A Montpelier man who has long looked for ways to keep political signs out of the landfill is reusing some to partition off a storage area in his garage. "It's useful to have them around for a random project," said Shawn Chevalier, 49, who works at Vermont Compost. He recently employed a discarded political sign as a funnel to divert chicken waste and feathers from an egg-collection conveyor belt at work. He doesn't remember the name on that sign. "I honestly don't care about politics," Chevalier said. "I'm just looking for plastic to recycle." Many of the hardy political signs embedded in lawns on thin metal legs are made of Coroplast, a material similar to corrugated cardboard but able to stand up to weather. It's made by a company of the same name, and its parent company, Inteplast Group, says on its website that the material is recyclable polypropylene. Not every recycling facility accepts Coroplast, according to Reagan Bissonnette, executive director of the Northeast Resource Recovery Association in New Hampshire. That group directs people to reuse the material when possible. "These signs can technically be recycled, but someone would need to collect and bale them and ship them to a plastics recycling company out of state," Reagan wrote in an email. "I'm not aware of any communities doing this." Chevalier said he got his start in campaign-sign recycling many years ago when he used the lightweight panels to modify his remote-control planes. "It's free or cheap, and it's durable, so you can crash it pretty hard," he said. Chevalier seeks lawn signs on Front Porch Forum and receives a steady supply. Last week, he said, someone answered his ad with a request for eight campaign signs she needed for a project. Unfortunately, he said, he had none to spare. The original print version of this article was headlined "Vote for: Compost" …