In January 2019, I created our inaugural First Sunday Styrofoam Collection pop-up to gauge the interest and willingness of islanders to divert a variety of foam and plastics from our traditional waste stream.
Thank you, Vashon, for attending these recycling events. Thank you to our 50-strong group of volunteers who work diligently and brilliantly to keep this program moving and improving.
Islanders have shown up and we are now serving more than 500 Vashon households each month. We also manage the plastic waste from many island organizations, including Vashon CoHousing, Ace Hardware, Vashon Island Estate Sales, Granny’s, Sawbones, The Burton Community and the Sheffield Building.
Your involvement shows no signs of slowing down.
Here’s how it works: We currently manage two waste streams — we call them “Option 1” and “Option 2.”
Briefly, “Option 1” items are delivered by our volunteers weekly to StyroRecycle, in Kent. These items are actually recycled and must therefore be clean and dry. “Option 2” items are collected by a Seattle company called DTG Recycle. The plastics they process are made into an alternative fuel for the cement industry. They do not need to be clean or dry.
For more information, please visit zerowastevashon.org to download our PDF of “What we accept/sorting guide.”
Here are some tips to manage your holiday wrapping and packaging.
• Please wrap your gifts with reused wrapping, fabric, bandannas, etc. Please keep and re-use what you can for next year.
• Recycle plain paper and plain paper gift bags with co-mingled recycling at the Transfer Station (excluding tissue paper).
• First Sunday “Option 2” can accept metallic or glitter wrapping paper and gift bags, bows, ribbon and tinsel, and tissue paper.
• All foam and plastic film and other plastic packaging can be accepted at our First Sunday events. Please have peanuts securely contained, and please refer to our sorting guide.
• As a default, everything can be considered “Option 2” if you don’t have the opportunity to sort items properly.
• Additionally, we will be collecting Christmas lights at our Jan. 2 and Feb. 6 events.
Programs like this work because of relationships between people.
In January of 2019, an auspicious meeting with Kimberly Norris-Kyles forged a relationship with the Vashon Food Bank that allows us to use their truck to take recyclables off the island.
We now run our monthly events from the Sheffield Building, thanks to the generous support of Tom Bangasser. Jacquie Perry stepped up and became my first partner and volunteer coordinator in 2019. Steve Bergman and Will Lockwood quickly became our liaisons with Zero Waste Vashon.
Each monthly event requires us to have a staff of 30. We also have drivers who, every week, deliver the “Option 1” clean recyclables to StyroRecycle and then pick up and deliver necessary items to the Food Bank upon return.
In August of this year, we officially partnered with Zero Waste Vashon. This relationship has provided us with a nonprofit infrastructure, a dedicated group of like-minded talented folks, liability insurance for our ongoing events and allows us to more readily move forward in our quest to engineer a partnership with King County Solid Waste (KCSW).
The waste that KCSW collects from Vashon represents only 1% of the intake in King County. By taking part in and financially supporting our monthly events, islanders have an opportunity to demonstrate the willingness of a community to shift its purchasing and waste stream habits. We have the ear of KCSW management and have proposed that they expand the services offered at our local Transfer Station. This includes plastics recovery as well as construction/demolition waste.
Our goal is to create a model system that can be scaled for different communities so that we can recover the value in the things we currently discard and move toward a more circular economy.
Islanders also now have a curbside option for many difficult to recycle items, including plastic film — a Seattle company, Ridwell, is expanding their subscription curbside collection service to Vashon. Please check it out.
I challenge each of you to evaluate your purchases and trash for the next month. See how much you can keep out of your trashcan. No “wish-cycling” please. Co-mingled recycling still goes to the transfer station or your curbside vendor.
By attending our collection events, nearly all plastics can stay out of the landfill and ultimately out of Puget Sound and our shorelines.
Our next First Sunday Styro and Plastics collection event is on Jan. 2, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Sheffield Building, 18850 103rd Ave. SW. See you there.
Questions? Please contact me at nadine@nadineedelstein.com. If you’d like to become a volunteer, please contact Jacquie at jacquieperry@comcast.net. Financial contributions can be made at the events or online at zerowastevashon.org.
Nadine Edelstein is a tile installer and mosaic artist. She is the director of Zero Waste Vashon’s First Sunday Styrofoam and Plastics Recycling event. Her photograph is by Terry Donnelly.
