Zero waste is all about sorting.

In today's increasing environmental awareness, sorting our waste streams into recyclables, reusables, compostables (and some trash) is a skill we all strive to perfect in our quest for zero waste. It's the same at Dairy Creek Zero Waste Park, where we all work together to reduce the amount of contamination in the sorted catagories.

We have organized our clubhouse compost, recycle and trash recepticles and placed signage instructing golfers and course staff where to place the various items we expect to generate on site. Sometimes unspecified items come in from offsite or confused depositors put the wrong items in the wrong can. That's OK, When we empty the cans, we sort again to fish recyclables out of the trash can, and trash or compost out of the recyclables.

The food waste is often contaminated as well. What we encounter in the food wastes we get from the kitchen is plastic wraps, straws, rubber gloves, aluminum foil and little plastic dipping sauce cups. We fish the plastic out of the food wastes as we load it into the compost vessel. Sometimes we miss some plastic and we just keep picking it out of the composter or finally, out of the finished compost before it's used on the course.

Sorting and processing is what we're all tasked to do, whether at work or at home. No longer can we leave it all up to someone else to unwrap the stinking sandwich from the plastic wrap before we throw it in the trash. Take a minute and unwrap it and throw the plastic in the reclycler and the sandwich in the compost, OK?  If we really care about the local or global environment, we should all take a minute more to sort or process any waste products with which we come into contact.

In our municipality, we have special material recovery facilities at the landfill site that have expert workers and automated sorting technologies to recover all recyclables. I always tell visitors to the zero waste park that when there's a question as to whether something is recyclable or not, put it in the recycle bin because the experts and machines have the last look.

Please sort responsibly.