Harter’s wants to end collection of some recyclables

La Crosse and Onalaska have single-stream recycling and nearly everything can go in the curbside bins.

That, however, may not happen much longer.

Harter’s Quick Clean Up wants to end collection of certain current recycled plastics. The company is asking that some of those plastics no longer be accepted — mostly because there’s just no market for them, says Matt Harter. But, the general manager of Green Circle Recycling, which handles all recyclables for Harter’s, also says they’re just a costly nuisance

“They’re less than 1 percent of the overall stream and actually, less than half of 1 percent of the overall stream,” Harter said. “They’re not very large but they do contaminate and it costs additional effort and money and labor to pull those out. And, they’re not recyclable anyway.”

Harter added that the request is part of the fallout from China’s recent restrictions on waste it would accept.

“That’s just a hurdle, that, you know, not just in the short term, but in the long term it’ll all work out,” Harter said. “When I say short term ,it might be a couple years before Infrastructure develops to help absorb that material.”

Harter’s is requesting #3, #6 and #7 plastics be removed from the list of acceptable recyclable plastics in the recycling stream from both Onalaska and La Crosse.

Harter added they would welcome picking up those types of recyclables again if a market emerges to sell them.