Beginning on Monday, educational tags placed on all 20,000 recycling carts in Lewis County will list materials customers should include in curbside containers, according to a news release from the county.
Tags will remind users to keep recyclables loose — not bagged — and to keep plastic bags out of the recycling bin. Some LeMay recycling customers will be given personalized feedback in the form of a report card identifying items that shouldn’t be placed in a recycling bin, the release stated.
“The goal of the project is to reduce contamination, or garbage, in curbside recycling carts, and help get more materials recycled,” said Melanie Case, recycling program coordinator for Lewis County Solid Waste Utility.
The county received a grant from the Washington State Department of Ecology to conduct two contamination reduction projects. In addition to the cart-tagging project, the $60,000 grant will pay for an apartment recycling project in which tenants receive a reusable bag for collecting their recyclables.
The bag has an instruction sheet that reminds users what materials to recycle.
For more information on Lewis County recycling programs, visit https://lewiscountywa.gov/departments/solid-waste/recycling-in-lewis-county/.