Invitation to recycling event
To the editor,
I would like to invite you to join the town of Kennebunkport and ecomaine on Saturday, June 26, at the Kennebunkport Rec Center (next to Consolidated School) for a summer kick-off to our recycling program. Plenty of additional resources, information, and giveaways – including 200 free blue recycling bins – will help us welcome summer and recycling back to Kennebunkport.
I am pleased to say that it has been a good first half of 2021 for recycling in Kennebunkport.
Collection has restarted, cooperation with ecomaine on education about recycling is ongoing, and very importantly, the level of contamination – meaning unrecyclable materials – in our loads of recycling is at or below 5 percent, which saves the town of Kennebunkport money on additional fees.
We’re very glad to have this service back – it will keep recyclables out of Maine’s landfills, and when done right, it will continue to save us money. So, let’s keep doing it right.
The most significant contaminant in our recycling has been plastic bags and films. Our friends at ecomaine tell us that we’re not alone in this – single use plastic bags are their number one contaminant in every town. Unfortunately, they are branded as recyclable, but this is only true if you take them back to the plastics bin at your grocery store and leave them out of the curbside bin. Otherwise, they tangle the equipment at ecomaine.
There are other seemingly recyclable items that must be left out of the bins – neither Styrofoam nor padded mailer envelopes are recyclable. If we can improve on these three most significant items, Kennebunkport will be in good shape for a long time to come.
Thankfully, there are tools we can use to help know which bin to put things in. I encourage folks to visit KennebunkportRecycle.com for much more information. And ecomaine has a terrific app, the Recyclopedia, that has more than 1,300 common waste items to search through. It is available in app stores and at ecomaine.org/101.
We hope to see you and your family at our recycling event this Saturday.
Jon Dykstra, Solid Waste/Recycling Committee
Kennebunkport
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