Is Recycling Worth It Anymore? The Truth Is Complicated.

[Music] this is james williams [Music] this is james williams bale of plastic this is james williams stockpile of 25 000 pounds of his county's recycling see what's missing here is the part where the recycling actually gets recycled normally james would sell all this to a processor who handles that but something is happening to america's recycling system it's in a bit of a crisis we actually had to give away hundreds of tons of paper because there was no market for it this is craig hampel he runs a recycling center in burbank california you might be able to get 20 or 22 tons on a truck but it may cost you a few hundred dollars just to move it across the los angeles basin recycling which was supposed to make money was in fact costing and that's just one thing on a long list of things about america's recycling system that is no longer working but americans keep doing things in bins and trucks keep collecting them and so people like james have had to come up with creative solutions i've actually acquired some semi-trailers so we can stuff material full of them this is a story about responsibility and what happens when everyone keeps trying to pass it off to the next person and what happens when finally there is no next person here in america we generate the most waste per capita in the world and if recycling keeps going the way it's going figuring out what to do with all of that is gonna be a big problem wow okay um what do i do that's a very good question i am a department of one this is monica beauringer she has unique insights as to how we got into this mess problem number one a public that is very disconnected from the reality of recycling public works this is monica how can i help you are is it out at the curb or is it on okay it's at the curb hey billy it's monica how are you the the resident has been yard waste in the wrong containers um so let me transfer you over there okay some of the phone calls that i get regarding recycling the numbers thing okay there is something on your recycling on your plastic especially and it's like a little symbol with chasing arrows and a number in it they think they see the chasing arrows in a number and they're like oh obviously this is recyclable but it isn't there's all scrambling all the marketers are scrambling to have their eco cred by having the recycling symbol on their packaging this is amy hammes she's the recycling specialist at burbank recycle center the recycling lobe logo which we call the chasing arrows what it is doing is from the plastic resin manufacturer to the recycler it's signaling here's the kind of plastic we used in that particular product so even if a package is saying it's recyclable or it's got the recycling logo on it that's not always the full story it's not whether we want to recycle something or not it's about can we sell it which depends entirely on where you are because there are virtually no federal regulations for recycling you go to some place like california their regulations are very different you go to washington state it's different again you go to colorado it's another story and and it's that lack of consistency across the board that adds to the confusion one thing about recycling that is consistent across america residents total delusion about what they can put in the bin they just think that the the recycling cart is a portal to another universe and it's not people in the industry call it wish cycling it runs a gamut it really does it's it's you'd be very surprised what people think is recyclable you name it eventually it'll be found in it let's see a pool table big propane tanks needles loose needles a neck brace we've had guns ammunition fireworks sparklers the kitchen sink somebody out called to ask me which end of the deer to put into the cart first i had a live snake recently we were able to save him and release him out into a nature preserve the one thing about the public is when they are done with the material they're done with it they're not connecting the dots that there's a journey that that item is going to take and it's going to become someone else's responsibility [Music] someone else's responsibility a beautiful concept and for america that someone was china until a few years ago america exported millions of tons of plastic trash selling it to china to be recycled into something new china provided this huge you know easy um cure-all to over-consumption in the developed countries china was hungry they were building an economy based on manufacturing you could send those contaminated materials to china and they could put you know labor at one tenth the cost to sort those materials and so for a while it was a handshake agreement you know we'll take the dirty stuff and we'll sort it over here you just get us the bulk material the percentage the quantity of valuable recycling material started to get smaller and smaller and smaller the wishful recycling people not putting things incorrectly the assumption that somebody else will finish the job for you now this wasn't entirely the fault of consumers there are two types of contamination contamination caused by citizens and contamination caused by manufacturers say think of like a canister like you know like pringles or some coffees come in that canister is made up of paper cardboard then inside is glued aluminum foil all that stuff is recyclable by itself but when you combine materials together who are you going to sell it to the paper guy doesn't want paper that's got aluminum foil glued to it and the metal person doesn't have to take dismantle the paper and we're not doing that all we are is sorting it and selling it and both types of contamination were happening too frequently more and more we weren't sending china recycling we were sending them our trash plus china had grown so much that they were generating enough waste to meet their demand for raw materials on their own importing america's waste was becoming more of a problem than it was worth when they started looking at their own environment and what was happening then it really you know the hammer really came down that's when we started sending our waste to other countries and they started having similar pollution problems eventually the united nations banned the export of contaminated plastic waste to developing nations so the position that we're left with is we are we're still collecting all these materials we're still generating all these materials but now we just can't sell it to anyone that's going to make it into something new [Music] all right what are we going to do with this material today that we've got five boxes coming in and only got room for three so everything just piles up on us and we just move what we can when we can we have earth right we have this one planet we only have so many places that we could put our waste you can't put it in the ocean look what happened you know you can't put it on top of a mountain they've even tried to put it into a volcano it's not working we have to come up with a better plan this pile in the warehouse right now is probably somewhere in the vicinity of about a hundred tons and that pile is one person in the in the united states about a lifetime of discards that's about what it would look like [Music] recycling it's one of those things where it not only does the public kind of depend on that emotionally to relinquish their you know guilt about buying things but it has been kept alive by the manufacturers and this is a long history of this to understand that we have to start here in the 1940s the future will bring plastic fabrics wondrously fine shoes more glamorous than cinderella's when manufacturers started using plastic for consumer goods they treated it as a durable material using it to make objects meant to last there will be furniture combining strength with lightness but pretty soon manufacturers realize that the fastest way to increase profits would be to get people to buy plastic use it once and then throw it away at one plastics industry conference in 1956 a speaker looked out at the crowd of plastic manufacturers and said to them your future is in the garbage wagon and things started to explode baggies plastic bags always have the sound of freshness a new invention from procter just throw the whole razor away naturally generating all of this new waste had consequences all these one-way containers that were just starting out were showing up in all the public spaces so the federal government u.s said hey manufacturers we want you to do something about this they said okay wait wait wait wait don't restrict this because these one-way containers are the best things since you know sliced bread and so they said okay we'll create keep america beautiful we'll talk about littering coca-cola and dixie cup and a bunch of other companies got together and formed an organization called keep america beautiful and started making psas daddy you forgot every little bit hurt right susan spotless every litter bit thoughtlessly dropped blemishes a bit of america these got people to stop littering and shifted the responsibility of dealing with waste from manufacturers to the consumers and for a while that worked a unique day in american history is ending a day set aside for a nationwide outpouring of mankind seeking its own survival earth day by 1970 citizens were increasingly concerned about the environment manufacturers were facing growing pressure to take responsibility for excess production the garbage the trash the carbon monoxide the junk so on earth day the next year keep america beautiful release this some people have a deep abiding respect for the natural beauty that was once this country and some people don't people start pollution people can stop it and they have never stopped talking about littering and they've never started talking about the excess production keep america beautiful senior director randy hartman says that it has expanded its efforts to promote recycling it partners with local communities to do so so this is a litter picker people like these these were a gift when i went to the keep america beautiful conference because i attended i got two dozen of these in 2017 we became a keep america beautiful affiliate and so that's about recycling uh awareness and litter collection recycling when it works is a valuable way to preserve resources but we over believe in it the marketing of it for decades has been you're saving the earth that's all you need to do public keep consuming you can do all this disposability and all you have to do is simply put it in that blue bin your job as a citizen is done so it led to more disposability really and because we had that get out of jail free card to ease our guilt has consumerism driven me mad as a recycler the answer is no what we would need to do is to work together with manufacturers to be more responsible in the development of products and maybe reducing some of the packaging how do i square this with my life at home for example i've got an affinity for applesauce my applesauce containers those little plastic cups are awesome for a lot of other different things it's a single use cup but it's something that i could use again and i do and how i square with all of this is i have hope and i have energy and i want to ignite the passion in someone to reinvent what they have and maybe use it one more time just for me this just eats at me all the time about recycling is we just keep trying to solve this on the back end to try to solve the problems that are created upstream i wish we could take the word recycling out of this equation and just talk about consumption and waste as if there was no recycling because it has enabled some of the worst behavior i've ever seen [Music] guys want to take a bale home souvenir i'll sign it [Music] you

Channel: NPR

Views: 631,157

Rating: 4.8730221 out of 5

Keywords: npr, npr news, Earth Day, trash, recycling, garbage, National Sword, America, United States, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, reduce, reuse, recycle, environment, earth, planet, pollution, plastic, waste, consumerism, consumer, manufacturer, Keep America Beautiful, landfill

Id: iBGZtNJAt-M

Length: 15min 52sec (952 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 21 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/ihearttwin]

Everyone forgets that the song goes reduce, reuse, recycle. Reducing is the first part!

[u/id10t_you]

At half the size, I used to complain that my recycling bin was too small. That was until we really started paying attention to what is actually recyclable. Now we barely fill it halfway most weeks.

[u/adrianrambleson]

Americas concept of recycling originally involved shipping items thousands of miles to countries who were so poor they needed other countries garbage. But now most countries have enough of their own recycling to make money on it.

As well, the cost of shipping big tonnages crazy long distances is astronomical. You absolutely have to process the recycling where its collected.

That means pyrolysis to turn plastics back into fuel and chemicals, furnaces to melt down metal scrap and kilns to clean catalytic converters and diesel particulate filters as well as millions of dollars in anti pollution equipment.

[u/Igor_J]

Remember when stores switched from paper bags to plastic bags to save the trees? about that...

At least Aldis makes you bring your own bags.

[u/frosting_unicorn]

The entire concept of recycling is only useful to permit us to keep ignoring the problem of pollution. The truth is that to "save the environment" we should change drastically our life style and our economic system. And we are just not going to do that. We'll keep inventing stupid fake solutions till it's too late.

[u/markfuckinstambaugh]

My wife and I try our best to reduce our plastic waste, but it's hard. There are so many incentives to be wasteful. Here's just one example: At our local grocery, red potatoes are $1.49/lb. A 5-lb bag (plastic) costs $3.99. One way to look at it is that if I buy 5 lbs, I can get the bag and $3.46 back. Another way to look at it is that if I buy 2.66 lbs, I can get the bag and 2.34 lbs more for free. Either way, I'm getting the bag. The bag isn't even recyclable at the curb.

This is almost the definition of Tragedy of the Commons. Everybody in the chain is doing their own little piece to benefit. Plastics producers sell more plastic bags. Potato farmers sell more potatoes. Grocery stores don't have to pay employees to stack 30 potatoes by hand. Consumers get more potato for their dollar. Trash companies have more trash to pick up. Everybody is winning with their wallets, but everybody is losing as the planet goes to shit. In the end their wallets will be empty again, and the planet will still be shit.

[u/shavenyakfl]

People still haven't figured out that we can't recycle our way out of this problem. Frankly, I'm kind of sick of the guilt trip from the world, putting the responsibility on me, when it should be put on manufacturers. Unfortunately, that's just not the American way.

[u/DrAwesomestuff]

The Reduce and Reuse portions of the 3 R’s have always been the most effective and important.

[u/commazero]

Is the concern only with recycling plastics? Recycling metals is still very important and reduces the amount of raw material that is used thus preserving the life span of the remaining raw material.