What Exactly Is Recycleable?

Most people don’t know the right ways to recycle, let alone what can be recycled. Linn-Benton Community College now has a recycling program on the Albany campus and now has two locations, outside Takena Hall and in the Bookstore Courtyard.

The recycling trash bins are color coded with a sign right up above the bins that helps direct people to the right bin. Green is for glass, blue is for co-mingle (paper, plastic, and aluminum), and black is for compost and then for trash that isn’t either of these there are trashcans located right next to them.

What exactly is recycleable?

According to the Allied Waste website plastic shampoo bottles, liter bottles, and milk jugs are recycleable plastic. For glass, just about everything goes, except for ceramics, mirrors, and plate glass. For the recycleable metal, all of the food and beverage containers are. Of course all newspaper, catalogs, and magazines are recycleable, just make sure not to place them in bags or bundle them together. The same goes for junk mail, cardboard, and mixed household papers.

Now what isn’t recycleable?

Allied Waste states that butter tubs, containers with an openings as large as the container, no bottles that have contained oil or petroleum by-products, and of course no aluminum foil. Always make sure to not place any tissues, wet paper, paper contaminated by food products into the recycle bin.

In order for the recycling program to take off, the LBCC Bookstore is partnering with the Sustainability Committee and is helping them create more locations and earn more money for their program.

When the Sustainability Committee first created this recycling program, they had no funding, but once they started to partner up with LBCC Bookstore they will start to see funding come their way. The Bookstore has come up with an idea to sell recycled merchandise at a low price. They will be selling lanyards and water bottles at $5.00, t-shirts for $10.00, and hooded shirts for $20.00 and all of the proceeds go back to the program.

“We’re trying to create products that both men and women will like and are trying to make the recycled merchandise a different feature in the store and not have it be related to the LBCC merchandise.”, said Lawrence LaJoie, manager of the LBCC Bookstore.

One of the hardest things about these programs is maintenance, finding facilities that are willing to participate, and making sure the bins aren’t over the contamination level. If the level of contamination is over the limit then Allied Waste can cancel the program.

Their over-all goal is to create more locations is Albany as well as expand to the other LBCC locations, but that could take years before this program expands that much. But, in order for this program to take off, they need your help.

Feel free to wander over to the bookstore and browse through the recycled products.