[This transcript was generated automatically from audio using AI and hasn't been reviewed by a person -- it can contain mistakes, including plausible-sounding sentences that were never actually said. Treat it as a starting point, not a verbatim record.]

[0:00] Hello, this is Phil Goddard with the Town of Bourne Department of Integrated Solid Waste Management
[0:16] on the Manager of Facility Compliance and Technology Development. What we do at iSWIM, we run the
[0:23] recycling center, we also have the landfill, and we transfer our recyclables that are picked
[0:29] up by the Department of Public Works at the curb and at the recycling center and transfer them to
[0:34] market. That's our role. DPW picks up the materials and brings them, brings those to our facility
[0:41] and also enforces the mandatory bylaw and quality control. And what we want to do is introduce you
[0:47] to a tool that we're working on with the State Department of Environmental Protection that
[0:54] we've put on our website along with the recycling committee who's on this video, Heather DePolo,
[0:59] the chair, and the recycling committee and Jimmy Boyle from the DPW is on the streets every day
[1:03] looking at the quality to help you as a resident understand what we want in the carts, what not
[1:10] to put in the carts, and it's a tool if there's a question you can type in a search. We're
[1:15] going to do a little quick search here and then you'll get an answer whether to put it
[1:19] 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
[1:24] you now if you are in doubt to check it out. But if you're ever in doubt, we prefer that you put
[1:29] the material in the trash so we don't contaminate our high quality recyclables that we sell on
[1:36] markets around the country. So let's go to the new feature that's on our website. It's on the
[1:43] Recycling and Born website, which is linked through the DPW, the Recycling Committee.
[1:48] It's on the front page of the town website, townofborn.com, so I'm going to share my screen
[1:54] and we're going to go to what you will see right there and it says Recycling and Born. This is a
[2:01] tool developed by a vendor with the cooperation and oversight of the Massachusetts Department
[2:08] Environmental Protection that allows you to come in and type in an item. So let's just type in
[2:15] an item, take out container plastic. Okay, so all right, if it's clear, it says right here,
[2:24] recyclable non-black takeout containers. Black should be placed in the trash because it is
[2:30] missed by optical sorters at recycling facilities and will either end up in the trash or contaminating
[2:36] other materials. So this is an example of why sometimes if you think something's recyclable
[2:41] or it technically could be in a hermetically sealed supply chain with all perfectly,
[2:48] the reason this can't be done is because our recycling facilities that we send it to
[2:52] can't detect that and it contaminates the loads for the other materials that they can sell easily.
[2:58] So this is an example of how you would, okay, I think it's recyclable, but let me double check.
[3:03] So the lid in the clear containers and the takeout containers can go in the recycling cart,
[3:08] but not the black bottom of the restaurant takeout container. So that's an example.
[3:15] Heather, do you have one you want me to play with here? Turn it out.
[3:19] What do you want to do, Jimmy? You're on the streets and you see it a lot. What would be,
[3:24] do you want to do cat litter? Yeah, cat litter. Okay, let's do cat litter. This is
[3:31] this is the cat litter box can be recycled, but the cat litter with the cat feces we
[3:37] don't want in the recycling. Let's try another, another easy one, garden hoses. Okay, garden hoses
[3:43] plastic, right? Should we put that in our cart? Put this item in your trash bin. What's another
[3:51] one that's been out there? Bowling ball. They don't have that one. Okay, but styrofoam
[3:58] cups and plates, but this item in your trash. You get what's that? Part parts. They're metal.
[4:11] Yeah, they're not going to have that, but just for folks to be clear,
[4:16] the carts at the curb are for your household items, your consumables that you buy in a store,
[4:23] your containers for food and beverages. It's not the entire universe of what theoretically could
[4:30] be recycled or reused. So we don't want food waste in there. We have a food waste diversion
[4:36] program at the recycling center where you can bring your food waste and divert for composting
[4:40] offsite. We have metal recycling for scrap metal. We don't want an engine block or your lawn
[4:45] mower to be put inside the car. We don't want your TVs or electronic waste to be put in the
[4:50] cart. So the cart's really for your bottles and cans, your cardboard, newspapers, those items,
[4:59] and they're written right and printed right on the top of your container.
[5:03] Bill, can I ask you to do one more? This one is always milk cartons.
[5:08] Milk cartons. This is a great one. So milk carton. Okay, so this is going to have an
[5:13] explanation to it. For most of Massachusetts, cartons should go into the trash. However,
[5:18] some communities in Western Mass do recycle them. If your municipality is on this list
[5:22] and it has a link, you can put cartons in your recycling bin. And just to be clear why that is,
[5:27] that is a materials recovery facility that's run by the state of Massachusetts with their
[5:32] contractor. They have a particular way or vendor that will take the milk cartons and they've set
[5:38] up their collection system and sorting system to recover those milk cartons. I should say
[5:44] that this list was prepared in cooperation with the facilities that run the recycling facilities
[5:48] in the state, the companies. The other ones don't have that set up, including the one we send our
[5:54] recyclables to. So unfortunately, it becomes trash when it goes to the facility we send it to.
[6:00] So unless we were to set up a separate collection, which we don't have right now,
[6:07] this is going to go in the trash. That's a good question. So Bill, if I may, this is
[6:11] Jen at Born TV. I have a question for you. So most folks are now aware that we can't recycle
[6:17] like textiles, for example, or we're supposed to not put those in the trash. Where do we take our
[6:22] textiles? Heather, I'll let you take that one. Okay. Thank you, Jen. We have been set up at
[6:30] all of the Born Public School parking lots in conjunction with Bay State textiles. So they
[6:38] take those and pretty much 95% of it is reused. It's either sold to be worn again or as part of
[6:46] stuffing, fiberfill, that sort of a thing. But they're the white bins. And I encourage you to use
[6:53] those because the proceeds go to the Born PTA. And you could drop off any time day or night.
[7:01] Oh, and that's a great option because day or night access. In addition to those containers,
[7:08] ISWIM, Integrated Solid Waste Management Department, we call it affectionately ISWIM,
[7:12] ISWIM, the Residential Recycling Center at McArthur Boulevard. We have three containers
[7:18] that you of course can bring with your sticker. Access to the facility can bring the textiles.
[7:23] We've done that for over 20 years. They continue to do that. The Recycling Committee has
[7:28] added that with the PTA for even greater access. And now what you're referring to is a waste ban
[7:35] on textiles. There's also a waste ban on mattresses and box springs. And ISWIM has been
[7:40] recycling those for at least six years and have diverted probably 20,000 mattresses. So
[7:46] you still have a way to get rid of. It just doesn't go in the landfill. We don't want it
[7:50] to go in the landfill because it takes up a lot of space. But Jimmy Boyle, let's say,
[7:55] hello, Jimmy Boyle. Jimmy, work for the DPW. You're out on the streets every day. If there's
[8:01] a message you want to send that you see for what you see in the cards, what would that be?
[8:07] That would be the wood waste is not recyclable. Kitty live cards. Yeah. And dog
[8:14] droppings are not recyclable. Right. They belong bagged. And I mean bags in
[8:22] the rubbish cart. We have people taking rubbish cart and dumping dust and that type of material in
[8:30] and it gets all over our drivers and labels. Good point. So we have asked that the recyclables
[8:39] not be bagged, tied in a bag because the machinery at the recycling facilities
[8:45] can't handle that. And it would be treated as trash. And they don't have the staff
[8:50] open up and take everything out. So put everything loose in the recycling cart. The milk jugs and the
[8:56] new. Okay. But don't put trash in there like Kitty litter in your trash cart with the black lid.
[9:04] What Jimmy's talking about is if you are vacuuming and you have dusty stuff, just put it in a
[9:09] trash bag like you normally do. Do not put it loose in the trash cart for obvious reasons.
[9:14] We don't want that blown all over the place getting on the drivers.
[9:18] So keep it clean. And if you don't know what to put in the recycling cart and you're in doubt,
[9:22] throw it out. But now we have a tool that you can come to right on the recycling
[9:26] inborn website through either the home page of the town or the ice from page or the recycling
[9:32] committee page or the DPW page and check it out. You can also go to the recycle smart MA
[9:38] dot or G. And there's articles on why plastics are worth recycling, notwithstanding what you
[9:44] might have been reading in the papers recently, we recycle milk jugs and soda bottles at a very
[9:49] high rate. So take a look at that. What I want to show you as we wrap up this brief public
[9:55] announcement is a service announcement that the recycling committee did a few years ago
[10:00] on why plastic bags, for example, we do not want in the trash bin. Okay. And the
[10:05] recycling cart. This is a little public service announcement that we did
[10:09] to emphasize that point and not bag that up. So I'm going to play that for you right now.
[10:15] Wait, guys, I got my recyclables here. I want to recycle. Do the right thing. I got my plastic
[10:19] bag. I got my other bag with all my bottles and pens and newspapers in it. Wait up. I
[10:24] got to recycle. What happened? What happened is intentions were good, but he didn't recycle
[10:36] properly. Recycling is mandatory in the town of Warren, but we need your help to recycle smart.
[10:42] You can recycle metal food and beverage cans, plastic bottles, jars, jugs and tubs,
[10:48] glass bottles and jars, paper, newspaper, cardboard, boxes, but do not recycle garbage.
[10:55] No plastic bags and no plastic wrap, no food or liquid, no clothing, fabric or linens,
[11:02] and no tanglers such as hoses, wires, chains or electronics. Most importantly, don't
[11:09] put your recyclables in a plastic bag. For more information, go to thetownofborn.com.
[11:16] Click on Recycling and Born for a quick link to more information.
[11:20] Thank you for Recycling Smart.
[11:29] That was a really fun PSA we did, and now that same website has that tool we just demonstrated
[11:36] for you to get even more information. If you have a question, pizza boxes can be recycled,
[11:42] but the ones with lots of grease and food just tear that off, throw that away,
[11:46] put the clean part in the recycling cart. We want quality recyclables, because that means we can
[11:54] be accepted at the recycling facilities, and then recycling facilities can
[11:58] sell them at domestic markets and have a way to make money, which then affects how we all
[12:04] divert materials. So if we have garbage in the recycling, that only ampers that effort.
[12:11] Heather, any last words that you want to say from the Recycling Committee and Jimmy Boyle,
[12:15] who enforces at the curb for the DPW? Keep your cart separated three feet and wheels to the back.
[12:25] Bag your trash and keep your recyclables loose. And if you don't have your rubbish or
[12:32] recycling picked up, there could be a reason for it. Call the Department of Public Works at 508-759-066.
[12:41] Extension 3. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. We appreciate your recycling and
[12:47] born and cooperating. Have a nice day.