Hey, Answer Girl -

I have been faithfully hauling my recyclables to the city centers. Now I hear that the city just loads up those items and takes them to the landfill. Tell me it isn't so!

-Casper Citizen

I'll tell you - it isn't so.

Jolene Martinez, public services department administrative analyst for the city, said the rumor of the dumped recyclables has dogged the city since recycling became available here.

After regular citizens like you take your recyclable items and place them in the appropriate containers at the city's recycling centers, all of those recyclables are then transported to Wyoming Recycling in Mills.

And no, Wyoming Recycling also doesn't just dump the recyclables. In fact, the business sells the recyclables after collecting them.

Martinez said that while the rumor is wholly untrue, there may be a few reasons why people believe it.

First, the truck that picks up Casper's recyclables from the centers looks an awful lot like a garbage truck - because it is a garbage truck! It's a specially designed recycling truck, according to Martinez, and it makes its way back and forth between the centers and Wyoming Recycling. Each categorized item - cardboard is one example, newspaper is another, plastic is another - is taken separately, so the items don't contaminate one another.

Another possible reason for the rumor, Martinez said, is that some items that are collected at the recycling centers around town aren't actually recycled.

The major example of this is glass. Any glass collected by the city is crushed and used on the animal pit at the landfill to keep vectors from taking animal parts and spreading them around where none of us wants them (on the playground of a nearby school or outside of a restaurant, for example).

"We are in hope that the glass recycling market will come back, and we'll be able to recycle glass again," Martinez said. For now, separating out the glass helps keep the garbage bailer, which is 20 years old, going. It breaks down if too-tough trash, like glass, gets in it, and "We like to keep our operation running," she said.

Phone books are another item that the city doesn't recycle. The books are often thrown in with newspaper, which actually contaminates the newspaper load.

If someone seriously contaminates a recycling load, by, say, throwing his or her deer carcass into the cardboard bin, the whole load has to be thrown away. That's just the way recycling works - the items have to be as pure as possible so they can be used again.

Martinez noted that doesn't happen often.

Contact reporter Megan Lee at (307) 266-0616 or megan.lee@trib.com

Ask Answer Girl

Answer Girl tackles questions about Casper, the universe and everything else. Submit your questions by email to megan.lee@trib.com, or call Megan Lee at 266-0616. You can also write to Answer Girl, Box 80, 170 Star Lane, Casper, WY, 82602.