Recycling gets complicated: What happens after you toss that jug in the blue bin

Recycling gets complicated: What happens once you toss that jug in the blue bin

What you probably already know: Reduce, reuse, recycle. You’ve heard it thousands of times and chances are, you try to pitch in. Depending on where you live, maybe you have curbside pickup, or maybe you drive your recyclables to a sorting facility. If that’s the case, you’re in the minority. Only about 32% of Americans recycle, and 76% of our recyclable waste ends up in the trash.

Why? Even if you do recycle, it’s not always a sure thing that what you drop in the blue bin actually gets recycled. It depends on the materials. The New York Times dug into this and it’s clear that it makes a lot of sense to recycle metals like aluminum that can be endlessly recycled, and paper products, which reduce the need to cut down trees. But recent studies suggest only 9% of plastics actually get recycled, and glass that’s broken during transport can also be hard to recycle.

What it means: Our waste is generally sorted manually in facilities, then bundled and sold to other countries, so it’s transported thousands of miles, increasing its carbon footprint even more. Plastic recycling is also difficult, can release greenhouse gases and can only be done once, which means it is often cheaper for manufacturers to use new plastic. A lot of the plastic you drop in the bin ends up in a landfill anyway. Or, worse, the ocean.

What can we do? There are organizations like Ridwell that take difficult-to-recycle items and find vendors able to reuse or upcycle them. Some cities and counties offer similar services. But in general, the best thing people can do is simply not buy items wrapped or contained in plastic. Buy your beer and soda in cans instead of glass. Remember your reusable grocery bags. And maybe the biggest thing of all: Compost as much as you possibly can. Food waste is the single most common material sent to landfills and as it breaks down, it generates methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

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