Originally posted on NEXTDOOR (March 03, 2021) by Shannon Culpepper, Chatham County (NC) Environmental Quality Department's Recycling and Education Specialist. "I have received a lot of calls and emails in the past month about recycling in Fearrington Village specifically. There seems to be a lot of confusion, so I thought this would be a good way to help clear it up!" Here are her comments:
Chatham County Solid Waste & Recycling operates the 12 Collection Centers around the county, including the Cole Park center. Curbside service in Fearrington is provided mostly by First Choice Disposal. The Collection Centers and First Choice accept all of the same items in our recycling programs:
- Aluminum cans
- Steel cans
- Cardboard boxes: please empty and flatten
- Paper: junk mail, magazines, paperboard boxes (cereal, pasta, crackers, etc.), newspaper, office paper, paperback books, paper rolls (toilet paper and paper towels), and paper cartons
- Plastic bottle, jugs, and jars: any plastic container that has a neck smaller than the base. For example: soda bottles, water bottles, detergent bottles, mayonnaise jar, etc.
- Plastic tubs: tubs have a plastic lid that can be put back on. For example, a multi-serve yogurt container is a tub, but an individual yogurt container is not a tub since it has that aluminum peel top.
- Plastic clamshell containers (like for berries, cherry tomatoes, etc.) cannot be recycled. Plastic clamshells are made differently than bottles, jugs, jars, and tubs, so when they go through the recycling process they do not behave the same, making them harder to recycle.
- Clamshells are accepted in some recycling programs, but Chatham County Solid Waste & Recycling wants our residents to know that the items you place in the recycling have a really great chance of being recycled (more than 90%). There are strong markets for the items we do accept.
- Cat food cans cannot be recycled if they are loose. However, if you put the lid back inside the empty can and squeeze the can a little bit, that will trap the lid inside.
Both recycling programs also accept glass bottles and jars. In your curbside recycling bin, you can include glass bottles and jars in with all the other items listed above. At the Collection Centers you must keep glass bottles and jars separate and place them in the glass recycling bin.
I am also aware that First Choice asks people not to include caps and lids. After speaking with them about it recently, they are concerned that the containers will be full of food and liquid if a cap or lid is on. Ensure that your cans, bottles, jugs, jars, and tubs are empty and relatively clean, and then put the caps and lids back on. Corks and caps should not be put back on glass bottles and jars though. If you have loose lids, those should go in the trash. Anything smaller than a standard size post-it is too small to be properly recycled.
Items that should not go into a recycling bin are called contamination.
If there is too much contamination in a load of recycling, then it may get disposed of in the landfill. That is why it is really important for everyone to make sure they are recycling right. If you are not 100% sure the item can go in the recycling bin, then you should hold onto it until you find the answer or throw it in the trash if it cannot wait.
If you have any additional questions about any recycling programs, household hazardous waste, please contact:
Shannon Culpepper
