The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has estimated that seventy five percent of the waste produced by the US could be recycled, yet current numbers for waste recycling revolve around thirty four percent. This discrepancy is mostly due to individual choices such as throwing one’s waste in the trash rather than recycling it. But not entirely. Recycling is also inhibited by broader factors, including discrepancies between the processing capabilities of different recycling facilities and the fact that different municipalities–even ones near to each other–recycle different types of plastic. Disparate policies between municipalities make recycling (especially plastic recycling) inefficient and confusing. American recycling programs must be made more comprehensive, and be more broadly and uniformly implemented to improve recycling performance and maximize the contribution of the individual consumer.
The deficiency and complexity of the US recycling system is compounded by reliance on other countries for certain steps in the process–especially when foreign countries are either unwilling or unable to accept exported recycling. The US, like many other western countries, has been particularly reliant on East Asian countries (most prominently China) using its recyclable materials to make other products. China imported approximately 45 percent of global plastic waste between 1988 and 2016, as the recycled plastic is often of higher quality than that which is possible to obtain within China. For many Western countries, this strategy has proved less expensive than fully processing domestically; as such, the process has been operating for decades. However, it becomes unsustainable when plastic waste importers decide to stop importing. China, through its 2017 National Sword Policy, stopped accepting all but the least contaminated plastics, setting a contamination limit so low that no American processor could realistically meet the standard. While other neighboring nations, including Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam have attempted to pick up the slack resulting from this ban, their processing systems are insufficiently advanced, and therefore cannot cope with the large volume of recycling.
Moving from national policy to municipal policy, limitations on plastics recycling are governed by the capability of a given municipality’s recycling processor to recycling the different types of plastic. These different types are denoted by resin numbers, triangles of arrows present on plastic containers that denote the type of plastic in the container. Almost all recycling facilities process the types of plastic that are easiest to recycle (resin numbers one and two). These plastics are respectively called Polyethylene Terephthalate (PTP) and High Density Polyethylene (HDPE)–the first is usually used in drink bottles, and the second usually used for containers such as milk and laundry detergent bottles. These plastics are often easier to recycle because there is a more consistent market for them in their recycled form. Because they are the types of plastic used to make the most diverse array of things, their recycling rate near 10% while for other types it is near zero. PTP and HDPE are also made through a blow-molding process rather than by injection or stamp-molding. Other plastics (resin numbers 3-7) are made through the latter processes and require additives, making them more difficult and more costly to recycle.
Nonetheless, despite this increased cost and difficulty, there are still large, populous municipalities that engage in more comprehensive recycling–recycling all types of plastic with great success. New York city is one example of such a municipality, and following its example might help resolve growing American recycling problems. It has the largest municipal recycling program in the nation and the ability to recycle plastics of all resin numbers. Sims Municipal Recycling is the contractor responsible for most of the processing of NYC recycling, with sanitation trucks unloading at a Sims yard in the Bronx, and Sims trucks then transport recyclables to a sorting facility in Brooklyn. While Sims sells the sorted and compressed plastic to manufacturers across the world, there are substantial manufacturing facilities nearby, including Graham Packaging Company in York, PA, where plastics are deconstructed and reformed into new products. This efficient, localized system shows that comprehensive recycling without unstable outsourcing is possible. In response to the Chinese ban, Sims has even begun expanding its processing facilities to take in recyclables from other recycling institutions with more limited capacities.
To increase capacity and encourage recycling, governments should strive to eliminate disparities in processing capabilities of nearby recycling facilities. Variations in recycling policies between municipalities within the same state and even between institutions within the same municipality makes the process of recycling unnecessarily confusing and may potentially harm the environment. For instance, people may wrongly assume that because one municipality recycles all sorts of plastic, another nearby must do the same. If this is not true, they run the risk of contaminating the types of plastic that the municipality actually would recycle with other materials and chemicals that it does not–thereby preventing even acceptable materials from being recycled effectively. Ideally, the capacity of recycling facilities that can process all types of plastic (resin numbers 1-7) should be expanded to accommodate waste from more places. Even failing this advancement, municipalities and institutions should make a greater effort to publicize which types of plastic they accept so contamination problems can be reduced.
Supplementing the United States’ broader recycling program could be companies which have already developed solutions to increase recycling, filling gaps in the US recycling system. Terracycle, for example, recycles unconventional materials including chip bags and instrument strings. The company also takes in more conventional plastic waste as part of its zero-waste mission, so Americans can send their recyclables there even if their municipalities do not process recycling to the same extent.
Other solutions focus on the participation of individual consumers. One possibly controversial policy suggestion is for individuals to pay for their trash by weight. Hopefully, such a policy would inspire people to pay more attention to materials that can be recycled in their municipalities and recycle more of their waste. This system has been implemented with great success in San Francisco and in Korea, increasing recycling rates substantially. A possible pitfall of such a policy is that to avoid paying, individuals may engage in more “wishful recycling,” attempting to recycle materials that their municipality may not process. However, particularly if policies change to mandate that more or all facilities process more or all types of plastics, this negative effect might be mitigated.
The United States needs to construct a stronger and less convoluted domestic recycling system both to decrease reliance on other nations and to develop a more comprehensive, environmentally-conscious waste-management system. Several highly effective initiatives have already been implemented. Improvement is merely a matter of drawing on those successful ideas to create a more unified recycling program committed to increased environmental and political sustainability.