Last year the state of Washington’s recycling rate increased to 37 percent, an increase from the 35 percent recycling rate achieved the prior year. Figures were collected by the state’s Department of Ecology.
According to the Washington DOE, much of the rise is due to increased recycling of organic materials, such as wood and food waste. By contrast, the amount of newspaper, metals, plastic and glass being recycled decreased.
"It's hard to be cheery about such mixed results," said Cullen Stephenson, who manages Ecology's solid-waste program.
"We are very pleased about the improvement in recycling organic wastes, because that has been particularly challenging to solve," he said. "But no one can feel good about the drop in metals and glass and other materials where we've had pretty good collection systems in place for quite awhile."
State law sets a recycling goal of 50 percent. The highest annual rate achieved so far was 40 percent in 1995. By contrast, the national average is 30 percent.
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