Charlotte mandate requires paper bags for yard waste starting July 5

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Starting July 5, you will no longer be able to use plastic bags for yard waste — that's according to a mandate by the City of Charlotte. 

A few miles south of Charlotte Douglas Airport lies huge mounds of yard waste. Jeff Smithberger oversees the operations there as the solid waste director for Mecklenburg County. 

His crews have been picking out plastic from these mounds since November. Smithberger said they're down to 3,000 tons of plastic waste, but they started with between 10,000 and 13,000 tons. 

The process may look like plastic bags are being recycled and yard waste is turning to compost, but that's not exactly what's happening. The bags can't be recycled and are actually going to landfills, polluting the environment. 

"It’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of effort and all of the plastic that you see here will have to be discarded in a landfill because it's too heavily contaminated to be able to recycle," Smitherberger said. 

To cut down on increasing yard waste, the City of Charlotte said it will only collect yard waste in paper bags starting July 5.

"People think that once their materials go to the curb, they're done with them. What they need to know is there's a lot more processing that has to go on," he said. 

Plastic-filled yard waste goes through a machine to try to separate the plastic from the waste. Then it will come out on the conveyor belt where they collect those bags. Another machine then tries even harder to pull out more plastic.

Whatever the machine misses, workers manually pick out the remaining plastic bits. 

"It takes a lot of time and effort, and people power to get these things out of the trash," Smithberger said. 

He says while leaves are great for compost and are a good carbon source, plastic isn't.

"Plastic bags live another life, and they'll keep living and they'll keep on clogging up landfills, and they’ll keep on doing detriment things to our environment. So, please for goodness sakes, use a free paper bag," he said.

Smithberger says if the environmental impact doesn't convince you, think about your tax dollars. Residents of Charlotte end up picking up the tab to fund the processs. 

If you're in need of these free paper bags, they can be picked up at the City of Charlotte Solid Waste Office, located at 1200 Otts Street on a first-come, first-serve basis every Friday from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m.