PRC Hard-to-Recycle Collection Event

 Every municipality has a different way to keep hazardous and valuable items out of landfills and incinerators. For better or worse, here in Pittsburgh, a non-profit organization is the major force in the area for collecting these items and making sure they are disposed of properly. This organization is Pennsylvania Resource Council, PRC, and they operate across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

This last weekend, I participated in one of their hard-to-recyle events. This event focuses on collecting electronics and tires mainly, but they collect a lot more. The items I had to turn in included a broken vacuum cleaner, keyboard, mouse, batteries, light bulbs, and a few other miscellaneous items.

When I participated in the past, the process went quickly, but not this time around. We waited in line in our car for one hour and fifteen minutes to drop off our stuff. I was not super surprised, though. I had volunteered with them in the past and saw a similar experience then. Also, we picked the Noon appointment slot, which goes slower than having an appointment first thing in the morning. Here are some pictures from the event and an explanation of the process, including why I think it took so long. This type of situation is not ideal for the environment due to the automobile idling emissions.

A map showing the line of cars and the checkpoints for the event

Beginning of the line

Making our way through the line

They check what we are dropping off, so they can see how much we owe.

Volunteers at one of the checkpoints

Volunteers working on collecting items from people's cars

People dropped off lots of monitors and TVs

One of the reasons the line of cars moved so slowly is because they had to narrow it down to one line of cars at the end, rather than having multiple lines. They would start unloading around six cars at once, but that group of cars could not leave until everyone was unloaded. Apparently, the municipality wouldn't allow them to use more than one lane, because they wanted to keep it open to through traffic.

Well, it wasn't fun spending an hour and fifteen minutes moving slowly in a line of cars, and not the best thing for air quality, but I'm glad we were able to drop off our broken items! The volunteers and staff are amazing. I volunteered at one of these events many years ago, and it is hard work! I plan to volunteer again this year, if possible, and will report back if I do so.