It’s easy to look at the data on recycling rates—21.4% overall and only 9% of all plastic!?—and feel tempted to go full-on trash nihilist. But throwing up our hands doesn’t solve anything. Proper and purposeful recycling is always going to be something eco-minded individuals can and should do, even if it doesn’t crack the top five most-impactful ways to cut a person’s share of planet-warming emissions. As much as we hate it, recycling takes a bit of doing to get right.
It’s not your fault. The recycling system was never really set up to work, particularly where plastic is concerned. Fossil-fuel companies funded and pushed for recycling, even though they’ve known since the ‘80s that most plastics will never find a second life. They spent millions on marketing and imagery like the chasing arrows symbol, creating a smokescreen that drives even more consumption and confusion about what is—and isn’t—recyclable. “If [people] are wondering if they’re stupid: No, it’s designed to be confusing,” says Mitch Hedlund, founder and executive director of Recycle Across America, a nonprofit that advocates for standardizing recycling bin labels. “It’s been designed to fail, because there’s tons of conflicts of interest in this industry.”
The marketing, though, has worked, which is a good-news-bad-news situation. It’s awesome for the average person to feel engaged in helping address our ever-growing waste problem and overflowing landfills, sure. But it’s also made people far too hesitant to let trash be trash. Wish-cycling, sometimes more dryly called “overinclusive recycling,” is a side effect of being eco-minded in a culture struggling against overconsumption. Folks default to the blue bin when they shouldn’t—or when they’re just not sure where a particular item should go. The result of this is contamination in the recycling stream; dirty or non-recyclable materials making their way into the flow is a top reason batches get rejected at recycling facilities.
Meanwhile, the rise of single-stream recycling—that is, putting everything in one big pile as opposed to separating metal, glass, and plastic—has compounded the issue. In the early 2000s, around 7% of recycling lots were so contaminated with non-recyclable materials that they went straight to the landfill, according to the National Waste and Recycling Association. Now, that number is 25%.
So, what in the actual heck does all this mean for you, a person with good intentions who wants to recycle those bins of bottles and cans? The first, best, most-important thing you can do is buy as little single-use stuff as you reasonably can—especially plastic. (We made a checklist to help you out.) After that, you can make sure what you’re putting into the blue bin has the best possible chance at finding a second life. Figuring out what that looks like varies from town-to-town, which means you might have to do a little legwork and call up your local waste hauler to sort through it all. So we made a four-step guide for you to follow.
Step 1: Find out what your local recycling center accepts
Recycling is a local enterprise, which means every system isn’t able to process all the same materials. Some take glass; some don’t. Some will accept a broad range of plastics; some are very limited. The only way to know for sure what you can—and just as importantly, can’t—put in the blue bin is to ask.
It’s not that cities and towns don’t communicate this at all; it’s that they don’t communicate it enough. Many will fall back on sending out an annual mailer or distributing a flyer when a change happens, but Hedlund and other folks in the industry say that’s not enough.
You can start by consulting your town’s sanitation or waste-management website. Many post a checklist or a downloadable flyer you can print and stick to your fridge that outlines what they accept. If you can’t find anything, give them a call, and ask them to run through what they accept. There are some specifics you’ll want to cover:
‘What types of plastic do you accept?’
While the iconic chasing-arrows symbol stamped on most plastic packaging might make it seem like it can all go in the bin, it can’t. The number inside those arrows is called the resin code—an indication of the type of polymer used in that specific plastic—and some are more readily recyclable than others. Most haulers in the U.S. take No. 1 (polyethylene terephthalate, aka PET, aka the stuff water bottles are made of) and No. 2 (high-density polyethylene, aka HDPE, aka the stuff milk jugs and cleaner bottles are usually made of). Ask the recycler which ones they take, and also what they want you to do with anything that has no stamp on it at all.
‘Do you take all glass, or just packaging?’
The glass used to make drinkware, cookware, and decor isn’t the same as the stuff used to make wine bottles and jam jars. There are big differences in chemical makeup, which means items made for multiple uses melt differently than glass used for packaging. Mixing the two can spoil the lot.
‘And what about metal?’
If your waste-handler accepts metal, take a second to confirm which kind. Most facilities only want food and beverage canisters—usually made from steel or aluminum—but others may also take smaller stuff like lids. Be sure to ask specifically about aluminum foil, too, because, while some facilities accept it, those that do might have limitations about how big it needs to be.
‘Do you care how big—or small—items are?’
While you’re figuring out how massive you need to make your balls of aluminum foil, also ask if they have any constraints on size. Oftentimes, small items like pill bottles, cosmetics cases, or the teeny travel-sized containers or shampoo (or booze?) can jam up equipment. Also ask what they want you to do with plastic bottle caps: take them off or keep them on. Some recyclers can crunch them up right along with bottles, but it’s not a given.
‘Bags, or no bags?’
Again, because of how automated many sorting systems are, most places will advise folks not to bag their recyclables, but rather to dump them loose into the bin. The polymer sacks can get tangled and break the sorting machinery, causing slowdowns. There’s a chance your recycler has something in place to prevent this, but it’s not worth the risk—so ask first. The same goes for thin-film plastics like candy bar wrappers and bread bags: Hedlund says almost no recycler takes these for fear of mucking up the machinery.
‘What do you want me to do if I’m not sure?‘
It feels like sacrilege, but, according to Hedlund, recycling experts follow a common axiom when ambiguity strikes: “When in doubt, throw it out.” Most facilities are automated, which means the machines are the ones doing a lot of the sorting. Even those that rely on hand-sorting for even part of the process are far from perfect, she adds. “We’ve got waste, but we can’t put it in a recycling bin just because we’re afraid to send it to landfill,” she says. So, yes, you need to ask your waste-manager a potentially icky question: “Do I just put it in the trash if I’m not sure?”
Step 2: Ask where your recyclables go
OK, let’s say the stream of stuff heading into and out of blue bins is pitch-perfect, the next thing to suss out is where reclaimed materials wind up. This is a different conversation if you’re talking to your municipality than if you’re outside an established recycling zone and have to hire someone to come pick up your castoffs. (If you’re the latter, Hedlund says to avoid recyclers who also own landfills, because that creates a conflict of interest that incentivizes them to just chuck everything into the trash heap.) Here’s what to ask:
‘Where do things get sorted?’
Ask them where materials go once they’re collected, and don’t accept a vague answer like a “processing facility.” Ask them if you can come tour their facility and see how the process works. If you want them to know you’re serious—and kinda an over-achiever—ask specifically about visiting the Materials Recovery Facility (MRF), which is trash-lingo for recycling plant.
‘Where do sorted materials go?’
If financial investigations are about following the money, being a recycling sleuth is about following the trash—and also the money. Recycling systems often work with third parties or brokers to sell off materials. It’s how the operations help pay for themselves. Ask who these people are, and look them up. Sniff around for any red flags—like, for example, if they also own landfills—or news stories about them shipping waste overseas or tossing what they say is getting a second life, Hedlund advises.
If you want to be extra extra, get those companies on the horn, too. The more transparent they are about where they send the materials they buy, the better, so ask where and who they sell stuff to.
Step 3: Ask where you can learn more
The last thing to do in your sweep is to complete the transparency sniff test with your hauler. You’ll have a pretty good idea if they’re BSing you at this point, so consider this step putting a bow on the conversation. Ask them if they publish any reports on how they’re doing, and where you can find them. These updates can include data on recycling volume, lot contamination, and more. In the best-case scenario, they’ll also include concrete plans for systemic improvements.
Step 4: Advocate for change
Learn something you didn’t like in your dumpster diving endeavors? Get mad, sure, but also get motivated. Contact your local representatives and let them know that the current state of affairs is unacceptable. Remember, though, that the most effective way to fix recycling is to stem the flow of waste to begin with. So, while you can certainly ask that your local waste managers be more transparent or partner with better brokers, you should also be advocating for policies aimed at cutting single-use waste. You can, for instance, ring up your state-level rep and ask them to introduce a bill like the ones developed by the nonprofit Beyond Plastics.