I remember being in middle school when I first learned about consumer recycling. I distinctly remember teachers telling us that we could save the planet by setting aside glass and paper and then convincing our parents to drop it off at a recycling center. That was before the curbside recycling we are so familiar with today became a thing. It all sounded so simple way back when.
Even today, certain entities continue to promote recycling as a simple thing. Yet it is rarely as simple as it sounds. If you need evidence, take a look at what the EPA says about post-consumer recycling on their ‘How Do I Recycle Common Recyclables‘ page.
The Answers Aren’t So Simple
If you merely read the questions and then skim the answers, you will probably miss some very important details. For example, one of the questions is whether pizza boxes are recyclable. The EPA says they are. Technically, that is true. But practically speaking, it’s not.
Curbside recycling programs vary by community. In some communities, it is perfectly fine to throw a pizza box into a curbside bin as long as you remove all solid food materials first. In other communities, recyclers do not want greasy pizza boxes in the bins at all. As such, the boxes are not allowed.
The EPA does state on their site that their information is general in nature. They also state that “your local program may have different rules.” But if you skip the disclaimer and go right to the questions and answers, you might just assume that your community recycles pizza boxes when it might not.
Oversimplification Doesn’t Help
In an effort to convince people to participate in curbside recycling, government entities and industry trade groups alike have oversimplified what can be a complex enterprise. So much so that people still believe most of the plastics they throw in their recycling bins really do get recycled. They do not. More than 90% ends up in the landfill anyway.
Oversimplifying recycling to make it attractive to consumers has a fatal flaw: it minimizes the responsibility a consumer needs to contribute to the process in a meaningful way. A good way to illustrate this point is to compare the biggest difference between consumer and industrial plastic recycling.
It’s All in the Sorting and Cleaning
More than 90% of all post-consumer plastics end up in landfills and incinerators due to the sorting and cleaning problem. In other words, consumers don’t sort and clean plastics before sending them for recycling. That means recyclers need to do it. But sorting and cleaning tons of plastic waste is a money losing proposition. So instead, any load a recycler believes is contaminated goes straight to the landfill.
By contrast, industrial plastics are sorted and cleaned before pickup. When a company sells plastic scrap to Tennessee-based Seraphim Plastics, they are selling a single type of plastic that is not mixed with any other materials. The plastic is also clean. Seraphim picks it up, transports it to a facility, and then grinds it into a material that can be turned around and sold to manufacturers right away.
Making industrial plastic recycling work requires contributions from both waste generators and recycling companies. We could do the same thing with consumer plastics if we consumers were willing to do our part.
Not Living in Reality
Unfortunately, most of us are not living in reality when it comes to post-consumer recycling. We have been given oversimplified solutions to a problem that is far more complex. And because of that, we think a curbside recycling bin will do the trick.
.png)
