14 | SUNRAYS JULY 2014
ONLINE:
SCTXCA.ORG
I
t would be hard to find anyone more
passionate about garbage than the
City of Georgetown’s Jordan Fengel.
As Solid Waste/Recycling Coordinator,
Jordan’s words tumble over each other in
his excitement about where the city wants
to go with recycling, and how a recent au-
dit of Sun City Texas’ recyclables showed
the community to be a “poster child” for
participation and appropriate use.
Almost 16 tons of Sun City recycling
were evaluated, with 89 percent deemed
appropriate for the recycling program.
Among the largest categories of recycling
were newspaper at 17 percent; mixed
paper (junk mail, inserts, magazines)
at 28 percent; cardboard at 14 percent;
glass at 20 percent. The next largest cat-
egory, at 11 percent, was what Jordan
calls “residual” trash: items inappro-
priately placed in recycling containers,
such as Styrofoam, venetian blinds, and
plastic bags.
But, wait—plastic bags are recyclable,
aren’t they? Most recycling programs do
not take plastic bags, so Georgetown’s
program is somewhat unique. A signifi-
cant issue for the city is inappropriate
use of the yellow bags that are provided
to hold the plastic bags.
Bag Those Bags!
The yellow bags, which the city buys
and provides for free to Sun City Texas
residents through the Monitors at both
amenity centers, are specially designed
and vented to assure that when they are
stuffed full and compacted, they will not
burst and scatter the contents. Loose plas-
tic bags or plastic bags stuffed into other
plastic bags that are put directly into our
recycling bins must be manually picked
out and processed as regular trash.
About 2,000 yellow bags are provided
each month to Sun City Texas residents,
but Jordan says the evidence is that resi-
dents are tossing the yellow bags into
recycling containers each pick-up date,
regardless of how full they are. They
should actually be able to accommo-
date four to six weeks of bag collection,
and will compact better when they are
stuffed full.
Continued Success & New
Prospects
The audit of Sun City’s recyclables is
part of Georgetown’s effort to find out
how various parts of the city are per-
forming, and to target future educational
efforts based on identified needs. “People
in Sun City have a good understanding
of the program and are good partici-
pants; they just seem to have a better
comprehension of the importance of re-
source management and conservation,”
Jordan says.
He is anxious to provide even more op-
portunities to recycle. A mattress-recy-
cling program is under development, and
he hopes to be able to bring prescription
drop boxes, composting, light bulb drop-
offs and Christmas wrapping paper pick-
ups to Georgetown customers.
The Benefits
What actually becomes of all this re-
cycled stuff? Plastic containers can be
made into bottles, fabrics, carpet, and
even car bumpers. Glass can be used
in a road base, or as soil filler. Plastic
bags turn into more plastic bags, or into
plastic fluff that can be used in furni-
ture manufacturing. What about that
soda you drank from the can today? Half
the can is probably already made from
recycled material and, if you put your
can back in recycling today, chances are
it will be back on the store shelf in 90
days. With one of the three Central Tex-
as landfills scheduled to close in 2015,
Jordan is keen to continue the search for
recycling opportunities and to highlight
Sun City Texas as a model for participa-
tion as he seeks to spread the word about
recycling’s benefits.
Audit shows Sun City Texas as ‘Poster Child’
for Community Recycling
A Model of
Participation
By Sandy Nielsen
