After the gifts, the hard part: where to take the garbage.

Byline: Tim Christie The Register-Guard

The fun part of Christmas is opening presents.

The not-so-fun part is dealing with the mountain of wrapping paper, packing materials, boxes and debris those presents leave in their wake.

Eco-savvy consumers now have two more ways - one relatively new, one growing in popularity - to spare our landfills from dealing with some of the stuff.

On the new side, all the major trash haulers in the Eugene-Springfield metro area now accept plastic grocery bags in their curbside recycling bins.

Glenwood-based Sanipac first announced the policy in November, but now Lane Apex Disposal Service and Royal Refuse, both of Eugene, also take plastic bags made of No. 4 low-density polyethylene.

All the carriers take their recyclables to Ecosort, a local recovery material firm, which in turn trucks the stuff to SP Recycling in Clackamas, said Sam Miller, owner of Lane Apex.

The haulers still don't take garbage bags, sandwich bags, plastic wrap, building film or No. 6 plastic, also known as polystyrene, or Styrofoam.

That's where NextStep Recycling, formerly the Computer Reuse and Recycling Center, comes in.

The nonprofit, at 2101 W. 10th Ave. in Eugene, is home to the third annual Zachary Zakon Block Foam Recycling Roundup, Jan. 2-16.

NextStep will take foam packing materials for free during those two weeks, then charge a small fee - $1 per cubic foot - after that. Hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.. Tuesday through Saturday.

The event, sponsored by the Lane County Public Works waste management division, is named for a master recycler who dedicated the last few years of his life to collecting and recycling block foam.

Materials accepted include No. 6 polystyrene (Styrofoam that is brittle and snaps easily); No. 4 polyethylene (bendable block foam); No. 5 polypropylene (Styrofoam that is not brittle and is hard to break up); No. 6 foam food trays of any color; and No. 6 foam packaging peanuts of any color, bagged separately.

Getting Styrofoam out of the waste stream is critical, said Lorraine Kerwood, founder and executive director of NextStep Recycling.

"For the landfills, it's a disaster," she said. "It's 98 percent air, it doesn't compact and it doesn't biodegrade. It takes up a lot of space."

Styrofoam is made of recyclable material but it has been expensive to process for recycling, Kerwood said.

NextStep takes Styrofoam to a facility in Portland where it is broken down, heated and turned into ingots, which then get flaked and mixed with new plastics to make material for televisions and computers, she said.

Plastic film such as sandwich bags and plastic wrap that garbage firms will not accept curbside can be taken to Lane County's garbage transfer stations, including the central garbage receiving station in Glenwood.