So what's the latest w Recycling in Walton

[Alyoopster]

I'm so frustrated with the whole recycling issue in the area! I don't miss living in Destin but i sure do miss the green bins.

I was religious about the blue bag system and picked mine up at the fire station on 393. It's been months since they have had them and it's my understanding that the county cut out the blue bags system all together. I just don't believe that the inmates open everybag and sort the trash. I try my best to take things to the blue dumpsters but i don't have a truck and don't want the trash in my car. And frankly is a hassle. It drives me crazy of all this waste that i am throughing out. We recycled more than we took out the regular trash.

So does anyone know anything new that i may not??

thank you!

 

[momof2kids]

You can always buy the blue bags at Publix. That's what we do.

 

[beachteach]

I heard that the blue bags get thrown into the landfil and then convicts sort the trash and pick everything out to recycle. So, this means, criminals are going through your garbage. I would watch what you throw away.

 

[30ashopper]

I heard that the blue bags get thrown into the landfil and then convicts sort the trash and pick everything out to recycle. So, this means, criminals are going through your garbage. I would watch what you throw away.

They have a sort area before the trash goes to the land fill. My belief is that the blue bags still help workers pick out high quality recyclable material.

I still sort via blue bags, I picked up a big box of hefty brand recycle bags on Amazon.

I pre-sort into three trash containers in my garage - metal/glass, dry paper and shredded bills, and plastics. I tend to take the metal/glass blua bag to the trailers since they'll likely break on the trip to the dump, and put the other two out curb side.

The amount of "normal" trash I put out decreased substantially after I started this a few years ago.

 

[ugabuga]

Advice & Info Needed

I'm a new Santa Rosa Beach property owner. I've been taking recycleables to blue trailer on 393. I put glass/plastic/newspapers all in one garbage bag & throw in trailer--should I sort beforehand?

Why does sign at trailer say "PLEASE NO CARDBOARD"?
I want to recycle cereal boxes, beer cartons, etc. Where can I do this if not at trailer?

What are these blue bags you're talking about?

 

[30ashopper]

I'm a new Santa Rosa Beach property owner. I've been taking recycleables to blue trailer on 393. I put glass/plastic/newspapers all in one garbage bag & throw in trailer--should I sort beforehand?

The bins are setup to accept pre-sorted material, if you can pre-sort, I'm sure the county folks at the land fill would appreciate it.

Why does sign at trailer say "PLEASE NO CARDBOARD"? I want to recycle cereal boxes, beer cartons, etc. Where can I do this if not at trailer?

Never understood this, since one of the bins is marked paper. The walton county web site also states cardboard is recycled -

Walton County, FL - Home Page - Recycling

An email to the county might clear this up. Personally, I blue bag all my cardboard.

What are these blue bags you're talking about?

We used to have a blue bag program, which was funded off a state or federal grant. Basically, the county supplied blue trash bags you would stick recyclable material in and put out with your normal trash. The inmates at the county dump pre-sorting facility would pull these out. The idea was that it would provide higher quality recyclable material, generating more revenue for the county.

It turned out that the bags had a tendency to split open or get mashed into other trash when compacted. (Search the local government threads, there was a long discussion on this a while back.)

When the grant ran out, the county stopped providing the bags. Personally I still do it though by buying my own bags and recycling material that can't split the bags. I'm sure the inmates still recognize these trash bags.

 

[scooterbug44]

As someone else stated, isn't the more than 500K the garbage haulers got overpaid enough to implement a curbside recycling program?

 

[ugabuga]

sincere thx for info.

 

[Chandra]

Last year, the SWCC held a forum about plastic and Chris Mitchell, Walton County's Public Information Officer was available to answer questions about the recycling program.

Using the trailers is the best way to ensure that more recyclables are recovered. They found that too many people were using the free blue bags as regular garbage bags.

Walton County also took a survey asking people if they would be willing to pay an extra $5 a month for recycling. The result was a unanimous "no". Then they came up with the idea of using one garbage day to pick up recyclables. Unfortunately, that didn't bode well with rental property, which generate a tremendous amount of garbage throughout the week.

Cardboard IS recyclable at the trailers. The reason they say "No cardboard" is because they don't want people throwing in boxes that aren't broken down. That wastes space and therefore gas. Chris said it was perfectly acceptable to put in cardboard, just break it down first. Apparently, most people don't follow the rules.

Lastly, there are a few other reasons it's more complicated to recycle in Walton County. Our county waste facility is not equipped to wash contaminated recyclables. This would require more money for a waste water treatment facility and required permits for dumping treated waste water. All of Walton County only has about 50,000 full-time residents. Except for some developments in South Walton, residents are spread out over the land making it more costly and time consuming to collect the garbage. We're still considered very rural and this is also true when companies buy the recyclables. Our recyclables will sit for months on site while the county waits for a buyer. All the while, the recyclables are mounting every day and the waste facility has to store them.

So, when people wonder why Walton County is so backwards with the recycling, there's a reason for it. We're a perfect example of how some things that work for an urban environment, just don't work every where.

The best thing we can do is be more conscious about what we buy and how it's packaged.

 

[ASH]

I'm a new Santa Rosa Beach property owner. I've been taking recycleables to blue trailer on 393. I put glass/plastic/newspapers all in one garbage bag & throw in trailer--should I sort beforehand?


Hopefully you're not taking a big bag of mixed glass, cans and paper and throwing it into the blue trailers. Which one would you put it in as the individual compartments are labeled specific as to what goes into them?

Cans/glass is one, newspaper is another and plastic is the last one.

I have a small set of bins at my home and every few days, I load up any plastic bags I have from grocery stores with the three acceptable compartments items and go drop them off at the blue trailer. I guess you'd call this sorting beforehand. I've seen some show up with a large cardboard box or garbage bag and toss items into individual bins.

I am guilty of throwing cans/glass into the bins inside a plastic grocery bag. Sorry.