Video: Caroline Ask discusses the city’s holiday trash and recycling issues and schedules

Grace Hallowell:

Good morning, everyone. My name is Grace Hallowell for the City of College Station, and my guest today is Caroline Ask, who is our Solid Waste Division manager. Good morning.

Caroline Ask:
Good morning, Grace. How are you?

Grace Hallowell:
I’m doing well. We are here to talk about trash today, right?

Caroline Ask:
Yes.

Grace Hallowell:
Okay.

Caroline Ask:

Exciting topic.

Grace Hallowell:
Exciting.

Caroline Ask:
Absolutely.

Grace Hallowell:
Tell us a little bit about, I know this time of year, it can kind of be confusing with the holidays and when pickup schedules. So, what’s the best way to go about, or how can they find the holiday collection schedule?

Caroline Ask:
Luckily, this year, the Christmas holiday, as well as New Year’s, is on a Sunday, so no collections will be disrupted, whether that’s for solid waste or recycling.

Grace Hallowell:
Perfect.

Caroline Ask:
But if anybody has any questions on trying to find their schedule, if you’re new to town, you just moved in during the holiday season, you can find it on our website at cstx.gov/recycle. You can also utilize our College Station curbside app. It is free. We promote our campaigns. You can find your collection schedule by typing in your specific address so you’re not having to siphon through 25,000 addresses. It’s easy to find for you.

Grace Hallowell:
Perfect. Yeah. And let’s talk a little bit about how recycling works in College Station. I know I moved here about a year ago, and where I’m from, it went every week the same time as your trash, and that’s a little different here. So, can you tell us about the recycling process here in the city?

Caroline Ask:
Absolutely, and welcome.

Grace Hallowell:
Thank you.

Caroline Ask:
Because I haven’t actually talked to you in person, so welcome to Texas and College Station. For our recycling program, we utilize a vendor, so it’s not actually … We don’t do the field operations in-house with the city. But in terms of our vendor, we utilize Brazos Valley Recycling. Blue carts at your house, as you know.

Grace Hallowell:
Yes.

Caroline Ask:
Basically what happens is they run their own route. It is a biweekly collection, so you’ll have a collection every two weeks, which again, you can find on the curbside app. Appreciate it. Basically what happens is the route truck comes in, picks up what’s in your container. We like to see our commodities loose. Don’t put them in any type of plastic bag or anything like that, but loose. Fills up the route truck.

What the truck will do is it’ll take it to a MRF, which is a materials recovery facility. Basically what that is, it’s a sorting facility. It’s not any type of reprocessing. What they do there is the truck will push everything out on a tipping floor. Like I said, very exciting. It’ll push everything out on the tipping floor, and they actually have infrastructure, whether that’s belts, magnets, blowers, as well as a picking line where they separate all the commodities out into plastics, certain types of plastics, glass, metal, paper products, et cetera. And then what happens then is they’ll have buyers and manufacturers come in, and they’ll look at the products that are there, and they’ll decide if they would like to buy the product to reuse it, resell it, and repurpose it at those manufacturing plants.

Grace Hallowell:
Perfect. Yeah, it’s something you don’t really think about after you toss it in your recycling bin. What happens to it? Where does it go? Is there a person sorting it?

Caroline Ask:
Yes.

Grace Hallowell:
And I guess, let’s talk about, I know there are certain things that cannot be recycled here, so certain plastics, plastic bags. Why is that? Why can’t they be recycled?

Caroline Ask:
There are various reasons why certain plastics cannot be recycled. For example, our MRF, or our sorting facility here in our geographical location, we only accept types 1 and 2 plastics. For example, types 1 are PET. That would be water bottles or your clamshells that house your produce at the grocery store. And we also accept types 2s, which are more of your high-density plastics. That would be shampoo bottles, laundry detergent bottles, stuff like that.

Well, there are seven different types of plastics. Again, we only accept types 1s and 2s. 3 through 7, we don’t for various reasons. It could be because virgin polymer is a lot less expensive to produce than repurposing used plastics, our geographical location towards markets, so therefore, you’ve got the potential cost for freight, et cetera. So, there are varying factors, and we accept types 1s and 2s.

Grace Hallowell:
Gotcha. Yeah, I know the city that I came from, they didn’t have the capability to recycle glass, which was a big thing, so a lot of independent companies had a recycling option, but the city itself did not recycle glass. So, I appreciate that glass can be recycled here.

Caroline Ask:
Yes. And PSA, we can accept all different types of colored glass as well.

Grace Hallowell:
Yes.

Caroline Ask:
And as a caveat to the plastics portion, I know everyone always asks us about single-use plastic bags, grocery bags.

Grace Hallowell:
Yes.

Caroline Ask:
Although we do not accept them in our municipality program, you can take … Which I actually have in the back of my car right now, a giant bag of plastic bags like everybody else does, but I’ll take my single-use plastic bags to kiosks at the front of our grocery stores. You can find them at the front of H-E-B, Kroger, wherever you decide to shop.

Grace Hallowell:
What are the diversion versus contamination rates for recycling?

Caroline Ask:
A diversion rate is basically the percentage of materials that are kept out of the landfill, which means we’re extending their lifespan, which is fantastic.

Grace Hallowell:
Yes.

Caroline Ask:
And that percentage is compared to the total municipal solid waste that we collect within the city limits, so diversion, diverted away from the landfill, fantastic.

In terms of contamination rates, that’s really the waste that we are, the majority of the time, not purposely placing in our recycling cart. So, not everything that you place in your cart is recyclable. We do see those soft plastics, like single-use plastic bags and various other items. For example, textiles, we can’t recycle used clothing or anything like that, so those type of items that you’re placing in your recycling cart are the, what we would consider, contamination, or not viable.

Grace Hallowell:
Gotcha.

Caroline Ask:
We wouldn’t be able to recycle them.

Grace Hallowell:
Gotcha. And with the holidays coming up, I know a big question is, our Christmas trees, are they recyclable? Or how do you dispose of your live Christmas tree after you’re done?

Caroline Ask:
Yes. This is a big push for us right after the holiday season. For Christmas trees, what we like to see, and brush in general, is we’re requesting that our citizens separate their piles from bulk items, whether that’s mattresses, couches, from your brush items. For brush, what we like to do is we separate out. We do a separate collection for them with our boom truck. So boom, I know little kids are really excited about this, including my own, a boom truck is the one that has the crane or the claw.

Grace Hallowell:
Yes.

Caroline Ask:
Very exciting. We separate that out and we actually take it to the mulching and composting side of the landfill, so therefore they can either resell it, citizens can come grab what they need, but we mulch it and compost that for them.

Grace Hallowell:
Gotcha. That’s a very good option.

Caroline Ask:
Yes.

Grace Hallowell:
I’m not a live tree person myself, just with allergies and things, but I’ve always wondered too, what happens when you’re done with it? Where does it go?

Caroline Ask:
Yes. And a caveat to that, for the Christmas trees, we do ask that you please remove the stands, remove any nails, lights, tinsel, ornaments. We just want the tree so they need can be mulched. You don’t want plastic in your garden.

Grace Hallowell:
Perfect. What else can you tell us about our solid waste and recycling services?

Caroline Ask:
In terms of general recycling, we accept cardboard, paper, any type of metal cans, again, types 1 and 2 plastics. I will say, for the holidays coming in, the soft plastics that you’ll see, whether that’s bubble wrap, air pillows, we try and stay away from those. Any items that we would consider tanglers, whether that’s lights, tinsel, bows, we try and stay away from those as well. They do clog the sorting facility infrastructure. No styrofoam. A big one, if you decide to recycle your Christmas cards, is no wax coating, no glittery items. We just want plain paper, plain wrapping paper.

Grace Hallowell:
Gotcha.

Caroline Ask:
Plain, plain cards.

Grace Hallowell:
And that goes for metallic materials as well?

Caroline Ask:

Yes, yes, ma’am.

Grace Hallowell:
And does that go for wrapping paper too?

Caroline Ask:
Yes, ma’am. Both cards and wrapping paper.

Grace Hallowell:
Perfect.

Caroline Ask:
Try and stay away from those in the recycling stream.

Grace Hallowell:
Perfect. All right. And if anybody has questions about all of this information or their collection schedule, where can they find out that information?

Caroline Ask:
You are more than welcome to go to our webpage at cstx.gov/recycle. You can give us a call. Our admin staff and my team, we try and be as helpful as we possibly can, give superior customer service, so you can give us a call at our public works mainline. It’s 979-764-3690. And again, you can find information, report items, send us a message through the College Station curbside app. This is what it looks like, in case you need see it. But yeah, that’s where you can find our info.

Grace Hallowell:
All righty. Anything else?

Caroline Ask:
I don’t believe so. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Grace Hallowell:
Yeah, thank you for being here, and that’s Stuff You Don’t Usually See.

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