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City of McAllen to host educational recycling event

By: Christian Von Preysing

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The McAllen Recycling Center takes in tons of material every day that are supposed to be recycled, but then there are items that are not. Those items are causing problems.

That's why the center will be hosting an event on Saturday to help teach people the correct way to recycle.

Trash is adding up at the recycling facility, which is causing losses in time and taxpayer money. After making recycling easy for residents, McAllen is pushing education.

"If you put in your recycling bin a tuna can, it's metal, you can recycle it. But if you put it there, and you didn't rinse it off, chances are that it's going to mess up the paper and the cardboard," Recycling Education Coordinator Abril Paz said.

Contamination, and other issues, are part of the problem at the Valley's largest recycling collection facility.

Recyclables inside plastic bags are one of the biggest problems.

"The machinery can get stuck with the plastic bags. Whenever you try to rip one apart, it takes a long time to actually break," Paz said.

She says more than a third of stuff that comes in isn't recyclable or ruins the load.

The center will be raising education on Saturday, Nov. 18 with a public event for Texas Recycles Day. The center will become a recycling university, so people can understand what they can recycle and what ends up in the dump.

For more information about the event, click here.

Watch the video above for the full story.

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