Untangle ATX this America Recycles Day

America Recycles Day is a day to pat ourselves on the back for how far we’ve come in recycling efforts, both nationally and locally. But did you know 20 percent of Austin’s recycling is contaminated? Contamination occurs when we put non-recyclable materials or garbage into our recycling carts, which can cause major issues later on at the recycling facility. One of the largest contaminants? “Tanglers.”

Tanglers are items such as plastic bags, trash bags, garden hoses, clothing, rope and other flexible items that can cause problems during the recycling process.

Imagine a large recycling sorting facility (where the items from your blue recycling cart end up). This facility has several large machines that are made up of a series of gears and cogs moving at high speeds, sorting through the materials. When plastic bags, garden hoses, ropes and other tanglers end up in this sorting process, they get wrapped around the gears and cogs of the machine. This leads to delays and even standstills in operations, as employees must now shut down the machinery in order to remove the items. It’s a tangled mess.

You can make a difference. This America Recycles Day, Austin Resource Recovery asks Austinites to Untangle ATX by keeping tanglers out of their blue recycling carts. If you see an item that is made of flexible, stretchy or long material, take a second to ask, “Could this material/item get wrapped around the gears of a machine?” If the answer is yes, don’t put it in your blue recycling cart.