Category Archives: Recycling

New recycling regs in West Chester Borough

Every Chesco municipality has its own recycling rules, which evolve. It would be much easier for consumers if countywide rules applied to everyone! Since China cut off its imports of US recyclables, the market in t\he US has been in a turmoil and costs have risen. Aluminum is actually the only remunerative recyclable product right now, but it is helpful to keep others out of the trash, and grants help defray costs of recycling as opposed to trash.

You can check applicable rules on your municipality’s web site; below are those for West Chester Borough, just updated. Note that plastics #3-7 are off the list, meaning we have to trash the flexible containers that products like salad greens, “buttery” spread and hummus come in. The best solution always is: use the least plastic you can!

Recyclable Items

Recycling in West Chester follows the same schedule as trash collection. The Borough’s recycling program is a single-stream, curbside collection program. This means that the following recyclables may be mixed together in your blue 20-gallon recycling container:

  • Aluminum beverage cans
  • Glass bottles and jars
  • Cardboard
  • Clean aluminum foil and take out containers
  • Empty aerosol cans
  • Mixed paper (i.e. newspaper, junk mail, office paper, etc.)
  • Rigid plastic containers, bottles, & jugs #1-2 
  • Steel food and beverage cans

The following items are NOT accepted in the Borough’s Recycling Program:

  • Any plastics that are not labeled #1-2 (ex: children’s toys)
  • Plastic bags – they cannot be separated from commingled recycling 
  • Polystyrene (i.e. Styrofoam)
  • Pizza boxes contaminated with food/grease. You may removed the top portion of the box if it is not contaminated & place it in your bin. The bottom portion should be placed in your trash can.
  • Waxed cardboard (i.e. frozen food packaging, coffee cups, etc.)
  • Hazardous Materials: Paint, Flourescent bulbs, motor oil bottles, etc.)

Recycling Containers

Recycling containers cost $10 per container and can be purchased at the Public Works Department, 205 Lacey St. There is no limit to the amount of recycling you may put out each week, so we encourage you to purchase extra bins if needed. Remember to print your address on the container in the space provided. Residents may also choose to use their own containers for recycling. Containers must be no larger than 30-gallons in size, be clearly marked for recycling and have drainage holes in the bottom to prevent standing water from collecting.

Helpful Links

Chester County Solid Waste Authority
Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection
Earth 911

Pottstown Is USA’s 1st City To Have Flexible Plastic Recycling

By Justin Heinze, West Chester Patch, Sep 30, 2019

Plastic bags, wraps, packaging, product packaging, and more, a significant part of modern waste, can be recycled in the innovative program
Pottstown Is USA's 1st City To Have Flexible Plastic Recycling

POTTSTOWN, PA — Pottstown has been chosen as the first municipality in all of North America to pilot an innovative recycling program that could drastically reduce waste heading to landfills.

The new program will allow residents to recycle flexible plastic packaging — things like plastic bags, wraps, pouches, product packaging, potato chip bags, and more.

Typically, these types of plastics comprise a significant and growing portion of waste that goes to landfills. Now, they’ll be used to produce a new end recycled product called “rFlex.”

The pilot is possible thanks to a partnership organized by Materials for the Future, an industry-sponsored research collaborative, which searched around the nation for an appropriate partner. …

Read more at West Chester Patch. West Chester voted last month to ban single-use plastic bags and straws effective July 2020, Narberth did so in October 2018, and Philadelphia is considering it.

“Recycling is supposed to be the last resort” – Why our recycling system is broken

The US Recycling System Is Garbage (Sierra Magazine, 6/26/19, by Edward Humes) details the many issues in the US’s current recycling system. Most of what you put in the bin doesn’t actually get recycled, and recycling is now coming as a cost to our economy – and it’s all because China stopped accepting our dirty plastics.

Since about 1992, the US has been selling our plastic waste to Asia, namely China, because it is easier and less costly than processing it here. Then, the plastic would be processed under lax environmental conditions, along with much of it being dumped into rivers.

Prior to this offshoring, the US actually had a fairly healthy recycling system. In the ’70s and ’80s, US consumers would clean their recyclables and separate the materials. After we started shipping away this waste, the system deteriorated, as we no longer had to deal with the problem. Nowadays, consumers will throw anything into the recycling bin – from dirty food containers to old furniture.

In 2018, China finally banned imports of dirty foreign garbage. As part of an effort to reduce pollution, they decided to no longer accept poor-quality recyclables from other countries. As a result, this trash instead starting piling up at US ports. And since we had no machinery or infrastructure to deal with it – it lead to what was called a ‘national recycling crisis’.

However, perhaps looking at it as a crisis is all wrong. Steve Alexander, president of the Association of Plastic Recyclers, urges that ” . . . (this) has given us the opportunity to begin investing in the infrastructure we need in order to do it better.”

David Allaway of the Department of Environmental Quality says that instead of blaming China, “we need to recycle better and recycle smarter, which means recycling only when the positive environmental impacts outweigh the negative.” And at the moment, we aren’t achieving that. For instance, Stamford, Connecticut, went from earning $95,000 from its recyclables in 2017 to paying $700,000 in 2018 to get rid of them. Prince George’s County, Maryland, went from earning $750,000 to losing $2.7 million.

So what can you do as a consumer? Martin Bourque from Berkeley’s Ecology Center reminds us that “recycling is supposed to be the last resort after reduction and reuse.” This means you should try to cut back your use of single-use materials as much as possible. And when you do buy something, reuse it as many times as you can. The less that is making it into the bin, the better.

Private First Class Travis Dodson, an aircraft mechanic with 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, and a volunteer at the base recycling center, separates contaminated material from the daily 5-ton load of trash and recyclables on a conveyor belt to effectively produce non-contaminated reusable products. Pendleton officials are asking base occupants to be aware of good recycling habits in order for its benefits to be truly effective.

The recycling system in the US may be in disrepair, but that does not mean you should stop trying. Every day you can reduce the amount of waste that ends up in landfills and in our oceans. For more information, please see the full article The US Recycling System Is Garbage from Sierra Club Magazine. If you would like to be involved in local waste reduction efforts, please follow our Facebook page to see upcoming events.