Where each material actually goes, updated monthly.
Tacoma · commercial collection across Pierce County
The monthly report
Processors are described rather than named, because a supplier relationship is not ours to publish.
July 2026
Cardboard
412 tons
A containerboard mill in Washington state
3% rejectedMixed paper
138 tons
The same mill, on a separate grade
11% rejectedGlass, collected separately
96 tons
A container plant in Oregon
2% rejectedAluminium and steel cans
44 tons
A scrap processor in Pierce County
6% rejectedFilm plastic
21 tons
A film recycler in British Columbia
19% rejectedRigid plastic, grades 1 and 2
33 tons
A reprocessor in Utah
8% rejectedEverything sorted out as contamination
58 tons
Landfill, in Pierce County
100% rejected
Including what was rejected. Nobody in this industry publishes a rejection rate, and it is the only number that tells you whether a recycling programme is working or just being collected.
July 2026, the honest line
7%
of what we collected last month went to landfill.
58 tons of contamination out of 802 collected. The report says what most of it was.
We will tell you when a stream is not working.
If your film plastic is coming back at forty percent rejected, the honest advice is to stop collecting it rather than keep paying us to take it to landfill in a different truck. That has happened four times and we would rather it happened more.