Recycling Properly & My Recycling Bins

Hullo there, welcome to day 2.

I want to talk about recycling today. The act of recycling can feel like you’re making a difference. Just putting stuff into that recycling bin feels good, right? You’ve sorted everything correctly, now it gets made into more paper/plastic/glass, right? Unfortunately, the materials that you bring the recycling center or throw into your single-stream bin (if you’re lucky), may not even make their way to a facility that can recycle things. They may even be taken straight to the landfill.

Recycling centers in the U.S. often export recyclable materials in large, compact cubes. Up until recently, the U.S. exported the majority of its recycling (or waste) to China. In 2017, China passed the National Sword Policy, banning plastic wastes from being imported from other countries. According to NPR, garbage and recyclable materials are piling up in the U.S., and there is a mad scramble to figure out where to send the trash. We’ve started exporting to other countries, such as Thailand and Malaysia. But in countries like Vietnam, they have already surpassed the maximum amount of plastic waste it can import.

Activists Call on G7 and Corporations to End Plastic Pollution Crisis

This NY Times article about China’s plastic recycling ban came out in May, and it has woken some people up. I think there is cognitive dissonance from where our trash actually goes, and just how much of it goes there… wherever “there” is. We don’t think about exactly what happens to this plastic salad clamshell, that greasy pizza box, or the tin soup cans, with tomato soup surprise still coating the inside of the can.

The truth is that, unless every material you attempt to recycle is completely clean of any food or other debris (including grease), your recyclables will be landfilled. Also, if your neighnor decides not to rinse their yogurt containers, the entire compacted cube of #3 plastics will have to be discarded due to what’s called “contamination” in the recylcing world. Also, put yourself in the shoes of the worker in China who has to sort through your trash that is covered in moldy food/other substance. It comes down to this, China banned importing plastic and paper waste because Chinese workers were in real danger, the U.S. was taking advantage of the service, with absolutely no visible connection to the processes happening overseas. Chinese workers were often placed in dangerous, unsanitary, and straight up WTF situations when sorting through the refuse. Animal carcasses, used tampons, and bowling balls included in the list of things people have mistakenly (I hope???) tried to recycle.

So, we have a plastic world, and it’s not slowing down yet. Watch this Kurzgesagt video called “Plastic Pollution: How Humans are Turning the World into Plastic” about how this plastic problem got so out of control. Essentially, since we figured out we could make plastic out of oil, major advancements in medicine, science, and technology have occurred, and lots of good things have come from it. However, whenever we decided to use plastic for single-use items such as straws, coffee cups, and bags, we have buried ourselves in plastic, and kinda f*cked ourselves.

While recycling may sometimes feel like a good deed, unfortunately, its just not enough anymore. We should need to start reducing our production, consumption, and tossin’ of single-use plastics. This means we need to stop using disposable coffee cups, lids, cutlery, bags, bottles, and anything else that we can easily switch with reusable alternatives. Although you are just one person, the choices you make on a daily basis matter, probably a lot more than you think. If you use one disposable coffee cup every weekday for a year, your daily cinnamon mocha costs 260 cups worth of trash. Multiply that by all of the people who get coffe to go on a daily basis around the world. We are talking billions of coffee cups every. Single. Year.

If you’re still confused about what materials aren’t recyclable, good news! You live in the age of the internet, and you have the power to search anything you want. Seriously, just Google it. It’s going to vary state-to-state and city-to-city. You can also call your local recycling center and ask questions. Call your state’s Waste Management Department and ask or go to their website. Here are a quick list of things you should NEVER put into a recycling bin (other recycling facilities for listed items may be availalbe in some places, but this is a general rule for most recycling facilities:

• Greasy Pizza Boxes (compost if 100% paper)
• Plastics #3-#7 ; now that China has banned the importation of these numbered plastics, it’s important to reduce this plastic waste now more than ever
• Any materials contaminated with food waste of any kind
• Clothing, Shoes
• Used menstrual products
• Dirty diapers
• Broken glass, bullets, electrical parts (think about workers’ safety)
• Egg cartons (can often be contaminated, compost!)
• Milk cartons (i.e. Tetra Pak, other plastic-lined containers) where facilities don’t exist. Even regular cartons for things like heavy whipping cream, half and half, or chocolate milk cannot be reycled
• Straws
• Plastic Bags (some grocery stores will have locations where you can drop off plastic grocery bags to be recycled; alas, this is not a viable option, and they are not recycled)
• Lightbulbs, batteries (find out where to recycle, some recycling centers will take them)
• Paper coffe cups
• Flimsy plastic packaging of any kind

Click here for the website for our local recycling center in Moscow, ID.

The situation for plastic overtaking our world won’t get better until we decrease our dependence on it. Choose reusable items, shop mindfully for things packaged in compostable or reusable materials (i.e. paper, glass). Refuse single-use items. Slow down your life for 10 minutes, order your drink ‘for here’ and drink it from a reusable mug at the coffee shop. Ask your friends and family to choose reusables. Be a conscious consumer! People will be inspired by your actions.

That being said, I am not perfect. I still produce plastic waste. The majority of it comes from freed-out break room items at my workplace, things I order online, and plastic food packaging for things like berries, spinach, etc. My partner and I are actively trying to reduce our plastic and glass waste more than any other material. We recycle every scrap that we can. Here are our DIY recycling bins made of connectable shelving and milk crates from the dumpster.

We recycle paper, plastic, steel (we buy canned tomatoes when not in season), aluminum, glass, cardboard, and cork. We save milk cartons for the worm composting bin, and beer bottle caps (just for fun). We take out our bins about twice per month. Now that our recycling abilities are drastically limited, I’m trying to cut out our plastic usage as much as possible. The occasional plastic bag that comes from the local Taco Truck is used to stuff with aluminum beer cans.

People don’t achieve a zero waste lifestyle overnight, and as you can see, I’m surely not perfect even after 4 years of learning how to do it. We can all improve, however. Start by educating yourself about what materials you can and cannot recycle. The general rule of thumb is to leave it out of the recycling bin if you’re unsure. The ban of plastic and paper exportation to China means that plastics #3-7 are unlikely to be recycled. Your paper waste is also unlikely to be recycled. If you’re thinking, “But wait, my local recycling center is still accepting these items?” Well, even though they are accepting them, it’s likely that they are being landfilled or incinerated. Bummer, I know.

More good news though! You have the power to choose. Choose reusables, choose reduction in consumption, choose wisely.

The waste hierarchy goes:

Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Rot, Recycle, Landfill.

Refuse – Just don’t use it, refuse samples, bring your own

Reduce – Reduce your consumption

Reuse – Reuse stuff! Duh!

Rot – Compost

Recycle – At the very last the resort

Landfill – What can’t be recycled, composted, or reused

If you’re unsure of where to start, I suggest doing a trash audit. Keep all of the trash you produce for one week, and at the end, categorize it into ‘recyclables, compostables, landfill, and food waste.’ You’ll get a better idea about where your trash is coming from, and from there you can work on how to solve problems and create solutions to your trash heap. Reusable water bottles are the easiest start. You don’t even have to buy one, ask around, raid your Grandma’s cabinets, pick one up for $1 at a thrift store. Find a reusable canvas or cloth bag for groceries and shopping. Again, don’t go out and buy one, remember how I said there’s enough stuff in the world to go around already? Ask your mom, thrift one, make one!

Happy Zero Waste July Day 2!

Love,

Ollie

For more information about how recycling works, I recommend visiting HowStuffWorks.com to read more. Or listen to this Stuff You Should Know podcast about recycling and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch! Sidenote: ‘Stuff You Should Know’ is one of my favorite podcasts ever, they talk about such a wide range of topics!