Hello, this is Phil Goddard with the Town of Bourne Department of Integrated Solid Waste Management
on the Manager of Facility Compliance and Technology Development. What we do at iSWIM, we run the
recycling center, we also have the landfill, and we transfer our recyclables that are picked
up by the Department of Public Works at the curb and at the recycling center and transfer them to
market. That's our role. DPW picks up the materials and brings them, brings those to our facility
and also enforces the mandatory bylaw and quality control. And what we want to do is introduce you
to a tool that we're working on with the State Department of Environmental Protection that
we've put on our website along with the recycling committee who's on this video, Heather DePolo,
the chair, and the recycling committee and Jimmy Boyle from the DPW is on the streets every day
looking at the quality to help you as a resident understand what we want in the carts, what not
to put in the carts, and it's a tool if there's a question you can type in a search. We're
going to do a little quick search here and then you'll get an answer whether to put it
in your cart or throw it in the trash. We'll show a PSA about what we don't want and it's a tool for
you now if you are in doubt to check it out. But if you're ever in doubt, we prefer that you put
the material in the trash so we don't contaminate our high quality recyclables that we sell on
markets around the country. So let's go to the new feature that's on our website. It's on the
Recycling and Born website, which is linked through the DPW, the Recycling Committee.
It's on the front page of the town website, townofborn.com, so I'm going to share my screen
and we're going to go to what you will see right there and it says Recycling and Born. This is a
tool developed by a vendor with the cooperation and oversight of the Massachusetts Department
Environmental Protection that allows you to come in and type in an item. So let's just type in
an item, take out container plastic. Okay, so all right, if it's clear, it says right here,
recyclable non-black takeout containers. Black should be placed in the trash because it is
missed by optical sorters at recycling facilities and will either end up in the trash or contaminating
other materials. So this is an example of why sometimes if you think something's recyclable
or it technically could be in a hermetically sealed supply chain with all perfectly,
the reason this can't be done is because our recycling facilities that we send it to
can't detect that and it contaminates the loads for the other materials that they can sell easily.
So this is an example of how you would, okay, I think it's recyclable, but let me double check.
So the lid in the clear containers and the takeout containers can go in the recycling cart,
but not the black bottom of the restaurant takeout container. So that's an example.
Heather, do you have one you want me to play with here? Turn it out.
What do you want to do, Jimmy? You're on the streets and you see it a lot. What would be,
do you want to do cat litter? Yeah, cat litter. Okay, let's do cat litter. This is
this is the cat litter box can be recycled, but the cat litter with the cat feces we
don't want in the recycling. Let's try another, another easy one, garden hoses. Okay, garden hoses
plastic, right? Should we put that in our cart? Put this item in your trash bin. What's another
one that's been out there? Bowling ball. They don't have that one. Okay, but styrofoam
cups and plates, but this item in your trash. You get what's that? Part parts. They're metal.
Yeah, they're not going to have that, but just for folks to be clear,
the carts at the curb are for your household items, your consumables that you buy in a store,
your containers for food and beverages. It's not the entire universe of what theoretically could
be recycled or reused. So we don't want food waste in there. We have a food waste diversion
program at the recycling center where you can bring your food waste and divert for composting
offsite. We have metal recycling for scrap metal. We don't want an engine block or your lawn
mower to be put inside the car. We don't want your TVs or electronic waste to be put in the
cart. So the cart's really for your bottles and cans, your cardboard, newspapers, those items,
and they're written right and printed right on the top of your container.
Bill, can I ask you to do one more? This one is always milk cartons.
Milk cartons. This is a great one. So milk carton. Okay, so this is going to have an
explanation to it. For most of Massachusetts, cartons should go into the trash. However,
some communities in Western Mass do recycle them. If your municipality is on this list
and it has a link, you can put cartons in your recycling bin. And just to be clear why that is,
that is a materials recovery facility that's run by the state of Massachusetts with their
contractor. They have a particular way or vendor that will take the milk cartons and they've set
up their collection system and sorting system to recover those milk cartons. I should say
that this list was prepared in cooperation with the facilities that run the recycling facilities
in the state, the companies. The other ones don't have that set up, including the one we send our
recyclables to. So unfortunately, it becomes trash when it goes to the facility we send it to.
So unless we were to set up a separate collection, which we don't have right now,
this is going to go in the trash. That's a good question. So Bill, if I may, this is
Jen at Born TV. I have a question for you. So most folks are now aware that we can't recycle
like textiles, for example, or we're supposed to not put those in the trash. Where do we take our
textiles? Heather, I'll let you take that one. Okay. Thank you, Jen. We have been set up at
all of the Born Public School parking lots in conjunction with Bay State textiles. So they
take those and pretty much 95% of it is reused. It's either sold to be worn again or as part of
stuffing, fiberfill, that sort of a thing. But they're the white bins. And I encourage you to use
those because the proceeds go to the Born PTA. And you could drop off any time day or night.
Oh, and that's a great option because day or night access. In addition to those containers,
ISWIM, Integrated Solid Waste Management Department, we call it affectionately ISWIM,
ISWIM, the Residential Recycling Center at McArthur Boulevard. We have three containers
that you of course can bring with your sticker. Access to the facility can bring the textiles.
We've done that for over 20 years. They continue to do that. The Recycling Committee has
added that with the PTA for even greater access. And now what you're referring to is a waste ban
on textiles. There's also a waste ban on mattresses and box springs. And ISWIM has been
recycling those for at least six years and have diverted probably 20,000 mattresses. So
you still have a way to get rid of. It just doesn't go in the landfill. We don't want it
to go in the landfill because it takes up a lot of space. But Jimmy Boyle, let's say,
hello, Jimmy Boyle. Jimmy, work for the DPW. You're out on the streets every day. If there's
a message you want to send that you see for what you see in the cards, what would that be?
That would be the wood waste is not recyclable. Kitty live cards. Yeah. And dog
droppings are not recyclable. Right. They belong bagged. And I mean bags in
the rubbish cart. We have people taking rubbish cart and dumping dust and that type of material in
and it gets all over our drivers and labels. Good point. So we have asked that the recyclables
not be bagged, tied in a bag because the machinery at the recycling facilities
can't handle that. And it would be treated as trash. And they don't have the staff
open up and take everything out. So put everything loose in the recycling cart. The milk jugs and the
new. Okay. But don't put trash in there like Kitty litter in your trash cart with the black lid.
What Jimmy's talking about is if you are vacuuming and you have dusty stuff, just put it in a
trash bag like you normally do. Do not put it loose in the trash cart for obvious reasons.
We don't want that blown all over the place getting on the drivers.
So keep it clean. And if you don't know what to put in the recycling cart and you're in doubt,
throw it out. But now we have a tool that you can come to right on the recycling
inborn website through either the home page of the town or the ice from page or the recycling
committee page or the DPW page and check it out. You can also go to the recycle smart MA
dot or G. And there's articles on why plastics are worth recycling, notwithstanding what you
might have been reading in the papers recently, we recycle milk jugs and soda bottles at a very
high rate. So take a look at that. What I want to show you as we wrap up this brief public
announcement is a service announcement that the recycling committee did a few years ago
on why plastic bags, for example, we do not want in the trash bin. Okay. And the
recycling cart. This is a little public service announcement that we did
to emphasize that point and not bag that up. So I'm going to play that for you right now.
Wait, guys, I got my recyclables here. I want to recycle. Do the right thing. I got my plastic
bag. I got my other bag with all my bottles and pens and newspapers in it. Wait up. I
got to recycle. What happened? What happened is intentions were good, but he didn't recycle
properly. Recycling is mandatory in the town of Warren, but we need your help to recycle smart.
You can recycle metal food and beverage cans, plastic bottles, jars, jugs and tubs,
glass bottles and jars, paper, newspaper, cardboard, boxes, but do not recycle garbage.
No plastic bags and no plastic wrap, no food or liquid, no clothing, fabric or linens,
and no tanglers such as hoses, wires, chains or electronics. Most importantly, don't
put your recyclables in a plastic bag. For more information, go to thetownofborn.com.
Click on Recycling and Born for a quick link to more information.
Thank you for Recycling Smart.
That was a really fun PSA we did, and now that same website has that tool we just demonstrated
for you to get even more information. If you have a question, pizza boxes can be recycled,
but the ones with lots of grease and food just tear that off, throw that away,
put the clean part in the recycling cart. We want quality recyclables, because that means we can
be accepted at the recycling facilities, and then recycling facilities can
sell them at domestic markets and have a way to make money, which then affects how we all
divert materials. So if we have garbage in the recycling, that only ampers that effort.
Heather, any last words that you want to say from the Recycling Committee and Jimmy Boyle,
who enforces at the curb for the DPW? Keep your cart separated three feet and wheels to the back.
Bag your trash and keep your recyclables loose. And if you don't have your rubbish or
recycling picked up, there could be a reason for it. Call the Department of Public Works at 508-759-066.
Extension 3. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. We appreciate your recycling and
born and cooperating. Have a nice day.