Everything you need to know about effectively reducing, reusing, and recycling.
So, you’re trying to help the environment by tossing a stack of old papers in the paper recycling bin at work. Then, one night, you catch someone dumping those recyclables into the regular trash can. Ugh, recycling is a waste of my time, you think. Does it actually make any difference?
If this sounds familiar, that’s because the question is all too common. The truth is many people give up on recycling when they don’t see (or feel) their efforts are taken seriously. Or they simply don’t know how to properly recycle and never start in the first place. But we’re here to help demystify the ins and outs of recycling and prove that it actually does make an impact on the environment (and even on the economy).
“A few of the biggest barriers of entry to get people excited about sustainability are that they think it’s crunchy, expensive, inconvenient, or it doesn’t work,” says Ashlee Piper, a sustainability expert and author of Give a Sh*t: Do Good. Live Better. Save the Planet who spoke with Katie Couric Media in 2022. But the fact is your individual actions can be a pretty powerful way to help save the planet. It all starts with understanding why it’s important to recycle (and compost), learning which items can and can’t be recycled, and using less plastic wherever possible.
How much of what we recycle actually gets recycled?
In the U.S., we produce nearly 295 million tons of solid waste every year. (That’s nearly five pounds a person per day!) And out of that waste, about 94 million gets recycled or composted.
“We hear a lot about how recycling is ineffective — and I think these statistics are important for people to know — but they’re also somewhat harmful because it makes people feel pretty ineffectual and not want to do it,” Piper says. “But we’re still recycling or composting about 35 percent of our solid waste every year, which is great because that means it’s not hanging out in a landfill creating a bunch of methane.”
Since methane emissions lead to global warming, the less that gets piled up in landfills, the better for our planet.
Recycling helps the environment and the economy
Once your recyclables leave your doorstep, they don’t go into some automated abyss. In fact: there are more than 150,000 recycling jobs in the country. “Real people actually work in our recycling systems, it’s not just all automated sorters,” says Piper. “Recycling in the U.S. creates a lot of jobs, generates salaries and a decent amount of revenue.”
The first step is figuring out what you can recycle (and where)
Part of what makes recycling feel chaotic is that there are no universal regulations on how and what you can recycle. Every municipality’s rules can vary.
“You could go to a town over and the recycling system is completely different in terms of what they’ll take,” says Piper. “Some recycling systems are multi-stream, meaning you have to separate everything out), while others are single-stream, where you don’t have to separate items out. Some will recycle soft plastics or corks or batteries, and some will not. It’s a highly localized process.”
The best way to figure out how your own neighborhood prefers to receive recyclables is by calling the local municipality and asking what their parameters are. “If your bin has one item in there that’s not recyclable, it’s true that a lot of times they won’t recycle anything in the bin. That’s why it’s really important to find out who runs your recycling services wherever you are and find out what their guidelines are,” says Piper.
Understand the general rules around recycling
“There are some general North Stars for recycling,” says Piper. “Knowing the things that can’t be recycled is actually helpful in guiding you toward what can be.” Below, she shares a few guidelines to keep in mind:
- Clean, rinse, and dry off your recyclables. “For example, if you have a jar of expired salsa you’re planning to recycle, make sure you rinse it out beforehand. Most recycling systems work better when the items aren’t just clean, but also dry.”
- Keep the caps on your water bottles. “We’ve been told to take the caps off plastic bottles because they’re made with a different type of plastic. More recently, the development is that recycling systems prefer you keep them on.”
- Don’t recycle certain materials. “Some items are basically not recyclable in curbside recycling ever — like mirrors, ceramics, receipts, Post-it notes, any type of Pyrex, plastic hangers, clothing, and soft crushable plastics (like Ziploc bags and the plastic cellophane that comes over vegetables).” If you’re looking to recycle those, research to see if there are any specialized recycling programs in your area.
- Avoid recycling mixed materials. “Anything that has mixed materials, like a bottle of foundation or a protein bar wrapper that has plastic on the outside but looks metallic on the inside, is probably not recyclable in your curbside system.”
- Don’t recycle broken glass or sharp items. “Real people are sorting through this, so that’s dangerous for them.”
- Keep your cans intact. “Most recycling systems don’t want you to crush aluminum cans because when they’re crushed, they miss the sorter, and can be completely kicked out of the recycling process.”
Easy items you can recycle
Glass, aluminum, and plastic are generally recyclable. “Drink bottles and containers that have a stamped number on the bottom (as long as they’re not styrofoam or a rigid plastic) can usually be recycled,” says Piper. “Aluminum is infinitely recyclable, which means it can come back again and again as aluminum without any degradation to the material. However, plastic and paper experience pretty significant degradation through the recycling process, so they can only come back as plastic or paper once or twice.”
Why plastic is the problem
We’re using more plastic today than ever before (and there’s a minimal aftermarket for it).
“Recycling isn’t this lullaby — like we were told in the ’80s — where it’s this cure all for our sustainability and waste issues,” Piper explains. “We have to have an aftermarket for the resulting materials from the recycling process. For instance, if there’s nobody interested in buying recycled black plastic, then the more you recycle it, it’s not going to do any good.”
If you have to buy something that comes in plastic, Piper recommends finding options that claim to be legit about using recycled or aftermarket plastic in the packaging or in the materials. “We only recycle about eight to nine percent of plastic in the U.S., so look for things that are compostable, have reusable packaging (like glass or something you can see yourself, washing and reusing), and refillable products.”
Is composting the solution?
Composting helps cut down on the amount of trash that gets sent to the landfill. For some, up to 75 percent of their trash is actually reduced by composting, Piper tells us.
“I think composting is, in a way, more important than recycling,” says Piper. “We place a lot of emphasis on recycling as a cure all for our problems, but because the system just can’t handle the influx of what we’ve been putting in there, reducing what we send into this system is the best way to help it along. Recycling and composting — combined with a really stringent regimen of reducing what you buy that’s in packaging and repurposing absolutely wherever you can — is really the best kind of complementary way to have a holistic system that’s good for the environment.”
