Do you recycle?
Most Americans would answer a confident “yes”. According to The Recycling Partnership, 73% of all U.S. households have recycling access as of 2024. But let’s look into this just a little bit more.
If you live in a house in the U.S., you may be used to seeing—at most—three big trash cans that get emptied by a big truck on a certain day of the week. The wheeled trash cans are likely green, blue, and grey: green for food waste, blue for recycling, and grey for unrecyclable and inorganic trash. In the blue trash can, you probably dispose of plastics, glass, paper, etc.
But have you ever wondered how much of that blue recycling bin truly gets recycled? If you’re wondering now, here’s the answer: not very much at all.
Sources find that only about two-thirds of recycled paper and cardboard are actually recycled— the best statistic compared to the 27% of glass and mere 8% of plastics that take “recycling” beyond the blue recycling bin.
Having been the good citizen who dutifully sorted your trash into the three bins, you might feel cheated. Why isn’t your effort being pulled through?
The problem begins in the American recycling system. Most households, companies, and public facilities that “recycle” all use a single-stream recycling system, where all recyclable material is put into one big bin. Already, before being put into the bin, many recyclable materials turned to trash due to contamination, having not been properly cleaned before disposal. But to make it worse, this all-in-one recycling bin doubles the possibility of contamination. Because the separation of recyclable material requires both time and money, a contaminated load may be sent to the landfill altogether, even if some of the material is truly recyclable. While the big blue recycling bin makes it easy for us consumers, it actually takes away from the planet.
The low success rate of recycling in America should be concerning. Districts need to find ways to tighten their recycling regulations and devise systems to raise the true recycling rate. A quick look at countries with much higher recycling rates should reveal that a few more seconds of dedication to the separation of recyclables should drastically improve their success. In Germany (recycling rate 67% in 2019-2021), on top of bins separating plastics/metal and paper/cardboard, there are three different bins for different types of glass. In Switzerland (53%), glass, aluminum, paper, electronics, and organic waste are collected separately. We see a similar trend in South Korea (60%), where there are separate public collecting bins for can/metal bottles, glass bottles, vinyl, and plastics.
With a better system in place, it would only take a few more seconds for each of us to nearly double the amount of recyclable materials that escape the landfill and are reused as something new. With an adjustment as simple as adding more categories, we can make our recycling count.
By adopting more meticulous separation methods and enhancing recycling systems, the U.S. could substantially increase its recycling efficacy, turning more waste into reusable resources.
References
Bouliane, Nicolas. “How to Sort Trash and Recycle in Germany.” All About Berlin | How to Sort Trash and Recycle in Germany, 31 Jan. 2024, allaboutberlin.com/guides/sorting-trash-in-germany.
Cho, Renée. “Recycling in the U.S. Is Broken. How Do We Fix It?” State of the Planet | Recycling in the U.S. Is Broken. How Do We Fix It?, 13 Mar. 2020, news.climate.columbia.edu/2020/03/13/fix-recycling-america/#:~:text=Photo%3A%20USEPA-,Recycling%20in%20the%20U.S.%20is%20broken.,actually%20end%20up%20being%20recycled.
“Countries That Recycle the Most: Top Recycling Countries.” Agood Company, 17 Feb. 2023, www.agood.com/blogs/stories/countries-that-recycle-the-most.
Hnettles. “Report Shows Only 21% of U.S. Residential Recyclables Are Captured, Points to Policy and Investment as Immediate Solutions.” The Recycling Partnership, 10 Jan. 2024, recyclingpartnership.org/report-shows-only-21-of-u-s-residential-recyclables-are-captured-points-to-policy-and-investment-as-immediate-solutions/.
State of California. “Collection Systems, Standardized Container Colors, and Labeling.” CalRecycle Home Page, calrecycle.ca.gov/organics/slcp/collection/systems/#:~:text=Green%20Container%3A%20Limited%20to%20food,is%20not%20organic%20or%20recyclable.
Rachelson, David. “What Is Recycling Contamination, and Why Does It Matter?” Rubicon, 6 Feb. 2023, www.rubicon.com/blog/recycling-contamination/#:~:text=Recycling%20contamination%20occurs%20when%20materials,on%20a%20plastic%20yogurt%20container.
The views and opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect nor represent the Earth Chronicles and its editorial board.
