By Blair L. Pollock

Orange County Solid Waste Management Department

Upcoming: Shred-a-Thons, Making Your Own Worm Bin, Vintage Used Lumber Now For Sale, Start Seeing Roving Recyclers, Recycle Plastic Bottles -- it's the Law!

The next free Shred-a-Thon for confidential paper recycling will be Oct. 7 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at University Mall in the parking lot adjoining Dillards. The Chapel Hill Police Department, with sponsorship from the YMCA and assistance from Orange County Solid Waste Management, is hosting this event to enable people to safely recycle their confidential documents. Paper will be shredded by local firm A Shred Ahead. Keep all plastics, cardboard and other non-paper items out of the material you bring for shredding. Recycle cardboard boxes at the adjoining University Mall recycling site. The Solid Waste Department will conduct another free Shred-a -thon Nov. 14 at the Home Depot Recycling site in Hillsborough from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. if you miss this one. That event is limited to 10 boxes and Orange County residents only.

---

Also on On Oct. 7 from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Scrap Exchange, 548 Foster St. in Durham, Orange County's compost expert Muriel Williman, in conjunction with her counterpart from the Raleigh Solid Waste Department, Bianca Howard, will conduct a worm bin-making workshop. For $40 you can learn how to make an indoor vermicomopsting bin and take your very own bin home that night. As Muriel says, "Anyone ... anywhere ... can compost at home with a worm bin!"

Worm bins are specially designed for composting in apartments or tight spaces. Learn all you need to know to recycle your vegetable and fruit scraps, care for your worms, harvest the compost and feed your plants. Worm bins also make great gifts, so make and take two bins for only $12 more! This program is also a fund raiser for the Scrap Exchange.

---

Orange County Solid Waste continues to provide recycling services or assistance at a wide variety of venues and public events throughout the county including publicly run festivals and fairs such as the annual Festifall street fair in Chapel Hill on Oct. 4 from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. If you would like to volunteer to be a roving recycler at the fair, to help keep the quality of recycling high, contact Muriel Williman at williman@co.orange.nc.us. If you go, you can make the roving recyclers jobs easier by doing it yourself. Most garbage cans will have a companion orange recycling bin. You can't miss, toss it in, you're a winner every time!

---

A new state law that takes effect Oct. 1 makes it illegal to discard plastic bottles, wooden shipping pallets, oil filters and oyster shells. You can readily recycle all types of plastic bottles (those containers with a neck smaller than the base) at home or a nearby drop off site. Take off the caps and flatten them. If you're hosting an event contact us for technical assistance in reducing waste and providing recycling. With advance notice, we may be able to loan recycling bins for your event. Oil filters and wooden pallets can be recycled at the staffed solid waste convenience centers or the Orange County landfill. Oyster shells can be added to your compost pile or the edge of your garden or simply tossed harmlessly in the woods.

---

Speaking of managing discards, Orange County is now auctioning off multiple lots of used lumber acquired from deconstructing several buildings over the past several years including a 1910 farmhouse, a 1950s industrial training school building, a 1970s split level suburban style house and a 1920s home. Descriptions of the material with photographs and the auction protocol can be found on line at details on govdeals.com. Search under building supplies or Orange County. The online auction ends Oct. 6. Materials are predominantly a range of dimensional lumber and old siding. NOTE: There are no mantelpieces, moldings, wainscoting or other fine woodwork offered at this auction.

---

At the recycling drop-off sites and convenience centers, you may have noticed that there is now a single container for newspapers and glossy magazines where there were two. Despite their apparent difference in look, newspaper and magazines are the same kind of paper. The glossy magazines have a clay coating that enables a higher quality photograph. In the paper recycling process, the clay clumps together and attracts the inks as they're washed off the paper, so it is a desirable commodity.

Combining newspaper and magazines makes collection more efficient and as long as all you intrepid recyclers continue to do your part by separating properly and removing newspapers from plastic bags, the County will continue to receive a high price for the newspaper/magazine mix, helping to keep program costs down.

---

Beginning Sept. 21, the solid waste convenience centers will be open from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday, Tuesday and Friday, and from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday. They will be closed on Sunday and closed on Thursday as part of the new schedule.

---

Orange County in cooperation with Harris Teeter Inc and the American Chemistry Council is conducting a pilot program to increase plastic bag and film recycling at two local shopping centers anchored by Harris Teeter stores at Chapel Hill North and University Mall.

Various participating businesses at both locations are segregating their plastic film and bags using County-provided bins or roll carts, Then a mix of county staff, Harris Teeter employees and various store owners or workers are transferring the clean film over to Harris Teeter for inclusion with their bags and film for recycling into plastic lumber.

The county is monitoring the program and providing outreach and education to the stores using its intern, who is funded by the American Chemistry Council. If the pilot is successful, a manual and case study will be published to transfer this information to other shopping centers for replication.