Why Recycling Doesn't Work
What's Wrong with Recycling?
The System is Broken
In 2018 as I was working as a transfer driver, I asked the dispatcher at the transfer station about why we were taking tons of recyclable materials to the landfill a few miles away. He told me it was because while it was sitting outside for many months getting rained, snowed, and having bird droppings plastered all about it, the recyclables molded and became impossible to recycle. I then asked how much was there. He replied, "37,000 tons"!
To put that into perspective, an eighteen wheeler can legally only weigh 80,000 pounds. That is 40 tons. That weighs as much as 925 fully loaded trucks. It took a couple weeks to get rid of all that garbage and let's not forget the tons of waste already coming in. Let me reiterate, the system is broken.
Why is it broken?
You saw in the video above that China used to take a lot of the world's recyclable waste. Now that has changed. Because of this, many of the thing we use that are recyclable are ending up in landfills. What can we do?
Remember the 3 R's?
Reducing what we use will go a long way in helping us get out of this vicious cycle. By buying products with less plastic can go a long way. I would also venture to say that using products that are plant based would also help.
Reusing what we already have like upcycling can go a long way to help the load on our waste management system. Like I said in a previous blog, using broken cups as starter planters. An example of upcycling is using ground up tires in playgrounds or old Christmas Trees being ground up into mulch. This will help reduce what we are sending to the landfill.
Recyling. There is a reason why this is the last R. Recycling should be the last resort for any product if we truly want to stop sending many of these products to the landfill. After we exhausted the use of a plastic item, we should first try to upcycle it and reuse it. Then, and only then should we recycle it.
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