To Celebrate National Recycling Day, Resist Misinformation

Friday, Nov. 15, is National Recycling Day (also known as America Recycles Day) in the United States, and since plastics are part of the recycling picture, I thought I’d review a few basic ideas. It’s somewhat sad that I have to do this, but there is so much misinformation out there that it’s necessary. Besides, there are always people who haven’t yet been exposed to the correct information.

Plastics are recyclable

The technology to take existing plastic parts, melt them down, and reform them into new plastic parts exists and has existed for more than 100 years. Before anyone gets into the objections, let me repeat this: The technology to take existing plastics parts, melt them down and reform them into new plastic parts exists and has existed for more than 100 years. That technology is used across the country and around the world. No new discoveries need to be made.

Now to the objections

Yes, the different types of plastics need to be kept apart from each other, but that’s also true with metals, as aluminum and steel need to be sorted.

Yes, the quality of recycled plastic is less than that of virgin resin, but that’s also true with paper.

Yes, not all communities recycle all plastics, but that’s also true for all recyclables. This leads me to my second point.

All recycling is local

This is always the hardest point to get across. There are countless self-appointed experts/influencers/advocates/wannabes who never get this straight. The rules for recycling depend entirely upon the community that you are in. When I lived in the Twin Cities, Minneapolis and St. Paul often had different rules despite sharing many miles of a common border. 

To give one example: Some locations will accept plastics based on the recycling code on the plastics, while others will accept them based on their original use, regardless of the recycling number. 

Because of this localness, if someone in New York or California or even the city next door to you is going on about what is or is not recyclable, what they say may not apply to where you live. 

Worse yet, the rules are not constant but change all the time, which means that 10-year-old social media posts may not be accurate despite sounding oh-so-authoritative.

A low recycling rate doesn’t mean that plastic isn’t recyclable

Go back and review the first point. Plastics are recyclable and do get recycled. The rate of recycling is low compared to other materials, but as I pointed out in a recent column, the value of recycled plastics varies with the price of oil. When the price goes up enough, the value of recycled plastics goes up with it and everyone becomes interested. (By “everyone,” I mean not just companies, but gangs of thieves looking to steal millions of dollars’ worth of plastics.)

Environmentalists are trying to change the definition of “recyclable” so that only materials with a specified recycling rate can be called “recyclable,” and plastics currently would not meet this standard. This is a horrible idea.

The fact that I can write a column like this, and it’s not considered silly and just a restatement of ideas that everyone already knows, shows misinformation exists. To add to that misinformation by arbitrarily attempting to change the definition of a word will make plastic recycling even more difficult, both now and in the future.

National Recycling Day would be a great opportunity for all of us to start countering this misinformation. I did my part. Please help out.