Recycling: Not Working Out as Planned

I'm intrigued by things that are not what they seem or don't play out as planned.  From the sound of a Wall Street Journal article this week titled "Recycling Isn’t as Clear-Cut as You Might Think", the blue bins are not what they seem.  I'm not a supporter of some of the green restrictions we are seeing creep into our lives, but recycling gets a big thumbs up ever since my parents recycled newspapers and magazines in the '60s.  It just made sense then.  But is it making sense now, especially since we are still paying a nickel of CRV on every bottle and can?  Here's the bad news.

More than 90% of plastics generated in the U.S. each year winds up in landfills or incinerators, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.  Only about 9% is recycled.  Plastics that have the potential to be recycled are stamped with a triangle made of three arrows enclosing a resin-identification code—a digit from 1 to 7 that indicates the type of plastic—but the presence of the emblem doesn’t guarantee the waste will be reused, even if it makes it into a recycling bin.

“From the curbside, it’s generally the 1s and 2s and some of the 5s,” said Bret Biggers, an economist with the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries. “Anything else, they have to pay to get rid of it.  Resin codes 1, 2 and 5 are processed domestically and, along with aluminum, they’re the most valuable recycling commodities, Mr. Bell said.

Since 2017, China is not taking foreign recycling waste so the prices are dropping

Code             Product                      Market Price of recycled material

1                   clear bottles                    .13  cents per pound

2                   colored bottles                .60 - .70

5                   yogurt cups                      .30

Aluminum      cans                                 .55 

3, 4, 6, 7                                               worthless   

And the kicker at the end of the piece is

“All of your careful sorting of recyclables will go to waste if you put recyclables into a black plastic trash bag—and often your efforts will be for naught even if you put them into a clear plastic recycling bag.”  Processing facilities won’t open black bags. Clear bags have the potential to get tangled in machinery.

I didn't know that and I'll bet very few housekeepers do either.  I've always just dumped the individual pieces in the blue bin, but I notice that the housekeepers think they are doing a cleaner and easier job if they toss the whole bag of bottles and cans in the bin.

I won't paste in the chart that shows the 20 year climb to 90% that goes to landfill or the incinerator--it's too depressing.  But I do wonder if it is time to retire the CRV.  People who are in the habit will keep recycling and those that don't may only be causing 9% as much harm as we thought.     

Comments

[Phinancier]

Check out this description of the mess up north.

Most of the Humboldt County designated recycling sites are simply ignoring the rules -- they aren’t taking in cans and bottles and they aren’t paying the fines. CalRecycle has been locked down for the past year so there has been no on-site enforcement.

For all practical purposes, recycling has ceased.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/04/righteous_recycling.html

But Walmart and Target get a pass

[Gerald Weisl]

When the idea of recycling started, we had various bins for various recyclables: glass, paper and cans...then when they combined these into a single bin, I thought we returned to the days before recycling and we had, basically, a trash bin. Maybe we have.

[Joe]

Thanks, Phinancier. That the CRV is unavailable even if someone wants to put in the effort is scary. It starts to feel like a scam.

Gerald, yes, the "single stream" approach always caused me to wonder.

The topic is getting attention in Tahoe as well where the Sierra Sun did a piece this week. The piece wanders around a bit, but does include a different version of the depressing chart I mentioned in the original post. It also notes:

For example, Keuric DrPepper K-Cups are heavily promoted as recyclable on its website. The K-Cup may be recyclable, but unless the consumer separates the coffee, the filter and the foil from the plastic cup, the Material Recovery Facility is able to sell the resin type, and manage the small size of the cup, they aren’t recycled.

Because of the way Waste Management separates recycling, anything that falls through the 2-inch square opening in a steel screen gets sifted out. This includes lip balm, cigarette butts, broken glass, the K-Cups and other small items that can contaminate a batch of plastic.

With petroleum prices hitting record lows in 2020 and new plastic resin being produced on the cheap, the market for recycled resin is shrinking.

https://www.sierrasun.com/news/earth-day-recycling-as-well-as-what-can-be-recycled-is-in-flux/

[MBGA]

It has been ridiculous to the extreme to think that recycling was going to have any real effect on reducing environmental problems. It just feels good, and that accounts for a lot. So we do it: I sort the trash and take the different cans to the curb every week, I drive a high mileage car and used to take the train. I now get to go back to using my reusable bags for groceries again because the government is resetting the PCR counts to show that we can temporarily go back to some old habits - all fine stuff, but it ain't gonna make a darn bit of difference.

You know what is going to make a difference for the future of our children and theirs and all of humanity? It's getting the first two shots. These new drugs are the beginning of the only real solution to a huge growing list of problems confronting humanity. While promoted as vaccines, these incredible drugs are using new technologies for changing our DNA to adapt to a lot of new modern stresses.

It's been fascinating and a privilege living and working here in technology and seeing tons of stories about CRISPR and other DNA unlocking discoveries that have been coming out for the last twenty years. Many world changing tech has been invented within biking distance of where we live. Lots of new ways have been proposed to take care of problems and many things like cancer that we will be able to cure by just injecting DNA modifying drugs.

All this work is starting to get implemented. Today we are tackling covid-19 and the next versions, tomorrow we will have a DNA cure for hormonal imbalances from those plastics now everywhere (yes the plastic is being recycled - by you). Maybe we'll have an injectionable DNA cure for radiation sickness. There is hope.

I'll still recycle because, hey that's just who we are.

[JP]

I think it's time to cancel the CRV for everything except aluminum cans but I have zero hope that the powers that be will do it. Someone is getting a sh&*tl^%d of money a nickel at a time.

[Joe]

At least we have this going for us, for now..from today's DJ about San Mateo:

Due to the success of recycling and compost programs, many residents have switched to smaller 20- or 32-gallon garbage cans, reducing costs. However, it reduced revenue for the city due to a progressive rate structure, which does not cover most single-family residence’s cost of service. As a result, there is a substantial shortfall between what customers with smaller bins pay versus the cost to the city to dispose of the waste, San Mateo Mayor Eric Rodriguez said. A residential rate comparison showed San Mateo has one of the lowest rates in the area, with only BURLINGAME lower.

[Joe]

The state is sitting on $600 million of our CRV deposits and now wants to double the refund amounts to "return the money to us". Since this original post a year ago, aluminum prices have skyrocketed, so recycling cans still makes sense, but the rest of it--paper and plastics are still mostly being...wait for it...burned. Who knows what happens to the glass. How about we just stop the CRV on those and focus on cans?

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- California is sitting on a $600 million pile of unclaimed nickel and dime deposits on recyclable cans and bottles and now wants to give some of that back to consumers.

To get the state's nearly 40 million residents to recycle more and send more deposits back to them, Gov. Gavin Newsom's administration unveiled a plan Friday to temporarily double to a dime the refund for a 12-ounce (355 milliliters) bottle or can.

The advocacy group Consumer Watchdog's President Jamie Court, a frequent critic of the recycling program, called the plan “a very positive step” and “a bold proposal to give people their money back.”

“That money isn’t doing anybody any good sitting in the bank,” Court said. “We need a complete structural fix, but this is a good interim step.”

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/california-600m-unclaimed-bottle-deposits-83822727