Arlington Among North Texas Cities to Phase Out Plastic Bags From Curbside Recycling Program
Arlington residents are avid recyclers with over 90 percent participating in the curbside recycling program. Because of our community’s passion for sustainability, it is our goal to keep our residents informed of the state of recycling on a local, regional and national level.
As many of you have heard on the news, China, a major importer of domestic recyclables, has placed very stringent import restrictions on recyclable and in some cases, has even stopped importing specific types of materials all together. An informative article by Resource Recycling magazine provides an in-depth timeline of China’s National Sword detailing events leading to import restrictions of a variety of recyclable materials.
What does this mean to us on a local level? As recyclers scramble to find domestic buyers for recyclable materials, commodity prices of these materials took a deep dive. Mixed paper, for example, once fetched a price of $20-$25 per ton but is now selling at approximately $2-$3 per ton. Prices for plastics have dropped between 25-50 percent depending on the grade of plastic. In addition, recycling processors have slowed production lines and increased staffing to control contamination, leading to increased processing costs.
In anticipation of these challenges, the North Central Texas Council of Governments partnered with regional cities in 2018 and began planning for a Regional Recycling Campaign geared towards addressing contamination challenges in the region and educating residents to “Know What to Throw.” This regional project will kick off with a workshop on Monday, May 20 in Arlington and outline a detailed plan to address top contaminants in recycling streams such as plastic bags/films, organics/food, batteries and other “tanglers” as well as provide recycling educators access to customizable educational materials to share a common recycle message across our region.
It is important to note that plastic bags, although currently accepted in our curbside program, present numerous issues to recycling facilities by getting tangled in sorting equipment and because of their lightweight nature, being easily blown away during the sorting process. The low-grade quality of this type of plastic has made it increasingly difficult to find a buyer for plastic bags and films. Recently, Kroger announced it would begin phasing out single use plastic grocery bags at all of its locations by 2025 and other retailers, such as Aldi, have already followed suit.
Due to these increasing challenges regarding plastic bags and films, the City of Arlington’s Solid Waste and Recycling division will be working in conjunction with the North Central Texas Council of Governments and our regional partner cities to phase out grocery bags from the recycling stream. Residents are encouraged to use re-usable shopping totes or ask for paper bags upon checkout, as these are still accepted in Arlington’s curbside recycling program. Alternatively, residents may return grocery store shopping bags at drop-off bins located at most grocery store retailers.
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