GREENSBORO, N.C. — Plastic grocery bags serve a purpose, just not in your recycling bin. Just recently, the City of Winston-Salem posted a video of a recycling worker who had to climb into a machine to pull out plastic bags, which caused the machine to shut down.
“Any flexible plastic like this is not recyclable, and it’s actually our number one top contaminant in Greensboro, which is plastic bags and bagged recycling. It is super dangerous for the workers to have to go in and cut them out. It also wastes a lot of time because they have to shut down all the machinery and go in and cut it out,” said Masey DeMoss, Greensboro Recycling and Waste Reduction Educator.
Plastic bags are just one of the many items that can’t be put in recycling bins, but pile up like styrofoam take-out containers, batteries, and cans of paint. The City of Greensboro has a solution.
Recycling Rodeo for Greensboro & Guilford County Residents
Saturday, April 5, 2025, 9 am to 1 pm at Guilford Elementary
“These things are either hazardous to put in a landfill, they’re either hazardous to the people at the recycling center, or they simply need to go somewhere else to make it to be recycled. Batteries that you may have sitting around in a drawer, things like old electronics, anything with a cord, you can bring to be properly recycled and properly disposed of. Things like old laptops and small appliances,” said DeMoss…