Hood River Garbage restarts recycling services in the City of Hood River in July with a 2.61% recycling surcharge that will make it possible for the company to move some materials to recycle processors in Portland from three local jurisdictions: Hood River, Cascade Locks and Hood River County.
With this change, recycling of plastics will be limited to numbers 1 and 2 only, in addition to mixed paper, cardboard, tin, and motor oil for curbside pick-up. Larger volumes, plus other recyclables like scrap metal and batteries can be brought to the transfer station.
Hood River Garbage will no longer accept hard plastics (numbered 3 through 7) at the request of the MRF in order to make its comingled recycling more marketable. “Plastics 1 and 2 are by far the greatest volume and weight, and therefore more viable,” Winterbottom explains. “Plastics 3 to 7s are only useful in large quantities separate from the comingle stream, so they end up as leftovers, often landfilled.”
Since those habits must change slightly, the company now has added an interactive feature on its website and introduced a smartphone app — WasteConnect — that allows users to view garbage collection schedules and search for info on acceptable and unacceptable recycling items in a “waste wizard” search bar. The WasteConnect app is available for free download at the App store.