So, you want to do the right thing by recycling, but don’t know which items are accepted or how to recycle them? Well, here are a few things to know.
Recycling in Walton County is voluntary, but every item you recycle will save space in our landfill and add years before new landfills are needed. Walton County recycles through the use of drop-off trailers. Go to co.walton.fl.us/200/Recycling for a map of these trailer locations and a full list of what is and is not accepted.
So, what is accepted for recycling? Plastics marked with numbers 1 and 2, aluminum cans, clean cardboard, and paper materials, including junk mail, newspapers and magazines.
What is NOT accepted? Generally, plastics with any other number, pizza boxes (due to the grease), plastic grocery bags, tin cans, styrofoam, chemicals, and glass. The Democratic Environmental Caucus of Walton County created a handy recycling guide for these items and more. You can access that at: https://waltoncountydwc.org/recycling.
To make your items fully recyclable at the trailers, please:
- empty your recyclables directly into the trailers if they are in a plastic garbage bag. Do NOT put the bag in the trailer.
- do not crush aluminum cans or plastic bottles.
- break down and flatten cardboard.
- do not throw unacceptable items or household garbage into trailers. This slows down the sorting process and can render an entire trailer non-recyclable.
- do not leave anything on the ground at the trailers or use the trailer locations as dumps for mattresses and other non-recyclable items or chemicals, such as paint, cleaners or pesticides.
In South Walton, a new site for the disposal of appliances and electronics has opened at 970 S. County Hwy 83 (Blue Mountain Beach Road). There are two trailers accepting bulk waste. This includes electronics, appliances (white goods), household furniture, yard toys, lawnmowers, and building material waste from do-it-yourself projects. Appliances and lawnmowers should be free of Freon, gas/oil, and any other chemicals. No batteries or mattresses are accepted.
Waste Management is finishing construction, with plans to start their new recycling facility sometime in 2024. It will be located in Okaloosa County but will offer curbside recycling across the Gulf Coast region.
While not all of the details or the cost of this new service have been released yet, we invite you to join us in learning more during the Second Annual Earth Day Town Hall, on Saturday, April 20, from Noon to 3 p.m. at Padgett Park in Santa Rosa Beach. Our featured speaker will be a representative of Waste Management sharing their plans for single-stream curbside recycling here in Walton County.
A full list of speakers, sponsors and events is available on the Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/WCDECF or send an email to Walton.Environmentalists@gmail.com. Please join us to learn simple things you can do to protect the environment. If we all do our part, we can keep Walton County beautiful for generations to come. After all, isn’t that why we live here?
Author: Sowal Editor
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