Residents who use Colfax SW&R will have six months to implement clear plastic bags
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Editor’s note: LeAnn R. Ralph serves on the Colfax Solid Waste & Recycling Committee as the representative for the Town of Otter Creek.
By LeAnn R. Ralph
ELK MOUND — Residents who use the Colfax solid waste and recycling sites at Colfax and Elk Mound will have six months to implement the use of clear plastic bags for trash.
The move toward using clear bags has “created issues,” said Terry Stamm, village president, at the Elk Mound Village Board’s December 20 meeting.
Colfax Solid Waste & Recycling will be flexible about the use of clear plastic bags from January 1 to June 30, Stamm said.
Stamm serves on the Colfax Solid Waste & Recycling Committee as the representative for the Village of Elk Mound and manages the solid waste and recycling program along with Lynn Niggemann, Colfax village administrator-clerk-treasurer.
One of the issues seems to revolve around people who have just purchased some other kind of trash bag rather than clear plastic and do not want them to go to waste, he said.
Since residents will have six months, that will give them time to use up bags that are not clear plastic.
Since recycling at the Colfax and Elk Mound sites is now currently single stream, which means recyclables do not have to be sorted, some people are using regular garbage bags to carry the recyclables to the compactor and then emptying the plastic bag.
Plastic bags cannot be put in with the recyclables because the plastic bags will create problems with the machines that sort the recyclables.
People have also complained that the Colfax Responsible Unit cannot recycle plastic shopping bags or trash bags.
State law requires all municipalities to be their own RU or to join another RU for recycling.
There are containers now at the sites where people can place their plastic shopping bags and other plastic bags, and they will be taken to another site for recycling.
For the Colfax RU to prepare to recycle plastic bags would have required purchasing a baler for that purpose and then storing all of the plastic bags somewhere until enough had accumulated to make a bale.
Companies that recycle plastic bags would not have accepted only one bale at a time, however, and the Colfax RU would have had to accumulate enough bales of plastic bags for a semi-truck load.
Colfax Solid Waste & Recycling has one collection site west of Colfax off state Highway 170, and one collection site north of Elk Mound off county Highway H.
Reasons
One of the reasons for requiring the use of clear plastic bags for trash is that some of the people who use the collection sites are highly resistant to recycling, Stamm said.
If the trash comes in clear plastic bags, then the attendants can more easily see if there are recyclables mixed in with the trash, he said.
If the attendants can tell, such as by the rattling of aluminum cans or glass bottles, that there are recyclables mixed in with the trash in a black garbage bag, the collection site attendants have had to cut open the bags to retrieve the recyclables.
Needles for injecting medication, such as insulin for diabetics, have also been found in the trash.
“The worst thing is the sharps,” Stamm told the Elk Mound Village Board.
If the attendants have to rummage through bags of trash to retrieve recyclables and there are needles in the trash, they run the risk of being poked by someone else’s needle.
On the Wednesday of the Elk Mound Village Board meeting, Stamm said he had taken five cases of sharps to Colfax for disposal.
Prior to this, people were mostly putting their sharps in the trash bags that they brought to the Elk Mound site, he said.
Poor attitude
In addition, some of the residents who have used the collection sites who do not want to recycle have been belligerent toward the site attendants to the point where the site attendants have become concerned for their own well-being.
Some of the site attendants have said they would quit their jobs if Colfax Solid Waste & Recycling did not implement the use of clear plastic bags for trash.
As is the case in all job areas, finding people to work at the collection sites has been challenging at times, since the job requires a time commitment of every Wednesday afternoon and all day on Saturdays.
The attendants currently working at the collection sites are dedicated to doing the best job they can and are trying to uphold state law by keeping recyclables out of the trash.
The DNR requires a certain number of pounds of recyclables to be collected each year per resident, and the Colfax RU has not yet met the requirement.
To try to meet the requirement, Colfax Solid Waste & Recycling continues to attempt to educate residents on what can and must be recycled according to state law.
Sources
Stamm said that he and Niggemann are continuing to look for sources for clear plastic bags.
“We are trying to find cheaper bags,” he said.
Residents currently can buy bags at the collection sites at a rate of three bags for $1, or four 13-gallon bags for $1, Stamm said.
The smaller bags are offered so that people who are elderly or have some kind of physical disability will more easily be able to lift the bags of trash into the compactor, he said.
The bags are for sale at the collection sites on the days the sites are open, Stamm noted.
Woodman’s Market now carries clear plastic trash bags too, he said.
Clear plastic garbage bags are available for purchase on-line as well from a variety of sources.
Christmas paper
At this time of year, people also should be aware that tissue paper and colored wrapping paper used for wrapping gifts is not recyclable.
Tissue paper and colored wrapping paper should be disposed of in the trash.
Two sites
Although residents in the member towns and villages can take their trash to either Colfax or Elk Mound, the two sites are operated as the “Colfax side” and the “Elk Mound side.”
Members on the Colfax side are the Village of Colfax and the Towns of Colfax, Grant, Otter Creek, Tainter and Wilson.
Members on the Elk Mound side are the Village of Elk Mound and the Towns of Elk Mound and Spring Brook.
All together, the member municipalities in Colfax Solid Waste & Recycling have about 10,000 residents.
Residents should have received a solid waste and recycling permit for 2024 in the mail during the month of December.
If you did not receive solid waste and recycling permits in the mail, contact your local municipal clerk.
All of the municipalities in the Colfax RU pay a per capita fee for solid waste and recycling. Some of the municipalities pay the fee by including it in their property tax levy, which means the municipality does not have that sum of money available for something else, such as fixing roads.
Some of the municipalities invoice their residents separately for the solid waste and recycling fee.
