How to Recycle Campaign Signs
How to Recycle Campaign Signs
So the election is over and your candidate won. Congratulations! (Or maybe they lost. Better luck next year.) Regardless, now you’re left with a yard full of campaign signs. And maybe you have a bunch of old ones in your garage too because you’ve never been sure what to do with them. Luckily, many communities do have a program to recycle campaign signs.
But before you find someplace to take your political signs for recycling, your first step should be to contact the political party or campaign to see if they will take campaign signs back. Many political parties will be happy to have the signs back to reuse the frames for the next election.
If you are unable to find any groups that want them for reuse, many cities and counties will take campaign signs, whether indefinitely or for a limited time after an election. For instance, my county (Cuyahoga County, Ohio) has a collection for campaign signs for several weeks after every election. I can drop off signs at my city’s recycling center, or take them directly to the county solid waste district offices (where the city campaign sign collections will all end up anyway).
How do campaign signs get recycled?
I was curious about what happens to the signs after we turn them in, so I asked one of my contacts at the Cuyahoga County Solid Waste District. I got the following reply:
All of the parts of the signs are recycled. We dismantle the signs and break them down into the individual materials (paperboard, film, corrugated plastic, metal) at our facility. A local company picks up the materials to be recycled in each commodity market. The paperboard goes to a mill, metal to a scrap yard and plastics to a processor.
So there you go. Check with your city’s department of refuse and recycling or your county recycling program to see if they have a program to take back election signs.
What if my community doesn’t recycle campaign signs?
If you can’t find any political groups to take back your signs and your community doesn’t have a recycling program for campaign signs, you can still dismantle them yourself and recycle what you can. The metal frames can go to a metals recycler and any paperboard can be recycled with paper (as long as it is not plastic coated).
Other questions about recycling or other green living issues? Let me know!
