The Right Way to Recycle
Know what you can and can’t throw in your recycling bin to avoid landing the whole lot in a landfill
More and more Americans are getting better about going green. In fact, recycling rates on the national level have nearly doubled in the past two decades, says Latisha Petteway, a spokesperson for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Washington, D.C. According to the most recent EPA statistics, in 2008, Americans generated about 250 million tons of trash, but recycled and composted 83 million tons of this material, achieving a recycling rate of 33.2 percent nationwide.
But before you go patting yourself on your eco-friendly back for tossing everything but the kitchen sink into the recycling bin, there are a few things you need to know about the recycling process. Knowing what you can recycle will keep you from gumming up the works.
Understand How it Works
After the recycling trucks have made their rounds, they deliver their loads to local Material Recovery Facilities (MRFs). In general, there are two major types of MRFs, explains Petteway – MRFs that process materials from “source separated” recycling streams (participants have to put glass in one bin, cardboard in another, etc.) and those that process materials from “single stream” recycling (participants may put all their recyclables in a single container).
In a single stream MRF, the mixed recyclables are transferred to a conveyor belt and then typically separated by hand into piles of similar materials. Some facilities may use mechanical screens, magnets, eddy-current separators and/or optical sorters (a system that uses ultra-violet light to differentiate between items and separates them with a blast of air), but these are less common and are usually used in conjunction with human sorters. Regardless, the piles of like-recyclables are then baled, transferred for cleaning and processing and, finally, sold on the open market to manufacturers.
In addition to sorting reusable materials, the MRFs are designed to sort out non-recyclables.
However, by tossing these items non-recyclables into your bin, you can significantly slow down the recycling process, wasting both time and money. Even worse, some contaminants, such as greasy take-out containers, can damage an otherwise perfectly good bale of paper-goods, relegating the entire thing to a landfill.
Contribute Less Contaminants
So, how do you do the right thing, or, at least, keep from doing it wrong?
According to Lynn Brown, a spokesperson for Houston-based Waste Management, the leading provider of comprehensive waste management services and largest residential recycler in North America, recycling guidelines can change from municipality to municipality: “It’s like snowflakes – they are all different.”
This means that one city might take glass, while another, even in the same state, cannot, Brown says. Among numerous other variations, cities can also differ on what numbers (found inside the triangular symbol of chasing arrows) of plastic tubs, jugs and bottles they will take (some take only 1 and 2, while others might take all 5), or if containers can be crushed, unattached tin can lids and shredded paper are allowed, and if all items must be spotless.
Determining your own local recycling rules is as easy as going online and looking under “Sanitation” on your city’s website.
However, if you want a quick head’s up, here are a few categories of items that most municipalities can’t take:
1. Food-contaminated or greasy paper or cardboard, such as pizza boxes and take-out containers.
2. Plastic bags of any kind. Most municipalities can’t recycle them, and they easily jam machinery. Remove valid recyclables from plastic bags before placing in bins, and then either discard the bag or take clean bags to locations that have bag-recycling capabilities.
3. Plastic bottle caps and lids as they generally aren’t accepted by municipal recycling programs because their higher melting point makes them less appealing to manufacturers, and they can jam up machinery
4. Cosmetics containers, such as those for lipstick, mascara, blush, etc. These are generally made from blends that include non-recyclable elements.
5. Packaging with a foiled, glossy, glassine, lacquer, glazed, waxed or plastic polymer coating, such as candy bar wrappers, pretzel bags, juice boxes, shelf-stable soy milk or soup boxes, frozen-food boxes, etc. These items are usually made of non-recyclable noncellulosic materials (they aren’t plant-based) or non-recyclable blends.
6. Napkins and tissue paper. They are too low-grade to be recycled, and are often contaminated.
7. Household Hazardous Waste. Not only should potentially toxic items like batteries, light bulbs, paint, aerosol cans, cleaners, pesticides, motor oil and medical waste never go in municipal recycling bins, don’t throw them in the trash – they can pollute the environment and harm human health.
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