TOWN OF RODMAN, New York (WWNY) – You’ve heard of dumpster diving, but how about landfill diving? It’s happening at the regional landfill in Rodman.
They aren’t looking for treasure, but for things that you throw away that should have been recycled.
Sorting through trash is not on everyone’s to-do list, but it’s what researchers from SUNY Stony Brook are doing at the Development Authority of the North Country, or DANC’s Solid Waste Facility in Rodman.
“The Stony Brook team comes up. We do 13 samples – approximately 3,000 pounds of municipal solid waste. And it’s categorized into 69 different categories. It just gives us an insight into what’s in our local waste stream,” said DANC Recycling Coordinator John Phelps.
They take in samples of trash from Jefferson, Lewis, and St. Lawrence counties, sort it, bag it up, and weigh it. Then start over with a different town or village.
“We used to be all students working on this, and these days we want to share all the data, and push the education, the outreach, and so people know what’s recyclable. For us, it’s, it’s just fun too,” said Yiyi Wang, SUNY Stony Brook researcher.
The goal is to educate people that a lot of recycling materials end up in the landfill. At this facility and at many others across the state, there’s a high amount of plastics, paper and food that could have been recycled or composted instead.
“Recycling is extremely important, so this shows us how well or poorly residents are doing in terms of recycling. And it helps us formulate our annual plan for education and community outreach to help improve that process,” said Phelps.
A common misconception is that recycling doesn’t matter, that trash, plastic, and paper all go to the same place. Well, officials say that couldn’t be further from the truth.
“Recycling is not allowed at the landfill. We do weekly inspections to make sure that it doesn’t, and if we do find it, then fines are issued. Recycling is still extremely important,” said Phelps.
The team will spend the week at the Rodman landfill collecting the data.
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