During a recent tour of a giant building filled with the heaping mounds of stuff we throw into recycling bins, one of the workers who spends his hours performing the thankless task of pulling out junk that we shouldn’t have thrown in the cardboard stream was seen wrestling with a thick band of iron.
As he extracted the loop of metal from a conveyor belt filled with cereal boxes and juice cartons, he negotiated the tangled mess into its original shape — it was the frame of what was once an oversized Christmas stocking, maybe something you’d hang on a wall or plant in a front yard.
He smiled at visitors touring the processing plant. “We get everything,” he said, shaking his head.
To be fair, whoever tossed the old decoration in their recycling bin probably had good intentions, and at least they didn’t pitch it in the trash, knowing and not caring it would end up in a landfill that sits in someone else’s backyard.
For those and other people who generate a headache when debating whether to trash, recycle, scrap or donate, salvation arrives this Saturday in the form of Recycle-O-Rama, an annual drop-off event sponsored by the Solid Waste Agency of Lake County (SWALCO). The event accepts nearly everything under the sun that isn’t wildly toxic or hazardous.
An information page at www.swalco.org says that this collection is intended to “find sustainable solutions for hard-to-recycle items around the home,” and its list — in both printed and photographic form — makes you wonder why anything would end up in a landfill besides pre-chewed food.
Household electronics like televisions and computers. CDs, DVDs and video cassettes. Cell phones. Batteries in household, automotive and marine form. And, yes, holiday lights, as that Christmas stocking might once have included on its fringe..
Clothing is accepted in “new, gently used or worn” condition and in “all sizes, all fabrics, all types.” The published list specifically mentions gently used prom dresses for donation to the Glass Slipper Project, which helps kids deal with the runaway cost of 21st-century prom wear.
Hearing aids and eyeglasses. Crayons and inkjet cartridges. Keys and car seats. Propane tanks and smoke detectors.
Basically, if you’ve ever paused above the recycling bin with a wine cork or a tennis ball, the moment you’ve been waiting for will arrive between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 24, at the Lake County Division of Transportation facility, 600 W. Winchester Road in Libertyville.
Call (847) 337-4954 to check and see if they’ll take what you’ve got — and, yes, they will take wine corks and tennis balls.
Twitter @NewsSunDanMoran
