Recycling handlers across the state are concerned about coronavirus exposure despite federal reassurance. The current federal guidance from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to municipal waste operators is that they can keep handling people’s trash and recyclables in the usual way without an extra risk of picking up coronavirus.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 surprising to many of our members and they want to take additional steps,” says Reagan Bissonnette, the executive director of the Northeast Resource Recovery Association.
In the case of medical waste that is known or has potential coronavirus contamination, OSHA says that can be handled like other medical waste. On Friday, the association had a virtual meeting with about 40 of its members to talk about how they鈥檙e addressing the coronavirus in terms of facility operations.
Bissonnette she鈥檚 seeing a range of tactics implemented by solid waste operators.聽On one end, some municipalities that sort recycling are closing their recycling centers, asking residents to either store those recyclables or put them in the trash.
鈥淚n the long term, this increased amount of solid waste that鈥檚 being generated is going to really increase costs for municipalities 鈥� especially for communities that separate their material at their transfer station 鈥� it鈥檚 going to be much more expensive to throw away their recyclables,鈥� she said.