Recycling is Easy, Right? Not Necessarily.
Two years ago I began researching how I could incorporate recycling into my family’s daily routine. We had just bought our first home and I wanted to start out on the right foot. However, we didn’t even have a garbage pick-up service so I gave up on having someone to pick up recyclables.
I soon realized nothing about my journey to sustainability would be convenient. I was going to have to go about it in a completely different way than I expected.
Economic inequality affects much more than the health, safety, and education of lower-income communities. The uneven distribution of waste management services inadvertently affects the health of surrounding communities regardless of their economic standing.
I quickly fell down a rabbit hole trying to find out where I could take our recycled goods and I ended up finding out I had been recycling improperly anyways.
Did you know you were supposed to clean your plastics and cans before putting them in their respective bins?
Okay so maybe it is common knowledge to some people, but it’s definitely something I had never been taught. As it turns out, there’s a large percentage of other people who didn’t know about that key step either. According to a study done in 2018 1 in 4 pieces of all recycled products in the United States are contaminated, therefore ending up in a landfill. Imagine how much that statistic has risen since the onset of Covid-19.
What I found out next discouraged me from even trying to recycle. This information is critical for everyone’s recycling efforts, regardless of the community you live in.
Until 2018 China was responsible for processing nearly half of the world’s recycled materials, but basically they said “forget ya’ll” and took a stand for their own environment by refusing to be a trash bin for the rest of the planet. You can’t blame them though, you know? Most of the waste they’d received for recycling was so dirty it had to be dumped in a landfill instead of being converted into a new material anyway. This left China with another environmental crisis aside from the ones they already face due to manufacturing.
China’s ban on importing waste has caused many recycling facilities around the world to shut down their operations entirely or just take what they’re given to the nearest landfill. Countries like the U.S. still ship waste overseas, over 1 million tons a year, to countries that mismanage their own waste. Unfortunately, these are very poor countries that have been chosen because of the cheap labor. Malaysia, for example has received most of America’s trash since China’s ban, but they mismanage 55% of their own waste.
“The path of least resistance is to put it on a ship and send it somewhere else – and the ships are going further and further to find some place to put it,” said Jan Dell, founder of The Last Beach Cleanup.
This left me feeling helpless. If I start recycling properly and take my recycled goods to a place that accepts them, how can I be sure they’re actually processing it all and not dumping it? How can I make sure my efforts aren’t in vain?
I dug a little deeper and did some research. I called the facilities within a 40 mile radius of my home, and while half of them never answered, the other half couldn’t tell me what they did with the waste they received. I decided to give my discouraged heart some rest and focused my sustainability efforts elsewhere until I figured out our best course of action.
This puts all of us in a delicate situation. Should we spend money on creating new processing facilities and improving existing ones in our own communities, or do we take that money and use it to create more biodegradable and compostable products that can replace plastic? This is a question that’s above most everyone’s pay grade, but it’s a question we all need answered. Until a solution arrives it’s best to buckle down and do your part with the resources you have.
Later this week we’ll discuss how to find which companies in your area accept certain types of recycled products, and how you can set up a successful recycling system at home.
Bibliography
Chery Katz. “Piling Up: How China’s Ban on Importing Waste Has Stalled Global Recycling.” Yale Environment 360, March 7, 2019, https://e360.yale.edu/features/piling-up-how-chinas-ban-on-importing-waste-has-stalled-global-recycling. Accessed 19 July 2021.
“14 Recycling Contamination Facts That Will Blow Your Mind.” Rubicon, October 31, 2018, https://www.rubicon.com/blog/recycling-contamination-facts/. Accessed 19 July 2021.
Renee Cho. “Recycling in the U.S. Is Broken. How Do We Fix It?" State of the Planet, March 13, 2020, https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2020/03/13/fix-recycling-america/. Accessed 19 July 2021.
“Where does your plastic go? Global investigation reveals America's dirty secret.” The Guardian, June 17, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/17/recycled-plastic-america-global-crisis. Accessed 19 July 2021.
Kenneth Rapoza. “China Quits Recycling U.S. Trash As Sustainable Start-Up Makes Strides.” Forbes, January 10, 2021, https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2021/01/10/china-quits-recycling-us-trash-as-sustainable-start-up-makes-strides/?sh=3daf7fb45a56. Accessed July 19, 2021.
