I’ve always wondered how legit recycling is and if it’s worth the effort to personally do it. (I live in a high-rise and I can toss my garbage down a chute on my floor, but have to bring my recycling down to the ground floor.) In college I literally saw them dump the recycling bin and trash bin into the same truck, but I know I see dedicated recycling trunks around.
I was told “soiled” recycling can’t be used i.e. greasy used pizza boxes, is that true? Recycling dumpsters are gross, isn’t everything soiled?
When companies sell a product that’s “made from recycled products” how truthful is that? Is it their own recycled products or do they source it?
Whats the deal with the recycling triangles and numbers on a product? If I recycle a number that I shouldn’t, does it ruin everything else in that dumpster?
How does any one/machine feasibly sort recycling? It seems like a herculean task.
Recycling, fact or fiction?
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No, recycling is not a hoax.
Speaking as a European who works in the recycling sector:
Metals, paper, glass and certain types of plastics are heavily in demand. They also save a lot on emissions and resources.
For metals and paper, its expected that prices keep going up as requirements for recycled materials and low carbon emissions keep rising. Scrap metal is expected to skyrocket, as steel makers convert to arc furnaces which require scrap steel but have lower emissions.
For “easy” waste streams, like demolition waste, old cars etcetera we see high recycling rates and staggering developments in technology. Its very much a booming business.
The troublemaker is the waste stream that average Joe sees: Post consumer waste. Its a little bit of everything, in different shapes, packed in bags, mixed with food and shit and skin and piss. An old matress is 4 times heavier than a new one. Just from human.. byproducts.
Most of these waste products are recyclable. Coffee pads, dipers, matresses, and almost every type of plastic has found a viable recycling solution as a pure stream. But to get it sorted is difficult and expensive. These sorting technologies have often not evolved and scaled up to the point that they can compete with big oil and their massive subsidies.
So, sometimes stuff gets burned or landfilled.
Does that mean that sorting your waste at home is useless? No! The fact that these waste streams are now reliably there means that hundreds of companies around the world are developing ways to solve the problem. Because there is the potential to make a lot of money.
And we can see the recycling rates steadily rise, year by year. Its a matter of patience and politics. And thank god for the EU, which sometimes can have the balls to tell the big corps to go pound sand and implement new policies which drive the sector forward.
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