The fact is that some recycling actions make a bigger impact than others. So please remember these three basic rules the next time you recycle. To find out more, please reference these guidelines and common myths based on science, research and collaboration with industries, agencies and other organizations.
Learn the reality behind the myths to ensure you're protecting others and the environment by recycling right. Research shows convenience and commitment are required for maximum recycling.
For instance, do you recycle in several rooms of your home? If you only recycle in the kitchen, recyclables in your home office or bathroom get thrown away. So make recycling a collaborative effort where everyone participates, enabling the most recycling of the right materials. Reality : Only in some cases.
Check the table above and local program guidelines to see what's recyclable and what's not. Many plastics cannot be made into new products. Recycle plastics by shape: bottles, jars, jugs and tubs. Reality : Containers should be clean, but don't have to be spotless. The goal is to make sure they are clean enough to avoid contaminating other materials, like paper, or your un-lined kitchen recycling bin.
Try using a spatula to scrape cans and jars, and putting recyclables in your sink among the dishes you are rinsing to share that same water to rinse and remove residue. Reality : False. Non-recyclable items are not accepted curbside.
Non-recyclable items contaminate recyclables. Recyclables stuck inside plastic bags are at risk for never making it through the recycling process. Conversely, recyclable items placed into garbage containers are hauled to a landfill and cannot be recovered effectively. The right thing to do is put the right recyclables in the recycling container and non-recyclables into garbage containers. Burning plastic may create some energy, but it also produces carbon emissions.
And as cities are now learning, the other cost is financial. As the trash piles up, American cities are scrambling to figure out what to do with everything they had previously sent to China.
But few businesses want it domestically, for one very big reason: Despite all those advertising campaigns, Americans are terrible at recycling. And in the United States, at least, it rarely makes sense to employ people to sort through our recycling so that it can be made into new material, because virgin plastics and paper are still cheaper in comparison.
Even in San Francisco, often lauded for its environmentalism, waste-management companies struggle to keep recycling uncontaminated. But as the Recology spokesman Robert Reed walked me through the plant, he kept pointing out nonrecyclables gumming up the works. Workers wearing masks and helmets grabbed laundry baskets off a fast-moving conveyor belt of cardboard as some non-cardboard items escaped their gloved hands. Cleaning up recycling means employing people to slowly go through materials, which is expensive.
If we can somehow figure out how to better sort recycling, some U. But selling it domestically will still be harder than it would be in a place such as China, where a booming manufacturing sector has constant demand for materials.
The viability of recycling varies tremendously by locale; San Francisco can recycle its glass back into bottles in six weeks, according to Recology, while many other cities are finding that glass is so heavy and breaks so easily that it is nearly impossible to truck it to a place that will recycle it.
Akron, Ohio, is just one of many cities that have ended glass recycling since the China policy changes. As it is, that 91 percent just sits in landfills, piling up and breaking down slowly into arguably more dangerous microplastics.
National Geographic reports that by , approximately 12 billion metric tons of plastic will be sitting in landfills across the globe. For scale, that amount of plastic weighs approximately 35, times more than the whole Empire State Building.
Metal fares a little better than plastic in terms of recycling. Worldwide, the number was around 32 percent, but that still equated to approximately Glass , like metal, is much easier to recycle than plastic. EPA estimates from as recently as indicate that around 3.
This was about Some of that happens in the UK, but much of it — about half of all paper and cardboard, and two-thirds of plastics — will be loaded on to container ships to be sent to Europe or Asia for recycling. Paper and cardboard goes to mills; glass is washed and re-used or smashed and melted, like metal and plastic. Food, and anything else, is burned or sent to landfill.
Under its National Sword policy, China prohibited 24 types of waste from entering the country , arguing that what was coming in was too contaminated. It is filthy, polluting work — and badly paid. The remainder is often burned in the open air. The family lives alongside the sorting machine, their year-old daughter playing with a Barbie pulled from the rubbish.
For recyclers such as Smith, National Sword was a huge blow. The UK, like most developed nations, produces more waste than it can process at home: m tonnes a year — about 1. The present dumping ground of choice is Malaysia. In October last year, a Greenpeace Unearthed investigation found mountains of British and European waste in illegal dumps there: Tesco crisp packets, Flora tubs and recycling collection bags from three London councils. As in China, the waste is often burned or abandoned, eventually finding its way into rivers and oceans.
In May, the Malaysian government began turning back container ships, citing public health concerns. Thailand and India have announced bans on the import of foreign plastic waste. But still the rubbish flows. We want our waste hidden. Green Recycling is tucked away at the end of an industrial estate, surrounded by sound-deflecting metal boards.
Outside, a machine called an Air Spectrum masks the acrid odour with the smell of cotton bedsheets. But, all of a sudden, the industry is under intense scrutiny. In the UK, recycling rates have stagnated in recent years, while National Sword and funding cuts have led to more waste being burned in incinerators and energy-from-waste plants.
Incineration, while often criticised for being polluting and an inefficient source of energy, is today preferred to landfill, which emits methane and can leach toxic chemicals. Some councils have debated giving up recycling altogether. And yet the UK is a successful recycling nation: In the US, that figure is If you look at plastics, the picture is even bleaker. Of the 8.
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