In the Register’s “Going Green” supplement earlier this year, I noticed that customers for Upper Valley Disposal & Recycling Service can put plastic bags in the recycle cart. However, an article from Napa Recycling & Waste Services says no plastic bags, please. Where can you recycle plastic bags?

“We accept plastic bags with a #2 triangle,” said Christy Abreu, public education director for Upper Valley Disposal & Recycling. Generally these are plastic grocery store bags and most bags for fruits and veggies — but residents should make sure the bags have the triangle with the number two on them before putting them in the blue bin.

Only Upper Valley Disposal & Recycling, which covers the area from Yountville to Calistoga, including Angwin and Pope Valley, offers to reincarnate these plastic bags into something new.

For those of us in Napa, American Canyon and the southern parts of the county, placing the bags in the blue bin isn’t an option.

I talked with Kevin Miller, the city of Napa’s recycling coordinator, about recycling plastic bags, and Napa Recycling and Waste Services’ single-stream recycling process doesn’t accommodate them. When the trucks come in to the garbage transfer station after making the rounds, the recyclables go through a big machine that lifts the lighter paper products away from the heavier plastic items. But the light plastic grocery bags don’t sort like heavier plastic bottles or containers.

Miller said bags get caught in the sorter the way a string gets caught in the rotating part of a vacuum cleaner.

But according to the company’s Web site, www.naparecycling.com, clean, dry plastic bags that are made from type #2 and #4 plastic can be taken to bins at Home Depot, Longs Drug, Lucky, Nob Hill, Raley’s, Rite Aid, Safeway, Albertsons/Sav-On, Target, Vallerga’s and Wal-Mart.

Can I recycle starch-based items like the utensils available at Whole Foods and Oxbow? I’ve noticed there are bins for composting these items right next to the recycle bins.

According to Miller, those utensils are an improvement over plastic forks, spoons and knives that are made from petroleum, but they can’t be recycled. The city doesn’t have clearance to compost food waste, which is how these items are categorized.

If you throw them in the garbage can they won’t break down either, he said. “We mummify our garbage,” Miller said. Landfills completely cover the garbage with two to eight inches of dirt each day. The trash doesn’t get air, water or sunlight — elements required to break it down. Even naturally decomposing items are inhibited at the landfill, so it’s best to put these starch-based utensils right in those compost bins if they’re to have a shot at becoming dirt.

What is Glad You Asked?

Glad You Asked uncovers the answers to readers’ questions, no matter how much dirt shields the facts from the light of day. If you’ve got a question, send it to me at jdecker@napanews.com or 256-2215. I’ll break it down.