What is the truth about recycling? Is it all it’s cracked up to be?
If you grew up in the late 1990s to early 2000s, you’ll remember learning to reduce, reuse and recycle in school. You learned how to use the blue bin in your classroom, throwing your papers, plastics and juice boxes into them. Maybe you had sorting “rangers” that would audit the bins and leave a bright pink notice if they were sorted incorrectly. Even if you grew up in a time before recycling became mainstream, it’s been around the 1990s in Canada, so us Canadians are very familiar with the system.
The truth about recycling
Recycling is glorified as the solution to our environmental problems. We feel good when we recycle, and are encouraged to divert our waste going to landfill by recycling instead. But recycling isn’t the grand solution to our waste problem that we make it out to be. In fact, it blankets the fact that our society is driven by consumption. We buy, buy, buy, and if we toss our waste into the garbage we feel guilty knowing it’s all going to landfill. But when we buy, buy, buy and recycle, we feel good. The problem is that we are still buying and generating just as much waste, but we believe that recycling compensates for this.
Don’t get me wrong, recycling is an amazing invention and I am so grateful for it, but it’s not all we crack it up to be. In fact, a mere 9 percent of all plastics ever produced have actually been recycled. Contamination rates in recycling are rising because people don’t know how to sort correctly. Even if you think you’re a pro sorter, I encourage you to double check your knowledge. You might be surprised.
Contamination: a serious problem
Contamination is one of the reasons that China has implemented a ban on 32 different “recyclable” imports. China had been importing 45 percent of the world’s plastic waste since 1992. Now they are stepping up and taking their future into their own hands, arguing that the waste is harming their environment and human population. This has left developed countries like the United States scrambling to figure out where to put their waste. We don’t want it overflowing our rivers, blanketing our fields or tumbling across our streets…but we’d let it happen to another city in another country across the world. This wouldn’t be nearly as problematic if society wasn’t driven by rapid consumption.
One of the key things to learn from this ban is that we need to reduce our waste and take extra care when recycling. The fact is that many of us (myself included sometimes) don’t know how to sort their waste, especially recycling. I agree that the rules can be confusing, but that doesn’t mean we can’t learn to do it properly.
That being said, recycling is still important, and we need to be better at it. Most of us don’t know how recycling actually works, yet it is something we are (hopefully) doing every day. To expand your knowledge, here are six little-known facts about recycling that illustrate why recycling isn’t the solution we make it out to be. By reading these you will learn more about the recycling process, improve your sorting skills, and become a more knowledgable citizen. While reading, ask yourself how many of these facts you knew beforehand. If there’s another fact that you know that I haven’t listed, feel free to put it in the comments!
So, how much do you really know about recycling? Let’s find out.
An item with the three arrowed “recycling” logo doesn’t mean it is recyclable.
Many of us have done this: we need to throw out a plastic takeout container, and we’re turning it upside down, side to side, trying to figure out where the little three-arrowed symbol is. Once we find it, aha! we toss the container into the recycling and go on with our day. This symbol might not mean the item is recyclable, and often gets confused for a different, unrelated symbol.
The only symbol that means “recyclable” is called the Mobius loop, which is not the same as what you see on plastics. The Mobius loop looks like the arrows are folding in on themselves. What we often see on plastic is not the Mobius loop, but a set of three flat arrows in a triangular shape. This flat logo represents the type of plastic resin that the product is made of. The number in the centre of the flat logo states what kind of plastic it is. A black plastic take-out container may have the flat three-arrowed symbol, but it’s one of those plastics that many municipalities do not accept as a recyclable. However, when people see the flat logo on the black plastic they automatically think it’s recyclable (when it’s not).
Next time you see that flat three-arrow logo on a plastic item, remember it does not necessarily mean the item is recyclable. Do a quick search on your municipality’s website to find out if it’s actually recyclable.
Every municipality has different rules.
That’s why it is so important to do your research when moving or travelling. For instance, in Toronto we can’t recycle plastic shopping bags or coffee cups. In Waterloo we can recycle both. If you make a mistake and throw your coffee cup into the recycling in Toronto, the recycling is now contaminated. Many municipalities have a sorting search engine where you can look up any item and find out which bin to put it in; some even offer an app for waste collection.
As an example, here is Toronto’s waste sorting database, the Waste Wizard. This is the best way to find out if an item is accepted into the local recycling program.
You need to rinse your food containers out before recycling them.
When you have an empty yogurt container, pizza box, soup can or any other food container, you MUST clean out the contents for it to be recycled. The food is a contaminant that will not only stain the container but any others around it. If it’s stained it can’t be recycled. Before throwing out your yogurt container, give it a quick rinse; remove the greasy bottom lining of your pizza box (if possible) and toss it into the compost. If the container is stained beyond cleaning, it may be as good as garbage.
Even if something is recyclable, it won’t last forever.
While metals like aluminum or steel and glass can be recycled an “infinite” number of times without degrading, paper and plastic can be recycled a limited number of times. National Geographic estimates that plastics can be recycled 2 to 3 times before the quality degrades too much, while the Environmental Protection Agency says paper can be recycled 5 to 7 times.
Bioplastics marketed as “biodegradable” are not compostable and sometimes not even recyclable.
These are plastics marketed as “natural” because they contain materials like Polylactic Acid (PLA), which is plant starch. This is used instead of petroleum. The claim is that its materials will “return to nature” when really if these items were to end up in a landfill they will never break down. They need very specific humidity, temperature and moisture levels to break down, an environment you will only find in a controlled industrial setting. If you get a plastic “plant” bottle, don’t compost it, just recycle it; if it’s something like a paper soup container with a plastic lining, toss it into the garbage like you would with a coffee cup.
Coffee cups are NOT recyclable.
Not in many municipalities, at least. According to BBC, less than 1 percent of coffee cups are actually recycled. There are a few reasons for this. For one, the leak-proof interior is made of a plastic film. This plastic cannot be separated from the paper exterior for recycling. Additionally, their fibres are too small to repurpose into new paper products, and cups that are dyed (like Tim’s cups) are not favourable to recycling companies since that dye cannot be removed from the fibres.
The real solution: reduce, then reuse, THEN recycle
While recycling is a great invention, it isn’t used well enough to be the solution to our waste problem. Contamination dissuades recycling companies from buying the products; if there’s no demand for a material, sorting facilities won’t bale them and they won’t be recycled. If there’s too much recycling coming in, facilities can get overloaded and will have to send the materials to landfill anyway.
No standard system
Recycling isn’t a standardized system, making the rules confusing. There are too many flaws in current recycling processes to make it a viable solution to our waste problem. It’s only a bandage that delays what will be coming, and what is already happening: over-capacity landfills, polluted waterways, forests and fields, plants, animals and humans growing sick from the trash populating their land.
The only way to solve our waste problem is to waste less overall, including recyclables. A plastic water bottle is still recyclable, yet they are ending up in our oceans. Non-renewable, raw materials are being extracted from the earth to produce these single-use, short-lived items. Even if it is recycled, plastics can only go through the recycling process once or twice before their quality degrades too much to make a valuable product.
The truth about recycling is this: there is a reason the saying is reduce, reuse, recycle in that specific order. The best thing you can do for our planet is to reduce the amount of waste you are generating. You should be reusing what you have and repurposing old goods. Your last resort should be recycling, yet we prioritize recycling above all else.
Final thoughts
If there’s anything you should take away from this post, it is that we all need to do our part to reduce our waste, and that recycling is not a stand-alone answer to polluted waterways, exploited natural resources or human health problems. It can supplement our efforts but should not be the forefront of the sustainability movement. Definitely recycle when you can, but overall try to reduce what you are throwing away. Carry your own reusable water bottle, cutlery and shopping bags. Make a litterless lunch. Use mesh produce bags or keep them loose (peels are there for a reason).
There are many small actions we can take in our everyday lives that add up to a large, positive difference. The only way we can hope for a sustainable future is if we all do our part to make a change.
Like this post? Check out these similar posts to expand your environmental knowledge:
- The truth about farmers markets
- Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)
- Pollinators: A global crisis
- Paper straws are not sustainable
I hope that you now recognize the truth about recycling. Maybe you have a new perspective on recycling or will start evaluating your own recycling habits. Whatever you do, you now have knowledge that helps to make our world a more sustainable place.
Until next time!
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