Editing Recycling (section)

=====Source separation=====
Source separation is the other extreme, where each material is cleaned and sorted prior to collection. It requires the least post-collection sorting and produces the purest recyclates. However, it incurs additional [[operating cost]]s for collecting each material, and requires extensive public education to avoid recyclate [[contamination]].<ref name="gar"/> In [[Oregon]], USA, [[Oregon Department of Environmental Quality|Oregon DEQ]] surveyed multi-family property managers; about half of them reported problems, including contamination of recyclables due to trespassers such as [[homelessness|transients]] gaining access to collection areas.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.oregon.gov/deq/FilterDocs/recmultistate.pdf|title=The State of Multi-Tenant Recycling in Oregon|date=April 2018|access-date=26 May 2019|archive-date=26 May 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190526212922/https://www.oregon.gov/deq/FilterDocs/recmultistate.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>

Source separation used to be the preferred method due to the high cost of sorting commingled (mixed waste) collection. However, advances in sorting technology have substantially lowered this overhead, and many areas that had developed source separation programs have switched to what is called ''co-mingled collection''.<ref name="economisttruth"/>