One of the first tenets of sustainability that we learn is to recycle. While this can be an effective way of helping the planet, it requires tedious work through all levels of the process from the person who recycles a bottle to the company that recycles it. Quite often, there is a break in the chain, and recycling isn’t as effective as it can be.
The recycling system is defective because of two reasons in particular. One, in many cases, items we put in recycling bins don’t actually get recycled, because they end up in landfills due to improper sorting in most countries. And two, companies do not have the resources for recycling many kinds of recyclables, leaving them to dumpsters at just the first step in the process.
Generally, we think that recycling is beneficial to the environment, but while this may be true, the idea behind it is rarely implemented. The recycling system needs to be more organized and advanced, which can be done by taking into account that recycling often needs to be sorted and that mailing it off to a different country is not the solution to the problem.
We often think that paper and cardboard are biodegradable, recyclable, and good for the environment. In fact, these “recyclables” can have just as bad of an effect on the environment as non-recyclables. We say that plastics can be recycled, but only the items that have a number 1 or number 2 on the bottom can truly be recycled. Many types of paper, like paper coffee cups, can not be recycled as they are covered in a sheet of plastic. Similarly, cardboard can only be recycled if there is no contamination from food or other types of waste. Thus, 25 to 30 percent of the cardboard put in the recycling still ends up in landfills.
The practice of sending recyclables to another country to be recycled is common among many countries; however, oftentimes these items are not recycled even though countries say they are. While this process can be helpful for developing countries’ economies, most of the reusables are lost along the way by being burned illegally or thrown out completely from contamination. In 2019, Malaysia, one of the countries where this is a full industry, sent back 3,000 tons of products sent out to be recycled because of improper separation of recyclable and waste products. But in most cases, the original recyclables are not sent back, and the recycling becomes waste. Malaysian Minister Yeo Bee Yin said, “What the citizens of the United Kingdom believe they send for recycling is actually dumped in our country.”
This shows how our supposed positive efforts end up for nothing because of the small things — improper separation, incorrect labeling of waste, and more. In 2018, it was reported that the recycling rate of the United States of America is 74 percent and the European Union’s is 86 percent. While this may be true, this number comes from how much is sent to be recycled. For example, the 3,000 tons of “recyclables” sent to Malaysia were counted as recycled by the United States even though they were never recycled at all. The numbers that the general population is presented to show countries’ success in recycling are not actually true.
To further, while number 1 and number 2 plastics can almost always be recycled, so can number 3 to number 6 plastics. It is just that facilities do not build factories that can recycle them, leading to less recycling than possible. There are endless types of paper cups and plastic bottles that are said to be made out of recycled material, but, especially in cases where recyclables are mailed, facilities are quick to discard items that can not be recycled by their facilities. As such, companies and governments should invest in better recycling facilities and technologies to ensure that these materials can be recycled. If we were to recycle these materials, we could potentially reduce our environmental impact even more. This will help us to reduce the amount of waste ending up in landfills and our oceans by allowing these resources to help the planet.
A more thorough sorting system and a wider acceptance variety may take some time to develop and might not be able to handle every single recyclable item that can be reused, but by having more set recycling policies at the government and company levels will help the planet even more. Especially in the cases of first-world countries who send their trash to other parts of the world, these two fixes could mean that our planet will die at a slower rate than it is currently. And for the progress that we have made recently, or lack thereof, I think that this is a good start.
