BECKLEY, WV (WOAY) – After opening all those Christmas gifts, household waste during the holiday season rises by 25 percent, adding one million extra tons of trash to landfills.
Recycling is one of the best ways to reduce waste and make cleaning up after the festivities much easier.
The Raleigh County Solid Waste Authority has the tips you need to know when it comes to Christmas waste.
You can’t recycle foil, metallic or non-recyclable wrapping paper, bows or ribbons.
“From the holidays, the majority of the recycling is just your cardboard boxes. Water bottle, pop bottles, pop cans, aluminum cans, any of your tin cans, your milk jugs, plastic tea bottles,” said RCSWA Executive Director Travis Kiblinger. “General items that we accept all year; it doesn’t change.”
The City of Beckley does curbside recycling every other week. The Solid Waste Authority has dumpsters available at its outside recycling facility, as long as landfill operations are open.
“We welcome anybody to drop off any recyclables here free of charge,” Kiblinger said.Â
Look at your Christmas through New Year’s garbage and be mindful of everything that can be recycled. The Solid Waste Authority will accept it ‘comingled.’
“Take your normal stuff out that’s recyclable, wash it out, rinse it out, so if it’s in one bag, we run it up our short line and separate it that way,” said the executive director. “We do like it when people can separate it at home. It helps us out more efficiently that way.”
Recycling offers significant environmental, economic, and social benefits by reintroducing materials into the manufacturing cycle rather than disposing of them as waste.
“We use the term air space, which is what you take up in a landfill. So any material we can keep out of the landfill is always better for the environment,” Kiblinger said. “Everybody needs to do their part. We take as many recyclables as we can — plastics, your cans, cardboard, anything that we take.”
