380th AEW's recycling program expands Published March 7, 2011 By Mr. Curt Williams 380th Expeditionary Civil Engineer Squadron SOUTHWEST ASIA -- There's a new bin in town. When you stroll down Phantom's streets, take notice of the various color recycling bins. In addition to collecting aluminum cans, shredded white paper and cardboard, light blue collection bins and dumpsters have been recently distributed to help expand the program to capture plastic water bottles. The recycle program will continue to expand to additional areas which have recyclable material as the number of collection bins and dumpsters increase. Other materials already being recycled include scrap metals, used oils and fuels, and lead from batteries. It's key to note that collection bins and receiving dumpsters are color-coded, yellow for aluminum cans, light blue for plastic water bottles, white for bagged shredded paper and desert tan for flattened cardboard. As the contract vendor provides more collection dumpsters, the program will expand throughout the Phantom areas and into the Operations and Maintenance side of the base. It's crucial for dormitory bay, shop and office chiefs to inform their personnel to use these collection bins. Also personnel should be designated to pull bagged items from the bins and place them into the correct color-coded/labeled receiving dumpster. The labeled and color-coded collection dumpsters will be positioned to accept bagged shredded white paper and flattened cardboard at select buildings which produce these items. The recycling and hazardous waste removal contract with a local vendor is at no cost to the government. This contract redirects our hazardous and solid waste streams to marketable recycling avenues, preventing disposal into our host nation sanitary land fills. Forty percent of all of profits will be returned to the base to fund select areas within the environmental program and special MWR requirements and events. This program's success depends on the entire base population's participation, military and civilian, to place the correct items into the correct bins. The program has 100 percent wing command support to minimize our solid and hazardous waste stream -- do the right thing and help generate money back to the base. Placing the wrong item into the wrong dumpster causes collection problems. By mixing items or discarding normal trash into the recycle containers means somebody has to go into that dumpster, pull out the undesirable trash and re-bag the items correctly. It turns something simple into something more labor intensive. All collection bins are purposely color-coded and labeled to match with the collection dumpsters that receive the recyclable material from the individual collection bins. Additionally, the aluminum cans and plastic bottles must remain free of foreign debris (i.e. no cigarette butts, sunflower seeds, gum and other forms of unwanted trash) prior to being placed in the bins. Avoid mixing trash that would normally be disposed of in the dark blue trash dumpsters. Mixing of trash with recyclable materials decreases the sales value of a marketable item. The recycling program remains very positive on base as many Airmen and Soldiers are already accustomed to recycling at respective home duty stations. The 380th Expeditionary Civil Engineer Squadron environmental office encourages everyone to do their part. When recycled properly, valuable materials normally discarded in the refuse dumpsters can help generate revenue back to the base and help minimize disposal into the host nation's land fills. The wing wins when everyone pitches in. For more information on the recycling program, call Mr. Thomas "TK" Allen, 380th ECES environmental operations manager at 434-2536. (Also contributing to this article is Staff Sgt. Jeremy Larlee)