You can almost see the wish-cycler’s shoulders sag as he views the new sign posted at the transfer station: “Black plastics unacceptable.” All at once, the satisfaction he previously derived from eating delectable takeout food and then recycling the containers has been transformed into guilt.
And that so-called “paper” coffee cup? Much to the wish-cycler’s consternation, the low-grade plastic in the cup’s liner means that it is neither recyclable nor compostable.
For a wish-cycler, there can be nothing more disconcerting than to find out that yet another common household item cannot be recycled.
For those unfamiliar with the term, “wish-cycling” (as defined by TerraCycle, the New Jersey-based company that has become a leader in handling hard-to-recycle materials) is “placing something in a recycling bin with the hopes that it will be recycled.” It is an affliction that affects a growing number of well-meaning Americans and drives them into Hamlet-like indecisiveness — to toss or not to toss? — as they contemplate which items to throw into recycling bins.
In a 2019 article, “What is wish-cycling and why is it always a bad idea,” the Los Alamos Reporter told local residents, in no uncertain terms, which commonly wish-cycled items do not belong in a recycle bin. The list included Styrofoam cups, greasy pizza boxes, beverage caps, tin foil lids from sour cream containers, and diapers, for starters. Just to punctuate the point, the Reporter also noted that plastic bags and garden hoses wreak havoc with the high-tech machinery used to sort and process recyclables, gumming up the works at materials recovery facilities.
Closer to home, you can add black plastic takeout food containers and coffee cups to this ever-growing list of nonrecyclable items.
But wait a minute, the wish-cycler pushes back, what is wrong with erring on the side of inclusivity, especially at a time when our country is recycling only one-third of the total waste we generate?
Plenty, according to Lebanon Solid Waste Manager Marc Morgan, who told the Valley News almost a year ago that “about a third of what ends up in recycling bins is garbage” (“Recycling gets a price tag,” Feb. 13). In the same article, Cathy Jamieson, solid waste program manager at the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation, pointed out that, “The cleaner the material, the higher price you can get.” And higher prices are not what most municipalities are currently receiving for their recyclables. One estimate suggests that, because of a variety of factors, the price of recyclables has dropped by nearly 20% over the past year.
Unfortunately, as curbside recycling has increased across the nation, so too have contaminated loads — especially during the time of COVID-19 — with the moisture created by liquid left in containers being one of the primary contributors.
The drop in price is only partially due to contamination. Another major factor is that what we throw away has changed.
Plastic waste has tripled since 1980 while paper waste and glass have dropped precipitously. At a time when the cost of doing business is going up, Morgan pointed out, “the value of material is going down.”
Enough already, I hear wish-cyclers say. Is it really worth my while to keep suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous markets in order to recycle? Maybe I should just throw myself (figuratively) and my solid waste (literally) off the parapets into landfills.
To this I reply, with apologies to Shakespeare, get thee to a website in order to learn which local recycling facilities actually take what items. Better yet, get thee to Osher@Dartmouth the next time Marc Morgan offers his fabulous course “Beyond the Curb: Recycling 101.” And before you totally despair, remember first to reduce, reuse, refill, repair and share.
Skip Sturman, of Thetford, is director emeritus of Dartmouth Career Services and chaired the committee that launched Thetford’s recycling program in 1989.