- It seems like every time I read the news
there's a new article about the failure
of our recycling system.
As someone who makes videos about sustainability
for a living, and followed my recycling
to a sorting facility,
even I'm starting to have doubts about recycling.
Is this really true?
Is recycling beyond hope?
And what about those plastic numbers?
Why can I never get them straight?
On this week's episode, I wanna know.
Is recycling still worth it?
To find out, I'll connect with experts
with different perspectives on our recycling system.
- The reality is, is that the United States does not have
the proper waste infrastructure to actually address
all of that recycling waste.
And so they end up exporting it
to the countries in the global south.
- To be clear, you know, for good quality recyclables
there is demand.
We've had a good, strong domestic market
that was paper mills, things like aluminum
or glass are always domestic.
- We need to think beyond plastic recycling.
Because plastic recycling is greenwashing.
- And I'll finally get down to the truth
on those pesky plastic recycling numbers.
- If you see the numbers three through seven
on the bottom of your container,
that is mostly what was going to China.
- I'm Lucy Biggers, and this is "One Small Step."
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So here's a little history on the U.S. recycling system.
You know, that blue bin that gets collected by a truck
at the end of your driveway?
That's curbside recycling and it's been around the U.S.
for about 30 years.
Today, about 60% of American households
have curbside recycling.
When it started the main materials getting recycled
were paper, metal, and glass.
As the decades have gone by,
the material makeup of our waste has shifted.
One of the biggest changes has been
that our plastic use has doubled,
from 17 million tons in 1990 to about 35 million tons today.
The rise of different kinds of plastics,
which today are labeled numbers one through seven,
created a more complicated waste stream
that posed challenges to our recycling system.
All right, hold up, before we go any further
I need to figure out the deal
with these plastic recycling numbers.
So what I'm gonna do is sort all the plastic
I can find in my apartment
and figure out what is numbered what.
Let's do it.
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So I've collected all the plastic containers in my apartment
or most of them, and I've sorted them,
labels one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
So these are all different types of plastic
with different recycling rules
and accepted in some places, not accepted in others.
Great, not confusing at all.
More on these recycling numbers later in the video.
Instead of regulating companies
to use more sustainable materials,
our federal government failed to act,
leaving cities to start selling their low-grade plastic
and paper waste to China.
This seemed to work for decades,
but in 2017 China had enough
of being a U.S. dumping ground,
and passed the National Sword,
a policy that banned contaminated plastics
and other low-grade recycling materials.
This law sent shock waves through our recycling system
and spurred some of the first articles
claiming our recycling system was broken.
In the first few months of 2018,
our waste exports to China dropped by 35%.
But the exporting didn't stop.
- Because they can't ship it to China anymore,
they're shipping into Southeast Asia.
- [Lucy] Kristy Drutman is a climate justice advocate
and host of the podcast, "Brown Girl Green."
- They end up doing what's called a waste transfer
to countries in the global south.
Countries like the Philippines, where my family's from.
- In 2018, the U.S. was still shipping hundreds of thousands
of shipping containers to other countries.
And it's not that these countries
had better recycling infrastructure than us.
In fact, it's often worse.
But this system allowed cities
to wipe their hands of their waste
and count these materials as recycled.
- What happens is these countries
then might not also have the proper waste infrastructure
to address recycling waste.
And then they'll end up burning these plastic items,
or having to figure out other ways to rummage through it
and get rid of it.
So it ends up releasing a lot of toxic gases.
A lot of these communities are exposed to the chemicals
from these toxic fumes and they end up just having to deal
with this really monumental problem of other country's waste
because the countries where this waste originated
are not actually properly dealing with the waste themselves.
- In 2020, the U.S. exported
1.37 billion pounds of plastic waste to other countries,
down from 4.7 billion pounds in 2016.
But countries like Malaysia saw plastic scrap imports
increase by hundreds of millions of pounds.
There is some good news, in 2019,
over 180 countries joined together
under the Basel Convention to create a global ban
on the import of low-grade plastics.
But the United States has yet to ratify the ban.
As someone who has tried my best to recycle
over over my adult life, it's so frustrating to hear that
because our best intentions, when we're making a choice
about putting something into the blue bin
is then leading to these downstream impacts
that I don't think any of us would support.
Should I feel bad that I've been recycling
and like knowing that my waste might've been
playing into this unequal system?
- I don't think you should feel bad that you're recycling
because at the end of the day,
if the U.S. actually had proper waste management
and the actual infrastructure to address recycling
in the way that's necessary,
then you'd already be ahead of the game
in terms of having a very helpful habit.
And at the end of the day, we have to address
plastic as a source, how it's produced.
And so you as a consumer recycling your bottle,
you just need to know that you're not doing anything bad
by doing that, but that you're a part of this
really big global system
that's really complicated right now,
that the U.S. has chosen to participate in,
to not properly address their waste.
- So, what will it take for our recycling infrastructure
to get to a place where we can
handle our waste without exporting?
I reached out to Cole Rosengren,
senior editor of the waste and recycling website Wastedive,
to find out.
It seems like we have a huge supply
of kind of contaminated recyclables that nobody,
and there's no demand, so there's nowhere for them to go.
- True, especially for stuff that is contaminated,
no one really wants it.
And there's a lotta technology that's happening
to try to sort that out and to get cleaner streams.
A lot of what is considered mixed plastics,
which to us if you see the numbers three through seven
on the bottom of your container,
that is mostly what was going to China.
Numbers one and two, which are a bigger part
of the waste stream in terms of volume and more common,
that is largely handled domestically.
That was not affected as much.
- Hold up, so Cole said, that three through seven
have been getting shipped to China.
So that means everything from here over,
these containers would be the types of plastic
that were getting shipped overseas,
and now don't really have a local market.
It's frustrating as a consumer to know that these materials
would not be accepted by most curbside recycling in the U.S.
I will say though, that most of the plastic I did find
was ones and twos, which is a little bit encouraging.
A lot of cleaning containers, food ware,
I think two was the most popular item that I did find.
So to know that these are getting recycled domestically
does make me feel a little better.
But the fact that here and over was getting shipped to China
and now doesn't really have a local market,
or it doesn't have a domestic market now, frustrates me.
- And to be clear for good quality recyclables
there is demand throughout and still is.
We've had a good, strong domestic market
that was paper mills, and plastics facilities,
and things like aluminum and glass are always domestic.
A lot of this stuff is staying local and things are moving,
but certain streams just it's hard to make it worthwhile
to clean it up.
Even when there's education, folks are still puttin'
things that maybe don't go in the bin for whatever reasons
or they're confused
and the technology just can't always handle it.
- So individual error is an issue,
but educating the public is so hard.
That's because our recycling programs are run locally,
which means the rules change from one town to the next.
For example, where I live in New York
they built the high tech recycling facility in 2013.
Better technology allows New York residents
to recycle a wider selection of materials.
- Check for your local guidelines where possible,
just to make sure that,
and the list can change sometimes too.
You may be surprised all of a sudden X thing
is not considered acceptable anymore, for various reasons,
and it's hard to keep up.
Usually, it can be expected to be recycled, plastic bottles,
aluminum cans, glass bottles in most places,
not all places, cardboard, and most paper,
you should be reasonably expected to get recycled
when you put it in the bin.
- So recycling paper, aluminum, cardboard, glass,
and plastics one and two are still a good call in the U.S.
But it's so frustrating that these plastics
three through seven aren't getting recycled.
That's why many people are saying
we need to rethink plastic all together.
Judith Enck is the president of Beyond Plastics.
Before she started the non-profit
to tackle plastic pollution,
she was an EPA regional administrator
during the Obama administration.
- The plastic pollution issue merges
so many of the issues I've worked on my whole career,
environmental justice, water quality, climate change,
protecting fish and wildlife, and equity.
- Beyond Plastic supports the
Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act
that was recently introduced in Congress.
The bill aims to stem the flow of plastic production
by regulating the plastics industry
and banning certain single use plastics.
If passed, it could fix a lot of the issues
facing our recycling system.
For one, the bill prevents plastic waste
from being exported to other countries.
It also includes national standardization
of recycling labels and the expansion
of 10-cent bottle deposits
that already exist in nine states.
I did a video on the benefit of bottle deposit laws
that you can watch here.
When we look at recycling, what is it with plastic
versus some of these other materials
that you say are okay to recycle?
- Well, the other materials achieve a high recycling rate
and they lend themselves to recycling.
So an old newspaper can be recycled into a new newspaper.
Same thing with an aluminum can.
With plastics there are so many different types of plastics
and they have toxic additives.
So you also worry about repeating the circle of poison
if you're recycling material
that has toxic chemicals in them.
And they rarely, sometimes they do,
but they rarely get recycled into the same item,
like bottles to bottles.
They're usually recycled bottles into carpet,
yeah, it's down cycled.
The plastics industry knows this.
But they keep putting out more complicated plastics.
Plastic recycling is a dead end
and we should just be honest
and recognize that we have to stop buying so much plastic.
- The bill already has 100 co-sponsors
and Judith says that grassroots support
will be key to seeing it passed.
- So the way this bill will become law
is with massive grassroots education,
mobilization, and support.
And what's great is anyone can pick up the phone
and call their member of the House of Representatives.
or call one of their two U.S. senators.
And I'm hopeful, because the problem of plastic pollution
just keeps getting worse,
and we need to change the course that we are on.
The petrochemical industry has grand plans
to produce a lot more plastic
and scientists tell us that unless we get
new laws on the books or new policies to reduce plastic,
by 2050 for every pound of fish in the ocean,
they are projecting there'll be one pound of plastic.
And that is just unconscionable.
And the only way you change that status quo
is by passing strong laws
like the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act.
- So, federal action could transform our recycling system,
but if consumers don't have access, it won't even matter.
Considering all the articles that are written
about our recycling apocalypse,
my assumption was that recycling sites
are dropping like flies.
In doing research for this video,
I learned that about 100 recycling programs have shutdown.
14 of those directly related to the pandemic.
I decided to look up the populations
of those 100 cities and towns,
and by my estimate, about 2.9 million people,
or 1.2 million households,
have lost curbside recycling since 2018.
That sounds like a lot, but 1.2 million households
is less than 2% of the 69 million households
that have curbside recycling.
So yes, recycling programs have shutdown,
but more than half of American households
are still served by a recycling program.
So, is recycling still worth it?
Well, yes, but honestly, the recycling system is broken.
I believe that we need federal standardization of rules
and increased regulation of our waste exports.
Also, investment in domestic recycling is vital.
And research has shown doubling our recycling capacity
could create 370,000 jobs.
So here's what you can do.
Keep recycling, but check your local rules
and stick to the materials that actually get recycled,
aluminum, glass, plastics one and two, paper, and cardboard.
Next time you're buying something at the store,
you can even look to make sure
that the plastic you're getting is a one or two.
It's not perfect, but it's a start.
If you wanna support
the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act,
visit beyondplastics.org.
Recycling will not be fixed
until we get better laws on the books.
That is all for this episode.
Let me know in the comments
how would you like to see our recycling system change?
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