Thank you so much for a great 2022 Earth Day collection! The Hilliard Environmental Sustainability Commission and Hilliard City have sponsored recycling events for years to divert hard-to-recycle material away from the landfill.
These items often included expanded polystyrene or ESP, also known as Styrofoam or e-waste. To accommodate confidential paper items, shredding was also offered.
The ESC and the city organized a recycling event last month, where 17,500 pounds of paper, 9,667 lbs of electronics, and approximately 2,000 lbs of Styrofoam was collected. More than 320 cars donated material. This was the largest turnout since the Earth Day Recycling event began almost a decade ago.
It is important to remember that although ESP cannot go in your curbside recycling bin collected by the municipality, it can be recycled. The foam densifier machine that we recently purchased to make bricks from the collected Styrofoam was able to turn the material into bricks at our collection site. This means that the material does not need to be transported to another county for processing as in previous years.
This material takes up a lot in landfills so it is best to densify it and then sell it to a third party to be reused in the manufacture of other materials like insulation, clothing hangers, ornamental moulds, and picture frames.
Non-working or old electronic items are not allowed in your curbside recycle container. However, specialized companies in our region should accept certain types e-waste (for instance, printers and computers) and either repair or salvage valuable metals (valuable metals).
RenTek, an e-waste business in the area, has been our partner to collect and process the electronic waste. The electronics collected will be used to teach job skills to more than 241 hours to RenTek’s training program participants.
Eye on the environment:Hilliard is so littered
A significant new development in recycling is the availability of a 24-hour drop-off Styrofoam container at the composting station at the city hall parking lot at 3800 Municipal Way. It is not collected at the community centre.
Styrofoam can be placed cleanly and tape-free (no peanuts please) at any time. This allows you to avoid the need to store bulky materials until the next recycling event. A drop-off bin for electronics recycling is also being considered. More information on this will be available later.
We are grateful to all Hilliard residents that participated in our recent recycling effort, which enabled us to divert a significant amount of waste from landfills. This is just one more way Hilliard is striving to be a model community for sustainable living.
Greg Smith is a member the Hilliard Environmental Sustainability Commission.
