#30DayGreen Day 5: Recycling Right

by Shimi Rii

The fact that I study the ocean doesn't mean that I consider myself a tree-hugging environmentalist. It's not that I'm environmentally unfriendly, but I eat my sushi without looking at the sustainable fish list and I do use that inevitable Styrofoam cup when I'm twitching for the 3pm jolt of caffeine.

I already compost, recycle, and use my own water bottle. I try not to use disposable cutlery when eating lunch.

My unfriendliness is so subtle that on the surface, I seem like a model earth-friendly scientist. Yet, I know in the back of my head that I break recycling rules every day. So when this 30-day recycling challenge came along, I thought it might be a good way to force myself to see the non-obvious: not what I'm not doing, but what I'm already doing ... wrong.

Being a conscious recycler is a bit like having a Tiger Mom breathing over your shoulder. "Are you sure you want to choose that career...I mean, throw that away?"

Unwillingly, I looked around my kitchen:

The first thing I saw was the near-empty jar of peanut butter in the to-be-recycled bin:

I suspect that there are so many things wrong with this attempt at recycling. Yet I have, shamefully, let this exact item pass through my hands into the blue recycling bin, wondering for a millisecond how bad is it to ignore the instructions in the recycling handbook. "I'm so disappointed in you ..." breathed my Tiger Conscience.

So okay, let's break it down:

1) The container is not washed out. Recycling 101 says all recycled material should be clean. Do you really rinse out your beer cans before dropping them in your blue bin? Come on, be truthful. Did you also know that because of this rule, pizza boxes can not be recycled? The bottom line is that everyone who thinks they are recycling still recycles dirty receptacles. How bad is it?

ANSWER: Not really that bad at all! Nina Rastogi of Slate writes that "recycling facilities are well equipped to handle dirty cans and bottles, so some caked-on tomato sauce . . . won't significantly hinder the process." Rastogi advises to stop worrying about the cleaning, and to try pre-recycling instead. For example, I could cut out the recycling process if I filled up my own jar of peanut butter when buying in bulk from a health food store. It's probably healthier, while being conscious of the other two R's (reducing and reusing) at the same time.

2) The other glaringly misplaced item: THE LID. We all know that most curbside recycling containers only accept the 1's and 2's. This is because they are the easiest plastics to recycle, made of polyethylene terephthalate (PETE, 1) or high density polyethylene (HDPE, 2). These plastics are recycled to become fiberfill for winter coats, sleeping bags, life jackets, combs, and other plastic bottles. We also all know that most lids for plastic water bottles, drinks, food jars, etc., are usually rated 3, 4, 5, and 7. These are made of thermoset polymers and will undergo a chemical change during the process of recycling. These are our shower curtains, Tupperware, and yes, LIDS - and few municipal recycling centers accept it due to very low rate of recyclability. In fact, non-recyclable plastic and lids are so bad they are listed as number 7 and 9 in the Dirty Dozen hit list of the worst recycling contaminants from Eco-Cycle.

Contaminants:

Apparently, your lazy attempt at saving the environment results in more contamination. Though any plastic can be recycled with special equipment, mixing of two types "contaminates the other, reducing the value of the material or requiring resources to separate them before processing", reports EarthTalk, quoting Signe Gilson, Waste Diversion Manager for Seattle-based CleanScapes. "One stray [#5] bottle in a melt of 10,000 [#1] bottles can ruin the entire batch," reports Ahmad Lotfi, in a comprehensible research on plastic recycling.

Not only will the misfit not compact properly during the recycling process, contaminants are likely to jam up processing equipment and may be dangerous to workers. Interesting that Recycling Right (with 1's and 2's) makes more life jackets, while Recycling Wrong can become health hazards.

All of that from one single unclean peanut butter jar. I sighed and moved onto sorting out my mail, where another heartache awaited.

Amongst 12 pieces of paper mail, only 5 were truly recyclable. If you carefully sort out your mixed waste, you start to realize that most envelopes, with clear windows for the addresses, are not recyclable. Incredulous, I looked up my local recycling instructions and the answer? No envelopes at all. Make that 33% success rate for my general paper mail recycling.

I have a feeling recycling crimes are more abundant at work, where proprietary materials are used in the name of Science! and we turn a blind eye to what is practical and effective. Read on next week for my love of paper, specific pipet tips, and the unreasonable need to print.

Thanks for the info Shimi! I looked up my city's own recycling guidelines... be sure to look up yours! Share your findings on Twitter #30DayGreen.