30, 2010
User-contributed question by:
Carolyn Thomas
Have you ever actually confirmed that all of the recycling truly gets recycled or do you just take their word for it?
I think the column is no longer on our website, but years ago I drove up to the recycling center in Jacksonville where the city was sending its recycables and saw the operation. A group of developmentally disabled adults was working separating the waste as it came down a stream, one grabbing plastics, another grabbing paper, and pushing them into holes that led down pipes to separated containers. So yes, I’ve seen it with my own eyes.