Recycling Council Proposes Ways To Reduce Plastics In Landfills

The Wisconsin Council on Recycling says there are ways to keep more plastic out of Wisconsin landfills and incinerators.

A Department of Natural Resources report in 2012 said even with major gains in recycling of plastic over the last 20 years, $64 million worth of used containers, wraps, and bags went to Wisconsin landfills in 2009. The council, which advises Gov. Scott Walker and state lawmakers, brought in a cross-section of groups to look at ways to reduce that figure,

Council Chair Rick Meyers said a lot of the landfilled plastic comes from businesses too small to have their own recycling systems for things like plastic wrap.

“There are also efforts underway to try to work with industrial parks and shopping malls and distribution centers – places where we could have some consolidation point,” said Meyers.

Meyers said homeowners should also now be able to find more sites to drop off their plastic bags. He said people should also be asking their local recycling agency if they can now recycle more types of plastic containers, not just plastic types one and two.

“It’s been (in) relatively more recent years that markets have expanded for some of the other plastics – the coded numbers,” said Meyers. “Milwaukee recently added (types) four and five,”

Meyers says the council is helping communities do cost-benefit analyses on picking up more types of plastic at the curb. He also said better technology is available to recycle more of the waste stream.