PICKENS COUNTY — Pickens County is making significant progress in improving service to the public at our eight recycling centers. In September of 2020, our recycle centers returned to the 7:30 am – 7:20 pm schedule, Monday through Saturday. As a result, our facilities are open 71 hours each week to better serve our county population. Compare these hours with our neighboring counties (60 hours a week in Anderson and Oconee, and 55 hours a week in Greenville). At the same time, our Solid Waste staff transitioned from a landfilling approach to the use of a waste transfer station and trucks as our county landfill was near capacity. Concurrently, we are working to limit use of our facilities by out-of-county individuals in order to maximize the services provided to our own citizens. As time has gone by and our plans and efforts have come to fruition, we are receiving increasingly positive reports from citizens about how our recycle centers are cleaner and more organized than they were in the past. Still, there is always room for improvement, and there are always challenges to overcome. In that regard, I want to talk to you about plastics.

Yes, plastics. We’re talking about plastics.

Plastic recycling is a challenge facing communities all across the nation and around the world as well. The market for plastic recycling has significantly contracted, and it is important for us to change with it to remain both environmentally and economically responsible. This is an area where you, the citizen, must play a major role in the success of our efforts. In order to be able to get an outside vendor to take our plastic recycling, citizens are asked to bring only plastic bottles and jugs with threads on top to our centers. These bottles and jugs should have the cap removed, and the cap should be disposed of in the trash. While these and other items may be marked with a 1 or 2 in the recycle symbol on the bottom of the container, those recycle symbols and the directions printed on packaging are not always consistent with what a local recycling facility can handle. Therefore, we ask that you follow the simple directions as given to us by the vendor in order to produce the best product for sustaining our program. On a related note, please remove your plastic bottles and jugs from the garbage bag or plastic bag you use to bring them to the recycle center and discard the bag in the regular trash. Those bags are not recyclable and cause issues by clogging our equipment.

While it may seem wrong to throw away plastics marked 3-7, or even those marked 1 and 2 that do not fit the description of having threads on top, please know that for now it is the best way to ensure that the county is maximizing what can be recycled. When all the plastics are commingled, our vendor will not accept them, grading them as “contaminated” and as a result, even those bottles and jugs that could have been recycled end up in a landfill. Therefore, we ask that you resist the urge to practice “wish-cycling,” when you really wish something could be recycled so you put it in the recycle bin even though it doesn’t fit the current criteria.

To promote our plastic recycling program, answer questions, and educate the public about the dos and don’ts of our recycling program, I have been visiting recycling centers and working shifts assisting citizens with sorting through their plastic recycling. This one-on-one interaction is rewarding because many of you are committed to recycling and are eager to learn the best way to protect our recycling programs. Combined with this newspaper article, information on our county website, posts on our County Facebook page, and signage at our recycle centers, I hope that we can spread the word throughout the county about proper plastic recycling.

Our goal is to recycle the items that can be recycled. We also want to ensure that we keep Pickens County beautiful, so please remember to dispose of all your trash properly. Secure your load when you bring it to the recycle centers to avoid trash and recyclables ending up on the sides of our roads. When sorting your recycling, help us keep our product pure for our vendor, and when in doubt, throw it out. I hope that one day I will be able to tell you to bring all plastics to our centers again, but until then, bring your 1 and 2 plastic bottles and jugs with threads on top without the lids. With your help, we can improve the quality of our plastic product and sustain our recycling program.

This simple chart can be used to help the public determine whether to place certain plastics in the plastics recycle bin. In short, any plastic with threads on top that is not a pill bottle can go in the bin without a lid. “When in doubt, throw it out.”