Officials of the Leon County Waste Disposal Department have launched an initiative to educate residents on the right way of disposing campaign signs, with the elections right around the corner. Waste management officials in the county have requested the residents to dispose campaign signs and banners at the county's solid waste facility or the Marpan recycling unit.

Every time there is a huge public gathering, the city council goes through a lot of trouble in disposing off the collected waste. So, to make their work during the elections easier, the officials have set up Marpan recycling bins in various parts of the county this year.

Where to Recycle the Campaign Sign Boards

Most residents tend to throw away campaign signs in the normal waste disposal bins. But officials say that since these signs are made of corrugated plastic, it is not the correct way to dispose them off. Campaign signs and many other plastic banners are made up of corrugated plastic that can't be recycled. So, officials have requested the residents to help them dispose these boards in the right way. They have asked all the residents to dispose these signs in marked cans, instead of tossing them into the normal waste dumps.

Another way to dispose off campaign signs without harming the environment could be to drop them off at the county's solid waste disposal unit. The county plans to sell these sign boards back to companies that use corrugated plastic, and then those companies will help recycle these materials. But if these signs are mixed with normal waste, then the county will have to dump them into landfills. This is why county officials have asked residents to segregate campaign-related waste from normal waste.

Recycle Campaigning with Eco-Friendly Promotional Items

Carol Gentry, the Education Coordinator for solid waste management in Leon County, states that if the candidates and their supporters try and make an effort, they can carry out their entire campaign in an eco-friendly manner. She suggests that campaigning could be done using recycled paper or plastic that can be easily re-purposed after it is over. If the candidates use eco-friendly promotional items and handmade or cardboard banners, then they won't have to spend a lot of money on their campaign, and their campaign will also stand out from the others as well. Also, once the election campaigning is over, it would be very easy for the county to recycle these boards.

Now that the elections are over, all neighborhoods will be filled with overwhelming numbers of banners and campaign boards and the waste management officials are hoping that their initiative will help reduce the recycling burden, at least this year.

Source: http://www.tallahassee.com/article/20121105/NEWS01/311050020/Plastic-campaign-signs-shouldn-t-go-recycling-cart?nclick_check=1