When in doubt, give a shout: Reusable shopping bags?
RECYCLING. Your head scratchers answered.
Valerie Macchio, executive director of the Sparta Community Food Pantry, wanted to know whether the thousands of reusable grocery bags the pantry uses each month could be recycled.
No, is the usual answer. Although the bags are often made of recyclable material, “The paper/fabric reusable bags are a huge problem,” Macchio discovered.
“They are not recyclable in the typical sense. SCMUA (Sussex County Municipal Utility Authority) will not take quantity of these bags and the bags are thrown away and end up in the landfill.”
Donated by Ronetco ShopRite, the bags are indispensable for food distribution and the pantry has been getting more and more of them.
After some digging, the pantry found Goatote, a Hackettstown recycling company that cleans the bags per government regulations so they can be used again.
The pantry is working with ShopRites of Byram, Franklin, Sparta and Sussex to collect the reusable bags to ship them to the recycler.
Gently used reusable totes may be donated at the Sparta Food Pantry or at any of Sussex County ShopRites’ order pickup-delivery departments, said Kelsey Anderson of RoNetco Supermarkets.
Any bag too damaged for reuse is sent to another company for shredding, said Macchio.
“We at the Sparta Community Food Pantry recycled 7.5 tons of reusable bags in 2023,” said Macchio, who expects they did the same or more in 2024. “This is a great way to serve the community on a larger scale.”
Next up, your head scratcher. Send your question and selfie with the object in question to becca.tucker@strausnews.com, subject line “recycle?” along with your name and town.