Monterey county recycling plant explains how to properly dispose of holiday waste

The Monterey Regional Waste Management District says the waste at their recycling plant increases by 15-20% during the holiday season.

This is the season for gift giving, but there's an unintended consequence of showing how much you care through material items.

“We help call it the Amazon effect, which is represented in the increase in cardboard that we get through the facility during this time of year,” Monterey Regional Waste Management District General Manager Tim Flanagan said.

The Monterey Regional Waste Management District says that those cardboard boxes can be placed in the recycling bin outside your house.

But what about lights and other decorations? It turns out there's an app for that called "What Goes Where."

“Let’s say they want to know what to do with an aerosol can or a pizza box," Flanagan said. "They can type that item in there, put it on their phone, and it’ll pull p their answer to that. And it’ll tell you by zip code what you can do with it.”

If you don't have a smartphone, you can also access the information on a web browser.

But the recycling industry faces other challenges that come with the increase in waste around the holidays.

As Flanagan explained, China “2018, China closed off all of its ports for recycling from the United States,” Flanagan said.

What that means is recycling plants like this one have had to find other countries to take in the product of their processed cardboard, plastic, and paper.

“So, not only have we had to find other markets, but the material we ship has to meet a higher level of contamination-free loads," Flanagan said. "It went from about 10% contamination to .5%.”

So, the Waste Management District recommends being more careful when you toss something in the recycling bin this season--especially food and clothes.

“If they can keep that out of the recycling, it makes our job here easier,” Flanagan said.

If you have some items that you think someone else might still be able to use in some way, the Waste Management District also has a store on-site called the "Last Chance Mercantile." It accepts all kinds of things--including holiday decorations--and sells them at a low cost. The idea behind it is to encourage reuse.