Campaign Sign Recycling Task Force Sits Atop 400 Signs, Zero Volunteers Willing to Cut Zip Ties

MAPLE COUNTY — The Campaign Sign Recycling Task Force has collected 400 retired campaign signs and now faces a crisis no one anticipated: nobody will cut the zip ties. The task force’s twelve volunteers have sorted the signs by color, by candidate, and by emotional tone, but the fasteners remain defiantly intact.

It is not that we cannot cut them, said volunteer Ron Peeples, turning a zip tie over in his hands like a puzzling artifact. It is that 400 zip ties is a lot of zip ties. He then sat down, which the task force minutes record as a motion to adjourn, seconded by exhaustion.

The signs, made of corrugated plastic, are destined for the county’s recycling stream, which accepts them only after the metal stakes and plastic fasteners are removed. The stakes came out easily — volunteers described stake-pulling as weirdly satisfying — but the zip ties, cinched tight by enthusiastic campaign workers in October, have proven to be the campaign’s final, lingering grip on the county.

Task force chair Linda Kowalski has proposed three solutions: a zip-tie cutting party with pizza, a competitive zip-tie cutting relay with prizes, and simply waiting until the zip ties degrade naturally, which scientists estimate will take approximately 400 years. The pizza option is polling well.

Among the collected signs are several local classics, including one for a 2018 county coroner race that featured a candidate photographed leaning on a fence, and a memorable 2022 school board sign whose slogan — KIDS FIRST, SIGNS SECOND — has become something of a task force motto. These historically significant signs have been set aside for the county historical society, which has accepted them with what its curator called restrained enthusiasm.

The task force has also fielded requests from residents wanting signs for creative reuse. Approved applications include garden row markers, a chicken coop windbreak, and one extremely ambitious sled. Denied: a request to wallpaper a garage with losing candidates, which Kowalski rejected on grounds of what she called bad energy.

County waste management confirms the signs will be accepted once de-fastened, and has offered to lend the task force an industrial shredder for a ceremonial first shredding. Kowalski has accepted, and plans to invite the press, the pizza, and anyone who owns scissors.

Until the zip ties yield, the signs remain stacked behind the county annex in neat, colorful rows — a monument to democracy’s leftovers, and to the humble zip tie, democracy’s most committed volunteer.