SPRINGFIELD – Recycling is rippled with challenges. Fortunately, the biggest one can be smoothed by cooperative residents.

Single-stream recycling is used in Effingham County. It was designed with customer convenience in mind. It reduces sorting requirements for residents with the hope that more reusable materials will make it to the curb for pickup.

Still, a considerable amount ends up in landfills because of avoidable contamination by things like greasy pizza boxes.

“A lot of trash is put into the residents’ recycle carts,” Atlantic Waste Services Vice President Brad Bowman said. “They use their recycle cart as a second container for trash.”

Atlantic Waste Services’ recycling carts – the ones with the yellow lid -- should be used only for plastic bottles, newspapers, mail, clean cardboard, aluminum cans and metal cans. Glass, Styrofoam, aerosol cans, wood and food-tainted products shouldn’t be placed in them.

The biggest contamination problem is broken glass, which can damage processing equipment and lessen the value of paper when it becomes embedded in the fibers. Residual liquids are also troublesome.

Contamination greatly increases the cost of recycling, Bowman said.

“When single stream became a big hit around 2007 or 2008, there was actually a rebate on it,” Bowman said. “You could get rid of it for nothing and maybe get back maybe 15 bucks (from the processing center). Now that average cost to get rid of it is $150 a ton. That’s the biggest misconception about recycling.

“It costs $150 a ton versus $75 a ton for trash.”

In the single-stream method, processors sort recyclable materials instead of residents.

“They run the risk of some of it being garbage. That’s why the cost is so much higher for recycling versus trash,” Bowman said.