(2/24/2020) - Bay City is kicking off a new recycling campaign which will help support the largest expansion of recycling in city history.
Officials from Mid-Michigan and the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) announced the new program on Monday.
"We are announcing a first-of-its-kind education partnership with the Michigan Department of Environmental, Great Lakes, and Energy," Bay City Mayor Kathleen Newsham said at the event.
The partnership is a new multimedia marketing, outreach, and engagement campaign that is part of EGLE's statewide "Know It Before You Throw It" awareness effort.
The effort is designed to help educate the public about what can and cannot be recycled. Specifically wire hangers, plastic shopping bags, and foam packaging because those can cause damage to recycling equipment.
"Those items, they damage the equipment, they take time for staff to clear out and it costs money to deal with," said Elizabeth Browne, the assistant director of the materials management division for EGLE.
The campaign is the first time Michigan has a launched a "hyper-local" education campaign targeting specific recyclable items since the state passed the bottle deposit law more than 40 years ago.
According to Browne, the state of Michigan has one of the lowest recycling rates in the country at around 15 percent.
In Bay City, it is slightly higher. According to the city's parks and environmental affairs manager, Tim Botzau, the city's recycling rate is around 20 percent.
"Recycling is important for us now but also for our children and the environment in our future," he said.
This year, the state has increased funding to EGLE's recycling projects in a big way. Browne said that funds have increased from $2 million last fiscal year to $15 million this year. This is in an effort to get more people to recycle.
In attendance of Monday's announcement was State Representative Brian Elder. Elder represents the 96th House District, which includes Bay City.
He said adding funds to recycling programs is worth the cost.
"What's the cost of not handling our recyclables in the correct way?," he asked. "Landfills are going to get filled up and if we don't use them properly, then we are going to have a much bigger cost on our hands."
He also said that this new program will help the state keep up in a changing recycling industry.
"The way in which we used to recycle was that all matter of things could be sent to companies that would send it to China and other countries," Elder said. "And they are starting to push back on that so we have to become smarter about exactly how we engage about recycling to make sure we are using our facilities in the best way possible."
Bay City is among six other communities teaming with EGLE for similar campaigns this year. Other communities include Oakland and Emmet counties and the cities of Grand Rapids, Lansing, and Marquette.
All of this will coincide with Bay City's new recycling drop-off site that is expected to open in May.