Column: Randy Tuchtenhagen, Solid Waste Officer

Have you thought ahead to the family picnics, graduation parties, and other summer events and how to best manage the garbage during the events? We have recycling containers you can borrow and I also have some ideas for you to consider when planning those summer events.

Freeborn County lends recycling containers to groups or individuals for events. The containers were obtained through a grant written by our SEMREX director. (Southeast Minnesota Recycling Exchange, an eight county organization) We use them during the fair, on weekends for community events and in cities throughout the county.

Oftentimes we receive requests from people who are planning for a large group. If you call our office we will make arrangements for you to pick up the number of recycling containers needed and a place to drop them off when you are finished. There is no charge for this service, it promotes the recycling lifestyle and also reduces your need for extra trash service. It also puts your event in a positive light (even if you don’t collect very much) to say that you cared enough about recycling to put containers out.

By reducing your garbage needs at an event you can also save money for the cost of disposal. The State of Minnesota collects a 9.75 percent tax on residential garbage services so if you reduce your trash service bill by any amount, you pay less taxes. We keep minimal records on our container lending program, but most people have positive comments at least for the effort, if not for the success for the amount of recycling materials collected.

Picnics and other outings during the summer make washing dishes a major inconvenience and many people purchase plastic or Styrofoam eating utensils.

So how do we reduce waste and/or recycle at a picnic? One thing to consider is the end disposal of plates and cups. Do you have a food compost bin for your table scraps at home? If you don’t it’s time to start one. Some paper plates and cups can be composted and Styrofoam cannot. Even though washing dishes is not convenient, we often must take our casserole dishes and cutting tools home to wash, so what’s a few more plates?

That goes for napkins too. Why not use them to wrap the dirty dishes until you get home? The cost of soap and water to wash a few dishes is significantly less than the cost of hauling waste to a landfill, burying it and taking care of the landfill for decades when filled to capacity.

And while we are talking about recycling beverage containers we should mention “caps on or caps off.” The bottle cap is most likely recyclable and the recycling center will accept containers with the caps on or off. However, when they are crushed or chipped the caps become dangerous flying missiles. Also, if the caps are removed it is unlikely any product remaining will stay in the container. Bottles with liquid in them do not feed easily into the crusher. Take the lids off and put both into the recycling. Remember: No plastic bags.

Randy Tuchtenhagen is the Freeborn County solid waste officer.