Candy Dann, Massachusetts DEP Municipal Assistance Coordinator, gave a log lunch talk on Friday about the recycling and trash in the state. Recycling is complicated! Waste is complicated. Whenever you throw something out, you are participating in mining, trucking, warehousing, marketing, and countless other obscure systems. We live in a society where everything is sterilized–we have a very high standard of cleanliness, and as a result, trash is hidden from ordinary sight. We don’t have to think about what happens after the raucous garbage trucks come and carry away our excrement–so we don’t.
But we have to, says Candy, if we want to protect the environment. 30% of waste is recycled in MA, which is great. But there are laws and regulations in place that a lot of people don’t know about–meaning things get recycled that can’t be, and things get trashed which could be recycled. Here 
are some noteworthy rules about recycling for the common populus:
- No food waste. Food cannot be recycled, including even the oil on a pizza box–the whole pizza box is trash.
- No diapers! No human or animal waste can be recycled.
- No clothing.
- No tanglers! No electric cords or anything tangly. This messes with the conveyor belts that recylables ride on.
This is the first time in a long time that the economy is picking up, and trash isn’t. Let’s keep it that way.
—Jane Tekin, ’19