Do you tie up your recyclables in a plastic bag? Toss jars filled with peanut butter in the recycling bin? What about old clothing?

These are all common mistakes people make when taking out the recycling. Plastic bags and other non-recyclables can jam sorting machinery and contaminate recyclable materials, making them less valuable. Contamination has become such a problem nationally, it’s threatening the economics of the recycling industry, and causing some jurisdictions to ditch recycling altogether or scale back.

To address the problem, the D.C. Department of Public Works is dispatching inspectors to check bins on 16 routes across the city that the department has determined to have the highest contamination rates.

Bins with items that shouldn’t be there will be tagged with big white and blue label that says, “Oops! We found non-recyclable items in your bin.”

DPW director Christine Davis says there has been an uptick in contamination during the pandemic — along with a general increase in trash and recycling tonnage. “This effort is to help stop and reverse that trend that we’ve seen during the pandemic,” Davis says. “Of course, more people are home and have more items to throw away, but I encourage everyone to use the recycling bin for its intended purpose.”

The inspections will continue through May 14.

D.C. conducted inspections in 2018 and 2019, with a pause in 2020 due to the pandemic. Davis says those years showed good results: a 20% reduction in plastic bags and other contamination.

“To measure the success of the campaign, we do a recycling sort before we start the campaign to determine the level of contamination, and then we do another sort after the campaign,” Davis explains.

This year, DPW is also on the lookout for “recycling superstars.” One resident in each ward will be recognized for having “the perfect set out,” with only clean recyclable items, not bagged in plastic, placed in a District-issued blue bin. Sadly there are no cash prizes, but winners will receive a certificate and swag bag.

The eight recycling superstars will be announced on Earth Day, April 22.

The inspection program is funded by a $308,000 grant from The Recycling Partnership, a national nonprofit based in Falls Church, Va. As part of the funding, DPW will spend $75,000 tagging 16,000 household recycling bins. DPW will also spend $65,000 to develop and implement a toolkit to improve recycling at mutli-family buildings, and $153,000 on outreach and education to keep plastic bags out of recycling.

Elsewhere in the region, other jurisdictions besides D.C. have also experimented with tagging bins and rewarding people doing a good job. Montgomery County, Md. has a pilot program tagging bins in some parts of the county, and recognizes top recyclers in a number of categories. Alexandria, Va. recently started using “Oops” tags to educate residents.

This story was updated to include more information about the grant from The Recycling Partnership.