LV GRN: Why recycling is nowhere near enough

People used to to ask me, essentially, why I was making such a big dig about not making trash during the No Impact project. They'd say, "I mean, it's recyclable, right?"

As Annie Leonard says in Story of Stuff, "Recycling reduces the garbage at [the landfill and incinerator] end and it reduces the pressure to mine and harvest new stuff at [the production] end. Yes, yes, yes, we should all recycle. But recycling isn't enough."

Annie goes on to point out that for every garbage can of waste we put on the curb, industry created 70 garbage cans of waste to manufacture it. Even if we recycled every garbage can's worth coming out of our house, it wouldn't make a scratch in the 70 cans created upstream.

Besides, as writer Dan Rademacher points out in his article "Manufacturing a Myth: The Plastic Recycling Ploy," plastic bottles, for example, are not recycled to make more plastic bottles. They are "downcycled" into, say, fleece jackets or a park benches or toothbrush handles, all of which eventually ends up in the trash.

That means that new plastic is required to make every bottle and every bit of plastic used to make that bottle--even if you end up wearing it or brushing your teeth with it for a while--ends up in a landfill or an incinerator. That's not true recycling.

Even the rates of what passes for recycling are often abysmally low. PET water bottles only get recycled at the rate of 14%. The rest ends up in the landfills and incinerators, according to the Container Recycling Institute.

Meanwhile, producers who advertise their products as "recyclable," even if their products do not end up actually getting recycled, may get a boost in demand. The paradox? That this can cause an increase in the use of resources consumers expect recyclability to prevent (and if that's not green-washing, I don't know what is).

In my view, true recycling between producer and consumer occurs, for example, when a glass milk bottle is returned to the dairy, washed and refilled. Even then, using it is not free of environmental impact. There remain the environmental costs and carbon emissions associated with washing it, refilling it, and transporting it.

This is why, during the No Impact project, the object was to produce no trash at all, not even so-called recyclable trash (not newspapers, milk cartons, magazines, junk mail, not packaging of any sort, not really much of anything that would end up getting tossed).

LV GRN Tip #2: As the saying goes, "Reduce, reuse, recycle." Recycling is at the very end of the list. That doesn't mean it isn't worth recycling. It does mean that recycling is not without environmental cost, though it has less cost than just throwing stuff away.

Top of the pyramid is reduce. That means, even in our post-No-Impact life, we still work hard at not consuming what we don't need to. Then comes reuse, which means once we have it, use it as often as you can before we get another. And finally comes recycle, which we've talked about enough.

PS For those of you who don't dig the LV GRN posts, never fear! "Big issue" tomorrow.

Comments

[stomv]

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Colin, you're wrong in one part of your post. You write "True recycling occurs, for example, when a glass milk bottle is returned to the dairy, washed and refilled."

That's not recycling. That's reusing. They mean very different things. Of course, on the "re-chain" reuse is higher than recycle, which means that reusing has a lower negative impact on the planet than recycling.

Reusing a milk bottle as a milk bottle (or to hold other liquid) is reuse, not recycling. Using the materials of the milk bottle to create a different product is recycling -- and that's exactly what's happening with PET bottles.

You're dead right to point out that recycling our containers is important, but that reusing or reducing the number of containers we use in the first place has a much greater reduction on our footprint.

[jewishfarmer]

Other than that I was about to make the same caveat stomv did, this was a nice post, and I think clarifies something a lot of people really don't grasp - that "recycle" should be the solution of last resort, used only when there is no other way to make a product that can be permanent and reused.

I really do think this was one of your best posts ever.

Sharon

[Deb G]

Another post that I really like.

Yesterday someone made a comment about buying bulk and still using more plastic bags. That falls under reuse too. I reuse plastic bags that I have or, better yet, mostly take my own glass containers to fill (reduce).

[Andy]

What is true recycling? Is there any other way to recycle? I'm glad someone caught the reuse/recycling issue above.

I don't think that reuse is a good enough step. My 3 Rs are Refuse, Reuse, Recycling, in that order. Reducing waste won't get us to sustainability. If we all learn how to get the things we need without packaging, then the other steps become easier.

[dms]

When is the book coming out?????

[Katie]

Why have you not mentioned anything about the fate of NYC's congestion pricing recently? There has been a lot of news and most of it is not good. Your readers need you to be a leader in informing them about stuff like that. And guess what? Most of us know that reducing is better than recycling.

[Jen]

Excellent post, Colin! I just learned, not too long ago, that those plastic bottles doesn't get recycled into plastic bottles and most ended up in the landfill. That got me into swearing off plastic bottles for life!! I only buy soda/juice if it comes in a glass jar and don't even take those free water bottles they sometimes offer at work/in stores.

[Adam Lehman]

great post.

Read Cradle to Cradle.

Amazing book. Amazing authors. Amazing concepts. If everyone would practice the concepts in this book, our earth may last a long long time.

[Hendrik]

[quote]They are "downcycled" into, say, fleece jackets or a park benches or toothbrush handles, all of which eventually ends up in the trash.[/quote]

There is an interesting episode on Earth Report (http://www.tve.org/earthreport/index.cfm?cat=thisweek) this week (check BBC for viewing times), which shows how war some companies actually go with the recycling of plastic bottles, and that the fleece in which they end up also are recycled at the end of its life cycle. They're molten into granulate and then made into new string. Patagonia is the leader here, and if demand is picking up also other companies will need to pick up on this.

Then thinking the big picture here, we in Europe just educated our societies that recycling is a good behaviour. Sure, I do agree that it is not nearly enough, however, you can not educate the society over night, and certainly shouldn't do so by saying "Recycling is not enough, do more". Its the first step for people on the waste minimization ladder, and telling them that it doesn't help and that they need to climb up is not an encouraging act. I say, once people recycle, let them recycle and educate them in their own comfort zone about the benefits of reusing what they own, and at the end will be the reducing - "Think before you buy something". Although we do not have much time to act to stop further climate change taking place, telling people a habit they have (just) developed is insufficient is counterproductive.

[Jessica]

I just bought a diaper bag made out of recycled plastic bottles. I figured, if I have to buy a diaper bag, I might as well go for the recycled one. Although, I don't know how much of a difference it really made. I can't escape the nagging feeling that I've been greenwashed. Sigh. How do we even know?

[Uma]

My first R is reverence for Nature--rest of the R's will follow suit.

[Heather]

Interesting post - very thought provoking. Thanks for sharing.

[Tecknomage]

First, if you really mean "NO impact" then you don't live in this universe.

The entire universe recycles and there is ALWAYS an impact. When a sun goes nova for an example, it has great impact.

The physical law of our universe may be "noting is truly destroyed, just changes state," but things DO change. And something could be considered to be on the loosing end of the change when it no longer exists in its previous state.

Trash will always be with us and there will always be an impact; recycle, reuse, or whatever.

Now if you want to talk about "minimizing" impact, then you are being realistic. This is what does need to be worked on. We can do better.

[Western Michelle]

The very first rung on the ladder is actually throwing something in the trash instead of on the street. I was greatly influenced as a child by the crying American Indian commercial back in the 70's, and I still won't throw so much as a piece of lint on the street. Recycling is the second rung on the ladder, and most communities are stepping up.

Change happens slowly for the bulk of people. At the very least, others are actually giving some thought to what they are throwing away. Is it enough to save us? No, but it's a small step in the right direction.

[Recovering Food Waster]

Amen. I read an article in Shape magazine recently where the author said that whenever she threw her plastic water bottle into the recycling bin, she felt good about it. I can't really imagine feeling good about that when it is SO easy to buy a steel water bottle that will last you for the rest of your life(and perhaps several other people's lifetimes too!).

Katie-Given the amount of plastic Americans consume, apparently some of us need to be reminded again that reducing our consumption of these things is important.

[zach @ pennywise]

Tecknomage "First, if you really mean "NO impact" then you don't live in this universe."

That's true, HOWEVER-- it denies the stability of an ECOSYSTEM. That's what we're really looking for in the environmental policies we live by. Animals can live unsustainably-- as is tought in the classic example in any differential calculus class. The difference is that we humans--unlike animals-- can actually create sustainable systems that involve us.

[Kent Ragen]

Definitely agree that reduce is first and recycle is last resort, but we should expect that mass adoption will occur in the opposite direction.
Kent
www.ecounit.com