DAVENPORT, Iowa — It's the busiest time of the year at the Scott County Recycling Center. According to Megan Fox with Waste Commission of Scott County, it's processing an average of 90 to 100 tons of recyclables a day.
"Starting right after Thanksgiving, all the way until about mid-January, we see a lot more tonnage come in. We work a lot more hours to manage that tonnage," Fox said. "It's a crazy time of year."
Fox estimates that it's about a 10% increase in materials. Workers are also averaging 50 hours a week during the holiday, instead of the usual 40, to handle the increase, she added.
"We really manage our time differently during the holiday time, especially our staffing time," Fox said. "We run a little quicker. we have extra staff to manage those materials."
Scott County residents can recycle many holiday items through either the curbside or drop-off recycling programs. Items that can be recycled include boxes, wrapping paper tubes, gift/shopping bags made of paper, tissue paper, greeting cards and envelopes (including photo cards), newspapers, advertisements, magazines and catalogs, plastic bottles and jugs, glass bottles and jars, aluminum and steel cans, and aluminum pie plates, clean foil and cookie/popcorn tins.
Christmas lights can be recycled at the Electronic Recovery Center.
Items that can't be recycled include plastic bags and films, Styrofoam, wrapping paper, bows and ribbons
"Things we don't want to see are glittery gift bags, a lot of wrapping paper comes with a lot of heavy prints on it, so it's really saturated with that ink," Fox said. "And we want to make sure batteries, any batteries that you have, and even holiday gift cards that have a singing inside them, we want to give those out of the recycling beds."
The Scott County Recycling Center also does not handle live or artificial Christmas trees. Fox explained that the artificial trees are considered contaminants to the recycling process and should not be placed in curbside or drop-off recycling containers.
Real Christmas trees can be taken to a dump or compost facility, or Davenport and Bettendorf residents will have the option of curbside pick up through the first week of January., according to Fox. All ornaments, tree stands and plastic must be removed.
The city of Rock Island will also be offering curbside pick up for Christmas trees from Dec. 27 to Jan. 7. Trees must be placed at least 3 feet away from garbage carts to guarantee collection of both the Christmas trees and the garbage carts.