So, Should We Recycle? YES WE SHOULD!

False Facts

Actual Facts

You create more environmental harm by recycling plastic bottles than throwing them out.  So, don’t try to recycle them.

There is no way to recycle plastic bottles in the United States, it all gets exported to Asian countries.  And, since China shut its doors, the U.S. is dumping its plastics on other Southeast Asian countries.

Plastic containers collected for recycling are being thrown out because they have to pay as much as $200/ton to recycle them.  This is happening all over the US.

According to a recent Life Cycle Analysis of recycled plastic vs. virgin plastics, which include all of the consumptions and energy uses and emissions, recycling is vastly superior in every category to disposal.   This includes total energy, greenhouse gas generation, waste water, water consumption, solid waste, and other air pollution. 

There is a vibrant and economically thriving plastic bottle recycling here in the U.S.  In fact, we don’t collect enough plastic bottles in recycling programs to take full advantage of existing recycling capacity. This isn’t new.  It was true well before the China Sword policy enactment.

Plastic bottles are a very valuable commodity – people are not paying to have them recycled, they are being paid for them.  PET Bottle exports to China have actually declined steadily from a 2008 high of over 57% to 16% as of 2017. Presumably significantly lower in 2018 and 2019.

Most plastic containers are not being thrown, and having to pay to recycle them is an unusual and rare situation.  Water bottles, laundry detergent bottles and the like are highly valued for their recycling content.

Our recycling efforts have been harming the ocean, adding significantly to the ocean plastic crisis. When they couldn’t recycle something they shoved it into the oceans as a common way of handling the material.

The Chinese have not been simply shoving plastic bottles into the ocean.  People all over China are drinking bottled water (and using plastic bags, and other plastic packaging, just as we do), but ironically, China – like much of Southeast Asia – does not have a widespread solid waste and recycling infrastructure, so the plastic gets thrown out, or littered.  The plastic gets washed by rain and storms into streams and rivers. 

Many studies have demonstrated that the vast majority of the ocean plastic is coming from streams and rivers in Asia.  “Most of it isn’t thrown off ships, she and her colleagues say, but is dumped carelessly on land or in rivers, mostly in Asia. It’s then blown or washed into the sea.”[1] Certainly not a case of plastic recyclers pushing plastic into the ocean.

In order for plastic containers – such as peanut butter jars – to be recycled they have to be tripled rinsed in hot water.

They shouldn’t be full of peanut butter, but the usual leftovers on the sides just isn’t a problem for recyclers. What is a problem are bottles full of liquids, half-full food containers, kitchen waste, and dirty diapers. 

Plastic lids from peanut butter jars are not recyclable and should always be thrown out.

Like plastic water bottles, the plastic used in plastic lids from peanut butter jars – and other food containers – is a high value plastic with a strong domestic recycling industry. 

If our plastic containers were perfectly clean China would buy them.

Whether a plastic container is perfectly clean or not, China is no longer accepting shipments of plastic for recycling.  And, the original issue was never dirty peanut butter jars, it was shipments of plastic that had high levels of non-plastic materials – such as cans, auto parts, and paper. 

You have to pay to recycle corrugated cardboard, so it usually gets thrown out.

If the cardboard is soaking wet then it is garbage. But as long as it’s not, like water bottles, this is a readily recyclable material – in the U.S. This has been true and continues to be true.  It is not being thrown out by recyclers or recycling programs.

Recyclables are piling up or being landfilled all over the U.S. There’s a very good chance that your recyclables are being landfilled.

When the China Sword was first announced there was certainly some stockpiling – and in some instances almost exclusively in the western U.S. – landfilling, this situation resolved in a few months and it is no longer true.  Recycling programs shifted where they were sending materials to domestic recyclers and found new buyers for the materials.