Your recycling questions: answered!

SALISBURY — People often have questions about what exactly goes on at the transfer station.  Manager Brian Bartram answered some basic inquiries.

Bartram said that people often ask what happens to clothing that gets put in the clothing drop box in the transfer station. Some of it (about 45 percent) actually does get remade into clothing, or is sold as second-hand garments.

The rest of it is either ground up for its fiber content (and used to make things such as insulation) or cut into wiping cloths. So your teddy bear might live a second life as car-seat stuffing, your recycled jeans might become household insulation, and your old socks could end up as the stuffing of your new pillow.

The second most common question is whether paint can be recycled. The short answer is “yes,” depending on the condition and type of paint. Bartram said that latex paint can either be remanufactured into new paint or used to add color to cement dust or even wood mulch. 

However, oil-based paint would be “fuel-blended” and burned for energy recovery instead of being recycled, as it is considered hazardous.

The third question is whether caps should be recycled along with bottles, to which Bartram said “yes.”

“Currently, plastic manufacturers are looking to obtain more recycled PP [polypropylene, the material that bottle caps are made of] so they are happy to have more.” 

Don’t separate the bottle cap from the bottle, however, or it will fall into the discard line, because it is too small to make it through the sorting equipment.