How much really gets recycled

If you look at plastics, the picture is even bleaker. Of the 8. Academics and NGOs doubt those numbers, due to the uncertain fate of our waste exports. R ecycling is as old as thrift. The Japanese were recycling paper in the 11th century; medieval blacksmiths made armour from scrap metal. This was contaminated with all sorts of undesirables: non-recyclable materials, food waste, oils and liquids that rot and spoil the bales. At the same time, the packaging industry flooded our homes with cheap plastic: tubs, films, bottles, individually shrink-wrapped vegetables.

Plastic is where recycling gets most controversial. But with plastic, it is not that simple. The carbon-reduction benefits are also less clear. Household recycling requires sorting at a vast scale. This is why most developed countries have colour-coded bins: to keep the end product as pure as possible.

In the UK, Recycle Now lists 28 different recycling labels that can appear on packaging. There is the mobius loop three twisted arrows , which indicates a product can technically be recycled; sometimes that symbol contains a number between one and seven, indicating the plastic resin from which the object is made.

There is the green dot two green arrows embracing , which indicates that the producer has contributed to a European recycling scheme. Since National Sword, sorting has become even more crucial, as overseas markets demand higher-quality material. About halfway, four women in hi-vis and caps pull out large chunks of cardboard and plastic films, which machines struggle with.

There is a low rumble in the air and a thick layer of dust on the gangway. Green Recycling is a commercial MRF: it takes waste from schools, colleges and local businesses. That means lower volume, but better margins, as the company can charge clients directly and maintain control over what it collects. Towards the end of the line is the machine that Smith hopes will change that. Inside a large clear box over the conveyor, a robotic suction arm marked FlexPickerTM is zipping back and forth over the belt, picking tirelessly.

Humans will pick between 20 and 40, on a good day. The machine is intended not to replace humans, but to augment them. The benefits of automation, Smith says, are twofold: more material to sell and less waste that the company needs to pay to have burned afterwards.

S mith is not alone in putting his faith in technology. Taiwan recycles 55 percent of its residential and commercial trash, and 77 percent of its industrial waste. Recyclables are then sent to companies like Miniwiz that transform them into building materials. In addition, smart recycling booths accept bottles and cans in exchange for added value to transit cards.

Minimizing contamination of recyclables and the flow of recyclable items to landfills requires consumer awareness. Community events, campaigns, and brochures are necessary to educate residents about the importance of reusing, recycling and composting, as well as how to properly recycle in their particular community. They need to understand which items are actually recyclable and which are not. These can be used to promote recycling and waste reduction.

For example, residents and companies can be incentivized to reduce waste if they have to pay more for discarding more. Additional payments or a contract extension can encourage waste contractors to divert more waste.

In , more than 37 states are considering over bills to deal with plastic pollution and recycling, according to the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators. These include bans on single-use plastic and food ware, single-use bag and polystyrene bans; bottle bills; holding producers responsible for product disposal; and other recycling laws.

The bill includes bans on single-use plastic bags and polystyrene; requirements for companies that make packaging or food ware to be responsible for their waste collection; a national container deposit system that would charge a refundable deposit on all single-use beverage bottles; standardized labeling on recycling bins; and a suspension on permits for the building of new plastic-producing plants.

Eight states have bans on single-use plastic bags. Jennie Romer, founder of PlasticBagLaws. On March 1, NYC instituted a plastic bag ban that charges 5 cents for taking a paper carry out bag.

Extended producer responsibility EPR requires companies that make products to be responsible—financially or physically—for their management and disposal at the end of their lives. Companies can do this through recycling or reusing products, buying them back, or they may hire a third party to deal with their waste management. EPR shifts the financial burden from local governments to manufacturers, which also motivates companies to design and produce more sustainable products.

A reverse vending machine in Australia. Photo: Bidgee. Ten states already have bottle bills, and six more are considering them. Many companies are trying to come up with better ways of dealing with waste, from chemical recycling, which uses chemicals or high heat to turn plastic into its original components for reuse, to new ways to make recycling simpler. Oregon-based Agilyx breaks down hard-to-recycle and contaminated plastics to their molecular level; it can then be made into high-grade synthetic oils, chemicals and other plastics.

The company says all the recycled plastic can be reused an infinite number of times. A Seattle recycling service called Ridwell collects hard-to-discard items such as plastic wrap and bags, light bulbs and electronics, which Seattle no longer collects. Ridwell then distributes the items to other places for recycling, reuse or destruction. In , the company diverted , pounds of waste from the landfill. Photo: Purecycle. Until now, only one percent of polypropylene has been recycled, even though it is the second most common plastic in the world.

It has mostly been recycled into black or gray products, such as benches or car parts, but once purified, it has the potential for many more applications. Loop creates reusable and returnable packaging for consumer products. Items in the Loop store are shipped to buyers in containers for which they pay a deposit; when the containers are returned to Loop in the reusable shipping box, buyers receive a full refund.

This can include things like rental or service models. Here are more tips from the Natural Resources Defense Council. I am so glad to read this article. I have a hard time understanding why more states will not initiate a ban on single use plastic bags … this is unconscionable! Please do what you can to put the pressure on stores and states and people to reduce the use of toxic plastics!

Apply pressure locally and have your own community push hard with local officials on franchise owners to stop ordering and supplying bags. We did it in Carpinteria California and you cannot get one use plastic bags at any of our stores… if we have a solution, bring your own reusable bags, why would it not be immediately implemented.

Not logical at all; especially if our rationalizing for keeping them is because if the convenience of customers. Judith, I am with you completely. Somebody needs to make a stink about it. Maybe I will! Unfortunately, the plastics industry has limited many cities and municipalities from enacting single-use plastic bans or bag taxes by lobbying for pre-emption laws at the state level.

Hi my name is jenny since the cronovirus has started lots of recycled cans have piled up. Could it be possosible to make one big location spread out through the nation were it would be safe enough for people to come and recycle there cans and maybe even juice bottle and laundry bottles ect.

Great article! Good luck! The solution is partly a mandated return to biodegradable paper and cardboard packaging. Also, quite a few years ago I read that a biodegradable plastic made from living plants, I believe had been developed in Japan.

There could be more research in developing a biodegradable plastic equivalent to some of the petrochemical plastic that is overwhelmingly put to use today. Good luck in getting the plastics industry to do this rather than doing what is probably most profitable for them. Plastic 8 is plant based and compostable at industrial composting facilities. Some ketchup bottles are 8 for example. This article is not entirely accurate. I live in Urbana, IL, where we have a comprehensive recycling program.

After I read this blog post, I reached out to them about resin codes Good afternoon. Many failed. For example, in Los Angeles, recycling facilities still won't process any plastics with numbers higher than 2. China's new policy, however, hasn't done much to change the fate of U. Many of the bales of plastic that got shipped to China were contaminated with non-recyclable trash, he said. Those unusable bales got thrown in landfills or into the ocean.

The problem hasn't gotten worse — it's just moved onto U. What happened to it was not at all transparent," Hocevar said. There was no way to tell what was or wasn't getting recycled, he added. What the United States needs is infrastructure equipped to process other kinds of plastic, Pochiro said. But Hocevar envisions a different solution: "The really simple answer is we have to stop making so much throwaway plastic.

That said, is recycling worth it? For bottles labeled "1" or "2", the answer is "yes," Pochiro said. There's also a growing market for plastics labeled "5," a flexible plastic that includes mini-yogurt containers. Meaning: at some point, much of it ends up in the oceans, the final sink. If present trends continue, by , there will be 12 billion metric tons of plastic in landfills.

That amount is 35, times as heavy as the Empire State Building. Learn about one possible future solution. Half the resins and fibers used in plastics were produced in the last 13 years, the study found. China alone accounts for 28 percent of global resin and 68 percent of polyester polyamide and acrylic fibers. Geyer, an engineer by training, specializes in industrial ecology as a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

The rapid acceleration of plastic manufacturing, which so far has doubled roughly every 15 years, has outpaced nearly every other man-made material. And, it is unlike virtually every other material. Half of all steel produced, for example, is used in construction, with a decades-long lifespan.

Half of all plastic manufactured becomes trash in less than a year, the study found. Much of the growth in plastic production has been the increased use of plastic packaging, which accounts for more than 40 percent of non-fiber plastic. The same team, led by Jambeck, produced the first study that assessed the amount of plastic trash that flows into the oceans annually.

That research, published in , estimated that 8 million metric tons of plastic ends up in the oceans every year. That is the equivalent to five grocery bags of plastic trash for every foot of coastline around the globe. Gaining control of plastic waste is now such a large task that it calls for a comprehensive, global approach, Jambeck says, that involves rethinking plastic chemistry, product design, recycling strategies, and consumer use.

The United States ranks behind Europe 30 percent and China 25 percent in recycling, the study found.