Recycling Plastics: Truth, Fraud, or Just a Gross Misunderstanding
Since recycling began in the 1970s, what ends up where has plagued our suspicions and challenged our faith in the system. Here's the final truth.
For years, I've thrown my household waste into various bins, separating garbage from recycling. Then I read a Letter to the Editor in our local weekly explaining which items were actually being recycled as per our expectations. According to the letter, half the plastic was not usable. It flowed ultimately into the ocean, creating five huge islands of plastic debris around the world. This even included all those cute little clamshell containers.
On YouTube, I watched in horror as trucks stopped at a road crossing a fast-flowing river and emptied their garbage there. One truck after another. So that's where it all goes. The force of that water resembled a flushing toilet.
Trust in the recycling industry, apparently, has been a major problem since recycling first entered the public consciousness in the 1970s. Dumpsters with four doors marked the proper places to bring our bottles, cans, and newspapers. It was soon discovered the huge dumpster was not separated for each type of recycling. To paraphrase Janis Joplin, it was all one big fuckin' bin. Public trust has been trashed.
To win back our cooperation if not our forgiveness, smaller units appeared at recycling centers adjacent to county disposal operations. Those were taken by forklift to the transfer station on the other side of the fence. What happened after that, who knew?
Smaller sites collected tin, glass, and aluminum for a moderate redemption to entice people to recycle. It was kind of a throw-back to the WWII days in the 1940s when kids would gleefully pull their Red Flyer wagons around the neighborhood gathering metal, paper, and rags for the war effort. This later morphed into redeeming soda pop bottles for a few pennies each, then turning around to the conveniently located penny candy aisle to load up on sweets.
We kids loved this and why it replaced by unpaid recycling still vexes me. I could make a nice bit of pocket change back in those halcyon days. Those glass pop bottles disappeared in favor of aluminum cans. While it was fun to crush them under our feet, it turned a profitable bit of commerce for kids into a guilt-ridden contract to save the planet. Weren't we already helping the planet by returning glass bottles to the company for reuse? Was there something about the money-making aspect that was considered indecent?
As the environmental movement stressed the importance, indeed the duty of us all to recycle, the familiar blue trash bins blossomed across the land. Even curbside recycling became a thing in suburban neighborhoods. All one had to do was throw the can or bottle into the proper containers and place them next to the family garbage can for pickup. Easy-peasy, right? I've heard some people rankle at this loathsome task or, worse yet, having to haul the stuff to the recycling center in the Lexus. The onus staggers the mind.
As news of the plastic entering oceanic fisheries and thus our food system was released, a new specter of fraud and betrayal seeped into the mindset. How much of our plastic is actually recycled. Videos and photos of the plastic islands showed all kinds of debris from drink bottles to clothing. This was then consumed by animals or broken down into micro-plastics that we consumed with our sushi. It all gave us yet another reason to question this bothersome chore.
Should we bury it all in the landfill, assuring it didn't end up in the sea? God forbid we should follow Japan's example and incinerate it to produce energy with modern technologies. Plans like this have been presented to American companies and instantly rejected. It seemed hopeless to me.
The information in the Letter to the Editor gave me some direction, though. I changed my habits to recycle the mentioned products. Those clamshell containers needed to go. I tried my best to replace them with acceptable packaging or not buy those products at all.
The conundrum still plagued me. My trust in civic promises was broken. Today, though, I found hope.
While throwing milk bottles in the bin, I saw one of those dark-plastic bottles there. I called a worker and asked "just what is recyclable." Her answer cleared up the whole dilemma.
She explained how they bail the No. 1 and 2 plastics together for selling. Those actually get used. Any plastic marked #3 through #7, however, has no market and lands in the dump. When I added, "and the ocean," she didn't deny it.
She also verified all the other types of trash, white milk bottles, clear drink bottles, glass, cardboard, newsprint, magazines, office paper, tin and aluminum cans, no pie tins or foil please, is bailed and recycled all the time. She knew this to be true because she and her staff do the bailing. If the plastic is marked #3 through #7, it will not be recycled.
I guess one alternative is to tie it up in the trash bag for the landfill, hoping it won’t be dumped in the sea.
I hope this helps clear up the suspicions on this issue. What is going on in your community regarding the ultimate disposal or use of plastics? What new products have your tried that replace the big bottles of soaps, household and garden liquids? See you in the comments.
Plastic waste, which eventually ends up as micro and nano plastics that are then consumed by animals and also humans is a HUGE problem that the Plastic and drink industry is doing everything possible to downplay it's dangers and effects. A recent study concluded that a plastic bottle of water contains a 100x more nano particles of plastic than was previous thought. This means over time humans are consuming plastic and clogging their organs with the gunk. However this study didn't bother to look at how many nano plastics are in bottles of Coke or other somewhat corrosive drinks. It's probably 1000X worse.
Plastics start their toxic effects on the world even before they go into the waste cycle. Bad news all around for sustainability and the health of the world.
Thank you, Sue,for this timely information. Suspicions confirmed. Why do we even waste our time?Just another example of a problem that could have been avoided if any thinking had been done before the fact. The greed and heedlessness of big business... sigh.