Does Recycling Work?
"It's a complicated question," admits a New York sustainability advocate:
If an item in a bin of recyclable materials is greasy, covered in food or, in the case of paper goods, soaking wet, the entire bin is typically rejected and sent to the landfill or incinerated... While we want to do the right thing, most of us don't know all the rules. Can you recycle that greasy pizza box? (No.) Plastic bottle caps? (It depends on the municipality.) Cereal boxes? (It depends.) The list of questions goes on... And many times it's difficult to find the correct answer. So, while we're throwing items in the recycling bin or diligently bringing them to a recycling center, we may be merely "wish-cycling" -- hoping that these items will somehow be recycled. Wish-cycled items eventually get sent to the landfill or clog recycling plant machinery...
Remember -- Recycling is a business. Your recyclables are typically collected and processed by a private waste management company looking to make a profit. The materials are then assembled into massive bundles (bales) for sale. For many years, China was the main buyer of recyclable material. In 2018, however, China passed its National Sword policy that sets impossibly low contamination standards on 24 types of imported waste material. These new standards have caused a drastic decline in the market for recyclable materials. According to the New York Times, plastic scrap exports "valued at more than $300 million in 2015, totaled just $7.6 million in the first quarter of [2018], down 90% from a year earlier."
What does all this mean? Facing increased prices to haul recyclables, some cities and towns have drastically scaled back or even stopped their services. And yes, you guessed it: bales of recyclable materials are ending up in landfills or being incinerated.
"It's a complicated question," admits a New York sustainability advocate:
If an item in a bin of recyclable materials is greasy, covered in food or, in the case of paper goods, soaking wet, the entire bin is typically rejected and sent to the landfill or incinerated... While we want to do the right thing, most of us don't know all the rules. Can you recycle that greasy pizza box? (No.) Plastic bottle caps? (It depends on the municipality.) Cereal boxes? (It depends.) The list of questions goes on... And many times it's difficult to find the correct answer. So, while we're throwing items in the recycling bin or diligently bringing them to a recycling center, we may be merely "wish-cycling" -- hoping that these items will somehow be recycled. Wish-cycled items eventually get sent to the landfill or clog recycling plant machinery...
Remember -- Recycling is a business. Your recyclables are typically collected and processed by a private waste management company looking to make a profit. The materials are then assembled into massive bundles (bales) for sale. For many years, China was the main buyer of recyclable material. In 2018, however, China passed its National Sword policy that sets impossibly low contamination standards on 24 types of imported waste material. These new standards have caused a drastic decline in the market for recyclable materials. According to the New York Times, plastic scrap exports "valued at more than $300 million in 2015, totaled just $7.6 million in the first quarter of [2018], down 90% from a year earlier."
What does all this mean? Facing increased prices to haul recyclables, some cities and towns have drastically scaled back or even stopped their services. And yes, you guessed it: bales of recyclable materials are ending up in landfills or being incinerated.
