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All 11 Wake County convenience centers offer mixed recycling collection, but a growing percentage of the material being put in those containers doesn’t belong in the mix. From April 2020 to April 2023, the contamination rate in our recycling program rose to 13.8%. Contaminants can damage the equipment used at recycling sorting centers, cause injury to recycling workers, and decrease the economic value of the paper, metals, glass and plastics that manufacturers want.
Wake County Solid Waste staff collaborated with the County’s Innovation team to better understand how residents experience recycling at convenience centers. The year-long project included surveys of nearly 1,800 customers at six convenience centers and in-depth interviews with residents and site attendants. The project team experimented with using outreach staff to answer questions at the convenience center off of Durham Road/N.C. 98 in Wake Forest (Site 8) and tried out new signage at the convenience center on Battle Bridge Road east of Raleigh (Site 5).
We learned that residents want to recycle correctly, but need better information about what materials to bring and how to prepare them. Plastic waste is especially confusing because many plastic items are stamped with a recycling symbol, but very little of it is designed to be recycled! Survey respondents told us that they rely on signage at the sites and wake.gov for clear, consistent guidance on recycling. The Contamination Reduction Project research phase has ended, but we will use our new understanding to improve signage at our convenience centers and update our webpages over the next few months.
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