Since You Asked: Plastic bag recycling sacked by YSDI machines

We, the residents of Yuba-Sutter, were told not to put plastic bags in our recycling bins. Everyone knows they should be recycled and not put in the landfill. Yuba-Sutter Disposal said a long time ago that the bags jam their equipment. Is there a plan to replace the equipment? What will be done to correct this problem?

Plastic bags are still the monkey wrench in the gears at Yuba-Sutter Disposal Inc. and there are no plans to accept them, said the company's recycling coordinator, Jackie Sillman.

Besides wrapping themselves around machinery at the plant, the bags fly off collection trucks and end up on the street, she said.

The company encourages residents to reuse the bags, including as garbage can liners, she said.

Which means they end up in the landfill, of course.

It's possible to forgo the liner and wash out the garbage can after emptying it. But that would require a little time and effort in our convenience-oriented society.

Keep in mind that grocery stores are required to take back their pesky plastic bags and recycle them under a new state law.

Sillman said she's confident most bags returned to stores get recycled and turned into products like plastic "lumber" and pellets used as jacket insulation, although some do end up in the garbage stream.

It's a safe bet that most plastic bags that leave the store never make it back and end up riding the garbage stream right into the landfill.

Plastic bags — a plague of near-Biblical proportions — can always be replaced with reusable canvas bags. They cost 88 cents each at WinCo, for example, but at many stores you get a small discount everytime you use one, even if the bag has another store's logo.

Not a whole lot of shoppers seem to be using them, however. Maybe a stepped-up public education program would help.

Some waste disposal companies, including North Bay Corp. in Sonoma County, do recycle bags.

North Bay spokeswoman Pam Davis said so many customers were putting bags in their recycling bins, against the rules, that the company decided to start recycling them. That entailed hiring someone to physically pluck the bags out of the stream of recyclables before they get caught in the machinery.

And what happens to the recycled bags?

The bags, being pretty "grungy," can't be sold, so North Bay gives them away and they end up being exported to Pacific Rim countries. Davis aid she's not sure what happens to them there.

Let's hope they're not turned into toys and exported to the U.S.

Davis said she prefers seeing bags returned to supermarkets. They stay cleaner that way — instead of being mixed in with other, unclean recyclables — and are put to "high-end" uses like production of plastic lumber.

Since You Asked is published Mondays. Send questions to reporter Rob Young at the Appeal-Democrat, P.O. Box 431, Marysville, CA 95901, e-mail him at ryoung@appealdemocrat.com or call 749-4710.