Litchfield Park residents living in single-family homes diverted about 10.6% of their waste stream from the landfill last year, but they could do better.

“We’re working with the city to increase (recycling) to 20%,” Clark Landrum II, Waste Management Inc. Public Sector Solutions manager, told the Litchfield Park City Council during its regular meeting Feb. 19. He was on hand to present the city’s 2019 Waste and Recycling Report.

The city contracts with Waste Management to provide biweekly trash, weekly recycling and monthly bulk collection services. Items collected are taken to the company’s transfer station at McDowell and Perryville roads in Goodyear, where they’re separated and taken to a landfill or to the company’s recycling facility in Surprise.

Landrum said in 2019, the company collected 3,011 tons — 6,022,000 pounds — of residential trash and recyclables in Litchfield Park. He said the amount recycled, 302 tons or 10.6% percent, has remained consistent the past three years.

While recycling costs more than tossing everything into the landfill, it has tangible benefits, and both Waste Management and the city remain committed to recycling, Landrum said.

For example, Litchfield Park’s 302 recycled tons equate to 20,480 people supplied with water saved, 2,745 mature trees saved and 78 homes powered by electricity saved by recycling.

In Arizona, Waste Management recycled 60,600 tons in 2019. Countrywide, the company kept 15.33 million tons of recyclable materials out of the landfill, according to Landrum’s report. That equates to 2,400 homes powered by local landfill gas-to-energy efforts, and 154 kilowatt hours of electricity, 291 million gallons of water and 520,000 trees saved.

Global challenges, specifically China’s policies limiting the recyclables it will accept and potentially eliminating all post-consumer recyclables coming into that country by 2021, have forced American waste haulers to make changes.

Waste Management no longer sells plastics to overseas companies. They are sold only to domestic recycling mills, Landrum said, noting that the number of domestic mills has increased over the past three years.

Instead of tossing all plastics into the recycle bin, residents should instead “Recycle Right,” a message Waste Management and the city will stress this year.

That means only placing clean plastic bottles, jugs and jars in their curbside recycling cart. If it’s contaminated with food or liquid, it should go into the trash.

Residents and organizations interested in learning more about Recycle Right can visit Waste Management’s website, wm.com/recycleright, for information on reycling as well as free, downloadable posters, brochures, graphics, container labels, and recycling activities and curriculums for kids.

Kelly O’Sullivan can be reached at kosullivan@newszap.com or 760-963-1697.