Unless you're a hermit living in the woods, avoiding it completely is next to impossible. Half of Philadelphia's recyclables end up in the trash, while less than 9% of what people throw away in Chicago is ever recycled, as Business Insider's Aria Bendix recently reported. A few things: Types 1 and 2 plastics may be tossed into standard recycling bins. First, focus on recovering the most recyclable and valuable types of plastic. Recycling then has a very real positive effect on peoples livelihoods compared to conventional waste disposal. "People have a budget, you know, this mental budget for thinking about the Earth," McAfee said. Is recycling plastic even worth it in the US? Szaky says while there is a significant consumer market motivated by environmental concerns and consumption, for the recycling industry to really work it needs to avoid relying on the most-motivated consumers. However, people who are not in the know about the symbols intricacies still commonly get confused by it. [00:02:38] You may be aware that only 9% of all plastic ever made has been recycled, so we simply aren't very good at recycling, despite the fact that in much of the Western world at least we have been taught to recycle for decades now. We can switch a consumer who maybe doesn't even care about sustainability and that's frankly the most important. In 2018the most recent year for which the EPA has recycling dataAmerican landfills received 27 million tons of plastic, accounting for nearly one-fifth of all landfilled waste. Multi-stream recycling, where materials are separated before collection, requires more effort from the consumer but is easier to sort and generally cheaper. But for plastic or paper that require modifications to be made in order to recycle them, energy costs will be higher. All businesses generate plastic waste, and many dont have a good system for disposing of it. Recycling plastic uses up a lot of resources, and after all the hauling around, sorting, and processing of bottles and containers, it often ends up getting thrown away or burned. Overzealous "wishful recycling" is straining the system. And by the end of the 90s, recycled plastic products were everywhere. Plastic recycling can help to protect our oceans. Also, educate everyone around you about the importance of washing contaminants off of recycled plastic. The low value of scrap and high costs of recycling, coupled with low oil prices, means that recycling plastic now costs more than manufacturing virgin plastic. Tierney notes that nobody wants glass these days, so. Americans got the message: Plastic couldand shouldbe recycled. Using a hydrothermal technique, the company says it can recycle even contaminated plasticand that the process wont cause any degradation in quality. He says concerns about the macroeconomics of waste management systems suffering economically are real, and there are ways to solve it that don't just rely on government. The recycling plant sorts and bundles the plastic, and sells it directly to manufacturers. Yes. By comparison, just three million tons of plastic were recycled into new products that year. The demand for recycled steel far exceeds supply, making it a highly valuable material that is very cost-effective to recycle. Lower level of soil pollution. However, despite this inclusion of recycling in our education and the emphasis local governments often put on it, recycling is much less straightforward than most of us think it is. "It may lead to a plant-based diet instead of animal protein, or a smaller life, or biking creating even more important outcomes," he says. But he says it is still not easy for the corporate mindset to embrace. "Understand this is exactly what the fossil-fuel industry hopes we're all talking about," Warren said. Is recycling plastic worth it? However, it can be composted at the end of its lifecycle which reduces the impact and also makes paper a fairly sustainable option. "We need to bring everyone along, not just people who view this as a high-passion project.". - thisisplastics.com. That same year, Coca-Cola began making bottles using recycled plastic. ALL CONTENT 2006 - 2022 . The biggest global trend in packaging is not helping. That is one of the keys he sees for the future. It degrades every time its processed, so a piece of new plastic may only be recycled once or twice before its unusable. The numbers on the arrow can help you figure out whether an item is recyclable and also provide information for recycling facilities, shall they not be sure about the material. While manufacturing paper products from virgin paper can be easier and cheaper than using recycled, recycling paper is cost-effective in that it uses significantly less energy. Obviously, continue to recycle your glass, paper, cardboard, aluminum, and other metals because they are quite sustainable. 2022 CNBC LLC. The debate is not new. Plastic is one of the world's most-used materials. "Before the 1950s, we received milk from the milkman and mended clothes and cobbled shoes," he says. Plastic recycling allows us to be less wasteful by reusing packaging. 54 percent said they find recycling different plastics difficult to understand. Even the US National Waste and Recycling Program says "recycling contamination is a serious problem," cautioning consumers "when in doubt, throw it out.". From a sustainability perspective, redesigning, reducing, and reusing are significantly more important and effective in reducing environmental impact. "But first we have to solve the business problem.". ", a cotton bag would have to be reused 131 times. Lightbulbs. 2). Clearly, many people are accustomed to recycling plasticand that doesnt need to change! But while we're used to rinsing out glass jars and flattening down cardboard packaging for collection, it's easy to forget that just because something can't be collected . Theres still demand from manufacturers that rely on recovered plastic to make new plastic containers, bags, clothing and other items. Plus, plastic isnt infinitely recyclable the way metal is. While the overall 2018 plastic recycling rate was 8.7 percent, recycling rates were around 29 percent for both type 1 PET plastic (used to make water and soda bottles) and type 2 HDPE plastic (used to make things like milk jugs and detergent bottles). In contrast, there are some undeniable and obvious benefits to recycling aluminium, cardboard and paper, as it is energy and cost efficient. We all know that plastic recycling is a global problem. For plastic recycling, in particular, the global restructuring of the scrap market has been a disaster. This model can help solve a big problem: consumer behavior. So, is recycling really worth it, and does it truly help with our trash problem? Although new global recycling standards have affected the system, materials that are accepted into your local program that are empty, clean and dry are still sent to recycling markets and become new. Using recycled plastic material for plastic product may save energy compared to using new plastic material. NOW WATCH: An NYC recycling facility sees more than 800 tons of material every day here's how they recycle it all. But when it comes to being an eco-friendly shopper it is critical to understand that just because a product has the chasing arrows on it doesnt mean it is sustainable, recyclable, or good for the environment. The pros of recycling plastic outweigh the cons. While glass is highly recycled in Europe, the US recycling system overall is not set up to efficiently recycle the material, and the national glass recycling average remains low around 33% despite interest in manufacturers for using recycled glass. Additionally, it helps achieve net reductions in harmful emissions. Let's briefly explore the history of beverage bottles to gain insights into plastic bottle recycling. Maybe. Listen. Yet many cities use single-stream recycling, where all materials are placed in the same bin for collection. Trust your plastics recycling questions to . We want to hear from you. Efforts to reduce costs in products and packaging are "objectively reducing value" Szaky said, "which also makes them less recyclable.". American landfills received 27 million tons of plastic, accounting for nearly one-fifth of all landfilled waste. By clicking Sign up, you agree to receive marketing emails from Insider When people start recycling, it does open the pathways to a broader change in mindset. Plus, for every one ton of plastic we recycle, we save the equivalent of 1,000-2,000 gallons of gasoline. Technological advancements could also make widespread recycling plastic more viable in the near future; one. But the problem is not going away. After all, more than half of the world's industrial greenhouse-gas emissions can be traced back to 25 "corporate and state producers," including ExxonMobil, BP, and Total, according to the 2017 "Carbon Majors Report.". It Depends. Less plastic waste will end up in landfills. The Carolina Plastics Recycling Council has the perfectly-named website www.yourbottlemeansjobs.com that points to the wide range of unskilled, technical and scientific jobs associated with plastics recycling. And he says it becomes "monetizable in a recognizable way" the bigger they become and the faster they can grow. For many materials, recycling is cost-effective and good for the environment. But while recycling plastic has environmental benefits, theres no denying that its more complicated to recycle than recycling metal or paper. "And it all hurt the business construct for recycling companies and that means our recycling capabilities are deteriorating," Szaky said. If you heard people say, "that stuff just ends up in the trash, anyway," they're probably referring to plastics #3 through #7. By recycling plastic, we are giving the material the best chance to have a new life, keeping it in use and out of the environment. Is it easy to recycle plastic? "As a retailer or brand, if you just frame it as 'the right thing to do' the funding will be small and sporadic because there is no P&L logic to do it. Technological advancements could also make widespread recycling plastic more viable in the near future; one UK company is currently building the worlds first commercial plant that will recycle all types of plastic. Plastics are assigned a number between one and seven that correspond to a different type of plastic, such as high-density polyethylene (No. And that remains key and a reason to figure out how to fix its short-term and long-term challenges. In this way, when throwing the waste we can more easily separate the plastic from the rest. is difficult even using automated equipment. When considering the price of manufacturing, marketing and processing all that trashed material, the costs to the economy are significant. Helping the planet was as easy as dropping an empty plastic container in the right bin! Consumers want to do the right thing, and companies may want to do the right thing as well in acknowledging an environmental crisis and fund a feel-good marketing campaign but Szaky stressed that they need to see "not just the right thing, but that it will pay back.". [00:02:54] Secondly, that we need to use less plastic and find more sustainable options. Reuse does still exist at scale today in certain markets, such as beer kegs and propane tanks, but not nearly enough, and without the convenience of an infrastructure which makes return easy and widespread. Contact me today! It has also gotten much harder for American recyclers to find a market for used plastic since China launched its National Sword policy and stopped accepting most imported waste. Important to protect the natural habitats of many animals and plants. Number one plastic sells for about $400 per ton. By comparison, 68.2 percent of paper and paperboard were recycled that year. Both issues are critically important to the business model of recycling and the health of the infrastructure because they circle back around to how much demand there is to collect those material types. The prices listed below are national average prices paid by scrap yards in the U.S.A. Prices are collected from scrap yards directly and updated bi-weekly. Due to the many flaws of plastic recycling, we always prefer to encourage people to avoid plastic whenever possible, choosing unpackaged alternatives or items wrapped in paper, glass, metal, or another more eco-friendly material. . Paper is another material that is problematic. And that is more important at a time when the economics of consumer recycling are a mess. Jacob Fenston. Yet for a business or organization considering the costs of waste management, recycling is another expense that gets added into operational overhead, a cost that is growing in comparison to conventional trash disposal. I just don't buy that," he told Insider. But while recycling plastic has environmental benefits, theres no denying that its more complicated to recycle than recycling metal or paper. The key to understanding recycling is to know what your local recyclers will and will not accept and under what conditions. Making this many PET bottles and jars today from virgin plastic would cost $4.5 billion just for . Its just as important to keep unusable plastic out of recycling containers as it is to properly recycle plastic. There are dozens of types of plastic, but of the. "The carbon benefits, the greenhouse-gas benefits of recycling are actually very, very small, really not worth it," McAfee said. Making recycling part of your routine is a good way of doing your bit to help save the planet. Plastic Products May Contain Toxic Chemicals. These days we're all pretty clued up about the kinds of things we can put into our recycling bins ready for bin day. Plastic Scrap Prices Plastic Scrap Prices in the U.S.A. and Canada United States Plastic Scrap Buy Price Index Plastic Scrap Prices. Steel is also 100% recyclable, and low-quality scrap can even be processed in a way that produces high-quality steel. In short, when considering how to manage waste, the best thing you can do is produce as little of it as possible to begin with. Most of the things we put in blue bins that are not recycled are put in the garbage because they are things waste companies can't make money off, and that is the true bottleneck," he said. In fact, recycling plastic and glass might have zero positive environmental benefits in the long term because of how much energy it uses. As with metal recycling or paper recycling, recycling plastic minimizes the demand for virgin materials. Efforts to get people using more sustainable goods, like reusable bags and foldable straws, may not pack much environmental punch, though. Yet it is not the solution to all of our waste problems, and it ranks below reduce and reuse in the waste hierarchy for a reasonmany materials have a limited lifespan, and recycling still uses large amounts of resources like energy and water. Another possible option is to purchase a domestic plastic shredder. When a certain percentage of a recycling section is deemed contaminated, this causes the entire batch of recycling to be thrown out rather than recycled. Number 1 and number 2 bottles and jugs are really the most recyclable. Even the most ardent recyclers warn that this approach has apparent limitations when it comes to addressing climate change.Increasing recycling has many positive effects on the environment. Today, the recycling industry is big business and as municipalities across the US strive to keep waste out of landfill, city- and statewide recycling seems like the right approach to our growing trash. The fact that only 10% of all the plastic waste ever generated has been recycled might make you feel like we just need to recycle more and then we can start to . Additionally, glass is infinitely recyclable with no loss of quality and easier to do than creating glass new, although the energy savings are not as high as with metals. The problem with plastic lies not in how it is used, which is generally harmless, but in end-of-life management of products made from it. This has the bonus of being both environmentally responsible and cost-effective. Post information above recycling containers that clarify what kinds of plastic should go into those containers. Its used to indicate the type of plastic an item or its packaging has been manufactured from that and that alone. Yet for the waste that does get produced, recycling is indeed worth it in the long run, even if it costs slightly more than disposing of waste in the trash. The Holy Grail for plastic recycling is technology that allows commingling of the various types and grades of plastic to eliminate the labor-intensive and costly "sorting" process. The individual journey with sustainability always begins with recycling. Lancaster County, noted the article, "may limit the recyclable items collected from [its] 500,000 residents to those that have retained some value, such as cans and corrugated cardboard. In reality, this symbol doesnt mean either of these things it also isnt regulated, which means that anyone can use it. This can prevent wish-cycling, in which people put things in a recycling bin even though those items probably cant be recovered and reused. When it comes to recycling, plastic is one of those materials that are really vital. But if you can use it to drive foot traffic like Walmart with car seats or Staples with pens, it can be monetizable," he said. The low value of scrap and high costs of recycling, coupled with low oil prices, means that recycling plastic now costs more than manufacturing virgin plastic. Lastly, numbers 3, 6 and 7 are widely non-recyclable, either because the material cant be re-formed, because transporting the material would be too costly, or for other reasons. The city of Phoenix alone loses $1 million a year thanks to plastic bags gumming up the works. We can reduce energy usage by 66% when we use recycled plastics to make new plastic products . It may be among the best ways to manage waste in a circular economy, but Szaky says we will need to aim to go back to a world where garbage doesn't exist. The National Sword Policy, as its known, caused the price of scrap materials to plummet as exporting nations were left with waste that they could not process themselves, having relied on China instead of investing in domestic recycling facilities. The first measure to recycle plastic at home is to include a specific trash can for this waste. While recycling may not always be cost-effective from an immediate financial standpoint, it does have clear benefits that translate into worth in other ways. The type you should recycle depends on the region . Yet in 2018, tired of importing low-quality and contaminated materials, China stopped buying recyclables from overseas. Firstly, even the plastics which can be recycled are usually only recycled once, because they lose quality in the process very quickly. Of the 6.3 billion metric tons of plastic waste generated between 1950 and 2015, a mere 10% was recycled, 14% burned, and 76% discarded to landfills, dumps, or into the environment. Others argue that bans curbing items like plastic straws and plastic bags could be an important first step toward reducing plastic consumption altogether. For now, what can businesses and individuals do? Creating products using recycled plastic requires less oil and gas than creating new plastic does. For more information on the recycling industry, how municipalities are approaching the issue, and what the future of waste management looks like, subscribe to the RTS blog today. thinking about recyling my plastic water bottles but dont know if its worth it. Is recycling plastic worth it? By comparison, 68.2 percent of paper and paperboard were recycled that year. Through Recycling Today and Recycling Today Global Edition , market directories, and industry conferences, GIE serves the scrap and recycling industry in North America and globally. " Recycling of paper, cardboard, metal and glass is definitely worth it," says Judith Enck, president of Beyond Plastics and a former regional administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Reusable versions of products from Nestle, Procter & Gamble, Kroger, Walgreens, and hundreds of other retailers are being, or will in the future, be made available to consumers. It has also gotten much harder for American recyclers to find a market for used plastic since China launched its. "But the plastics waste stream is very complex and is not easy to recycle." Recycling plastic is not cost-effective for now For plastic recycling, in particular, the global restructuring of the scrap market has been a disaster. Other plastic types may not be permitted in your bin, depending on your municipality's guidelines. So, you may be asking: What does the symbol actually communicate?. Even though recyclers struggle to manage recovered plastic, we know that consumers are still largely, to recycle it. American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) defines a plastic as a material that contains as an essential ingredient an organic substance of large molecular weight, is solid in its finished state, and, at some stage in its manufacture or processing . It takes around 95% less energy to produce recycled aluminum than it does to produce the material new. Plastic is everywhere. Let Miller Recycling help assess your businesss needs to create an easy, cost-effective recycling system. It is estimated that less than 5% of the plastic I'm cleaning and putting into the appropriate bins is NOT being recycled. Is recycling worth it? According to Szaky, what's happened is a profitability model that is decreasing as oil prices have gone down, which started in 2015, and even after a commodities market recovery post-Covid, have stayed down relative to recent history. The first polyethylene terephthalate (PET) disposable soda bottle was introduced back in 1975. MIT business researcher Andrew McAfee says we'd be better off putting our plastic waste into well-managed landfills. As with metal recycling or paper recycling, recycling plastic minimizes the demand for virgin materials. Yet where recycling has the greatest impact on both people and the planet is, of course, in its environmental benefits. Additionally, to discuss how your business can improve recycling and diversion rates through on-demand and recurring collections combined with insightful waste diversion data, contact one of our TRUE advisors today. Other studies suggest that people might give themselves a pass on changing other behaviors once they've done one good deed what's called a "single-action bias." Hi-Cone, an Illinois-based beverage packaging supplier, recently released its second annual report on. That's something McAfee worries about. and stopped accepting most imported waste. From cereal to food giant Kellogg stages a makeover, How airlines plan to create a new generation of pilots amid fears of decade-long cockpit crisis, Women athletes now have their own sports network, generating about 50 kilograms of throwaway plastic. Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes. What companies decide to do about recycling on their own initiative and pay for can be done in spite of the challenging economics and can still pay off for the companies in the future. The expense of recycling is unjustified given the lack of environmental benefits of recycling plastic and glass, which exacerbate the issue of pollution instead of alleviating it. In reality, only 9% of all plastic in use worldwide is recycled, and the majority of this recycled plastic is of inferior quality. Just looking at a typical recycling supply chain, you will see: 1-833-RTS-INFO | info@rts.com Depending on the material and the individual item, recycling (and especially plastic recycling) may not always be the miracle solution we think it is. Recycling plastic is not quite as environmentally-friendly as one might assume. How much is a ton of plastic bottles worth? North American and European countries were sending millions of tons of recyclables to China, where they were bought at a price that helped offset the cost of local recycling schemes in exporter countries. Chinas decision to stop buying recovered plastic is driving more of it into American landfills. 91 percent believed recycling plastic is beneficial to the environment. While figuring out whether recycling is cost-effective from a business standpoint may be a simple calculation that depends on how much it costs in your area compared to trash disposal, looking at the bigger picture is more difficult. Plus, plastic isnt infinitely recyclable the way metal is. Several things. 11.1.1 Definitions of Plastic and Recycling to the Plastics Recycler. Mar 29, 2018 recycling-plastic-harmful. But the market wasn't always like this. Its true that a lot of discarded plastic will never be reusedbut some of it may be, and recycling plastic can still be worth the effort. The white elephant, the fundamental answer to the challenge, is modulating consumption downward, but Szaky says that is a hard one for the business world to champion. Nike uses recycled plastic bottles that are shredded and turned into yarn to make recycled polyester for its shoes, diverting 1 billion plastic bottles from landfills each year. The numbers 4 and 5 are accepted in some areas and not in others, so ensure that you check your local authority information. "That is true for any sustainability measure a company is looking to implement in the short term.". A Division of NBCUniversal. "Plastic" is the name of a petroleum molecule which has been given 'added value' from the original petroleum, through refining. It's a rosy look at how capitalism and tech progress (along with robust regulations) have perhaps made people in the US better stewards of the planet by allowing us to reduce consumption while growing economically. Given all of this, is recycling really worth it? To count, a material must have a 30 percent recycling or composting rate that covers at least 400 million people. This new outlet for waste materials has the potential to positively affect the price of scrap, making recycling plastic cost-effective in the future. Even when you eliminate your personal plastic consumption, you could unknowingly be consuming goods that were packaged in plastic before you received them. When only 8% of plastic waste in the United States is actually recycled, it is clear that the information and narrative around recycling in the U.S. needs to change. Using a hydrothermal technique, the company says it can recycle even contaminated plasticand that the process wont cause any degradation in quality. "It is fundamentally de-growth.". As stated by the CEO of Recology, a company that collects and processes municipal solid waste, "The simple . That same year, Coca-Cola began making bottles using recycled plastic. Once you check your local authoritys information on recycling guidelines and memorize which numbers can go in the recycling bin and which to trash (or avoid buying in the first place), the chasing arrows symbol can become very useful. Because of that, even recyclable plastics often end up in the landfill, or worse, being discarded in the environment, and there is an abundance of evidence to support this. I've been digesting the Greenpeace Report on Plastic Pollution/Recycling, and it's pretty grim (article linked at bottom of post). Ideally, this bin should be placed next to the main garbage bin in the house. The future of plastic recycling is uncertain. Items may be made of plastic and other materials, or out of multiple types of plastic, further complicating the sorting process. And by the end of the 90s, recycled plastic products were everywhere. Most glass in recycle bins ends up in landfills. We are now taught in school, at home, and by society that its the right thing to do if we hope to protect the environment. Recycling materials also significantly reduces demand for natural resources, our reliance on fossil fuels, and the impacts associated with extracting both. know at the time was that most of the plastic that went into those recycling containers ended up in landfills. It degrades every time its processed, so a piece of new plastic may only be recycled once or twice before its unusable. A reusable package is an upgrade over a disposable package in an objective way, and with the convenience of drop-off locations it can lead to an easier shift in behavior, but it has to be offered at the right value to consumers. Recycling any type of material is simply better than sending it to landfill or incineration where it releases greenhouse gases and other pollutants. One 2017 report published in Science Advances suggested only 9% of the plastic that we ever use is recycled, while consulting firm McKinsey estimates just 16% of plastics are "reprocessed" and turned into new plastic goods. The final cost associated with recycling depends on the value of the materials being recycled. "The notion that disposing of trash in 2019 is environmentally unsound? For instance, one often-overlooked benefit of recycling is that it creates jobs and helps the economy. All of these economic issues lead to a situation in which what people would like to see is not what they would actually see if they went behind the scenes in the recycling industry. Previously, people used refillable glass bottles, putting the burden on businesses to transport . "If you use up that budget on a plastic straw ban, that is a massive, massive shame, and a mistake.". There are other materials where recycling is cost-effective. The petrochemicals companies that make plastics rely less on recyclables when the price of their core commodity, oil, is lower. To pay online please contact us to receive an invoice with a payment link. All of the remaining ~88% of it is sold to a buyer who will ultimately do something with the material. TerraCycle and Loop founder and CEO Tom Szaky says the economics of the recycling business are broken in key ways, but consumer and corporate interest in building a circular economy continues to grow. The energy savings from recycling plastic bottles is significant, and while this doesn't necessarily help end-of-life issues when the bottle is trashed, it does help reduce the resources used during manufacture. This is especially crucial during the holidays, since between Thanksgiving and New Year's, Americans throw away 25% more trash than any other time of year, amounting to nearly . We all need to take a deeper look at how we recycle beyond the feel-good blue bin, and what we can do to get past the problems. Recycled bottles use 75% less energy to produce than new ones. Paper recycling is slightly more complex, as it loses quality in the process and can only be recycled a number of times before it needs to be discarded. "Wishful recycling" is one name for tossing non-recyclables in the recycling bin. Global Business and Financial News, Stock Quotes, and Market Data and Analysis. Creating products using recycled plastic requires less oil and gas than creating new plastic does. Some products won't be recycled unless companies are the recycler. The globe is already producing two trillion pounds of solid waste a year and is on pace to add more than a trillion more on an annual basis in the coming decades, according to World Bank data. Even working with companies to create products from recyclables and where the recycling is part of the product story and selling point, "is not the answer to the garbage problem," he says. In short, one of the main problems with recycling plastic right now is that there is too much competition with virgin plastics. Given that recycling has numerous known environmental advantages and can lower carbon emissions, this makes some intuitive sense. Plastic is often tainted with food debris or other contaminants that make it unusable. Szaky envisions the buy-and-return-anywhere model as a key one for the future. But the problem is not going away. "The scrap value for PET plastic covers less than half of the cost of recycling." The recycling of plastic is also subsidized by the state. For years the economics of plastic recycling have been questioned. For instance, pallets of goods are . In 2018the most recent year for which the EPA has. Even plastic recycling that is economic today, such as soda bottles, only results in 1 in 4 bottles being recycled. Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you're on the go. 7. He thinks attempting to sort plastic recycling is ultimately a waste of time and energy, and his point may be worth considering. Plastic had an overall recycling rate of just 8.7 percent. Benefit 3 Recycling creates jobs Plastics recycling has the potential to create a range of good, sustainable jobs. Unfortunately, confusion about the chasing arrows symbol, or the fact that only some plastics are recycled, are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to plastic recycling there are additional barriers that make the process inefficient and outdated. As you have likely already heard before, there are many different types of material which are commonly labeled as plastic PET, for example, being one of the most popular. A dirty diaper or toothbrush or cigarette is not recyclable because it costs too much. Plastic water bottles are becoming a growing segment of the municipal solid waste stream in the United States. Plastic had an overall recycling rate of just 8.7 percent. When making plastic, you use a lot of fossil fuels such as oil, coal and gas in the production and transportation process. Visit Insider's homepage for more stories. The No. recycled plastic bottles that are shredded and turned into yarn to make recycled polyester for its shoes, diverting 1 billion plastic bottles from landfills each year. 80 percent of people who didnt recycle all plastic, would do so more frequently if they had more facilities and/or guidance. What Greenpeace means when it says plastic isn't recyclable is that to meet the definition of . Some countries import recycled material rather than recycle it locally because their local recycled material standards are higher, and they can't recycle material at the low prices that recycled material can be recycled for - glass is imported to some countries for example because it's cheaper to import than recycle locally. Myth 1: Recycling plastic always reduces waste. Plastic eating bacteria A new solution for plastic waste or just science fiction? We accept credit card payments online, by phone, and in person. By 1992, there were nearly. Hard-to-recycle plastics - including Styrofoam, shrink wrap and manufacturing scrap - require specialized handling. Aluminum is one of them, as it is indefinitely recyclable with no loss of quality. These factors have resulted in not only increased recycling costs but also lower recycling rates, as many localities have resorted to incineration or landfill for scrap materials that are less valuable or that simply cannot be processed. . The "lightweighting" of packages, making them have less physical material and more complexity as a result of that design challenge, makes them less profitable to recycle. For many years, recycling was relatively cheap. pioneered the nation's first curbside recycling system, China-US plastic recycling beltway is now shuttered, according to the 2017 "Carbon Majors Report. Although recycling rates are increasing, they lag behind those of other recoverable materials, such as aluminium, glass and paper. From several different standpoints, the resounding answer is yes. By 1992, there were nearly 5,000 curbside recycling programs in the U.S. (many of which accepted plastic), up from just 1,000 in 1988. What they didnt know at the time was that most of the plastic that went into those recycling containers ended up in landfills. Low oil prices, bans on imported recyclables in countries like China, and the latest trends in packaging design make it harder to recycle. TerraCycle recently launched a diaper recycling program in Holland and now it is expanding to many countries. Reducing pollution is very important when it comes to protecting the environment which is why recycling plastic bottles is so vital. Just 40 years ago, the idea of garbage handlers going door to door, picking up recyclable items like cans, paper, and plastic, and shipping them off to be repurposed, was a twinkle in America's eye. This little-known lithium stock is set to surge more than 60% next year, Cowen predicts, These are the energy stocks Josh Brown and Joe Terranova like through the end of 2022. But Szaky says at the same time, consumers want to recycle more, and more companies are leaning into their own recycling. All Rights Reserved. Items may be made of plastic and other materials, or out of multiple types of plastic, further complicating the sorting process. Read More: The real reason so many cities and businesses are banning plastic straws. Recycling plastic conserves the fossil fuel natural gas or oil used to manufacture it. Up until 2018, most recyclable plastic was shipped to China to deal with. Since 1950, close to half of all plastic has ended up in landfill or dumped in the wild, and only 9% of used . Let Miller Recycling help assess your businesss needs to create an easy, cost-effective recycling system. This means that, as new technology and infrastructure is developed, the price of recycling will likely go down and it will become more cost-effective to recycle paper, plastic, and other materials in the future. Recycling has been around for a very long time, but our version of recycling began in the 1970s. We as a consumer play a critical role in this, and recycling plastic is much more complicated than it looks. One UK study suggested that a cotton bag would have to be reused 131 timesto be worth it for the planet, over plastic. (Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images), Smith Collection/Gado | Archive Photos | Getty Images, CNBC Evolve Livestream - Sustainable Future with Loop & TerraCycle' Tom Szaky. People watching TV in 1990 might remember seeing commercials from DuPont declaring that empty plastic containers werent trashthey were full of potential, and that potential could only be harnessed by people recycling plastic. Those three industries she's referring to are better thought of as "activities," as PolitiFact said after the debate, and they are transportation, electricity, and industry. For all these benefits, the simple act of sorting your recycling is very much worth it. As far as plastics are concerned specifically, as some have already mentioned, #1 and #2 are actually quite valuable and in demand, all things considered. Cornell commented, "Over the years there have been various ideas for taking mixed plastics and recycling those unsorted materials into something of commercial . While it can provide some helpful information, it is also heavily misleading, as many people often think that any product marked with the symbol are recyclable or were made from recycled materials. And recycling 5 percent of America's plastic is presumably better than recycling zero percent. In particular, glass and metal can be recycled indefinitely, only with the use of the energy needed to reform them into new items. It decreases pollution. The Covid pandemic has heightened attention to the issue, as use of disposable goods went up anywhere from 30% to 50%, according to Tom Szaky, CEO of recycling company TerraCycle and reuse platform Loop, who joined CNBC's Leslie Picker on a recent CNBC Evolve Livestream about sustainability and business. Szaky's business recently teamed with a luxury watchmaker on the world's tallest landfill: Mt. is currently building the worlds first commercial plant that will recycle all types of plastic. "Recycling is not out there trying to do the best it can but maximize profit and we need to think about that as we aim for a more circular economy," he said. Overall, global demand in high-quality recyclable materials is actually growing. It is another economic problem, not a physics or chemistry one. We need to bring everyone along, not just people who view this as a high-passion project. In the last 40 years, less than 10% of plastic has been recycled. Szaky says recent reporting on the economic issues for plastics recycling and restrictions around the world on imported recyclables, which are both weighing on the sector, are not an anti-environmental attack but "absolutely rooted in facts.". Unfortunately, technology has a long way to go before we are able to sort, clean, and recycle most plastics safely. A look at the costs and benefits of recycling. But for the company that leads, "it can drive core value maybe better than TV ads," he added. The plastic recycling model was never economically viable, but oil and gas companies still touted it as a magic solution to waste, selling the American public a lie so the companies could keep pushing new plastic. What questions do you have about recycling plastic or other materials. The recycling industry is responsible for collecting processing and marketing billions of dollars worth of metals, paper, plastics and other recovered materials. Each time it is recycled, the fibers become shorter and the quality degrades, so it is generally only recyclable six times before it can no longer be used in paper products. "Diaper recycling doesn't make sense from an economic perspective. 1 goal for most consumers will remain convenience and value. Recycling costs vary by city according to a set of factors, including proximity . Small items, such as plastic straws, may be made from recyclable plastic, but dont eventually end up being recycled due to their small size or variation in color. No, it's an energy-intensive process which involves significant environmental risk for relatively little reward. This can prevent . This has been a deep dive into our step-by-step guide to recycling plastic. Photograph of the inside of a garbage collection center in Vine Hill, California, December 8, 2020. "We look at straws as one of the gateway issues to help people start thinking about the global plastic pollution problem," Plastic Pollution Coalition CEO Dianna Cohen previously told Business Insider. As a result, theres a lot of confusion about the benefits and value of recycling plastic. The bottom line is, even recycled plastic goods will end up in landfill or incinerators at the end of their useable life cycles. When considering worth, its important to remember that financial profit is only one part of the triple bottom line, next to people and planet. For one, sorting and cleaning the many different types of plastic is difficult even using automated equipment. Woodbury, New Jersey, pioneered the nation's first curbside recycling system, when, in 1980, garbage collectors started towing a trailer for reusable household waste, MIT researcher Andrew McAfee explains in his new book, "More From Less.". Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inbox. To turn an old bag into a new one, for example, you have to start with very clean recycled content. All major credit cards accepted. MILLER RECYCLING CORPORATION |, from DuPont declaring that empty plastic containers werent trashthey were full of potential, and that potential could only be harnessed by people, . Got a confidential news tip? 61 percent say they recycle 75 percent or more of their plastic waste, while 37 percent recycle all of their plastic waste. Clearly, many people are accustomed to recycling plasticand that doesnt need to change! . Sign up for our newsletter to get the latest on the culture & business of sustainability delivered weekly to your inbox. Everest. Recycling contamination causes recycling to be discarded. Chinas decision to stop buying recovered plastic is driving more of it into American landfills. It is used to assess the validity of the Global Commitment to use 100 percent reusable, recyclable or compostable plastic packaging by 2025. Helping the planet was as easy as dropping an empty plastic container in the right bin! Plastic recycling can cause pollution, but it is still worth doing. In his book, McAfee calls metal recycling "great, since it gives us cheaper metal products and reduces total greenhouse-gas emissions." The right question is "Can a garbage company, the actual company in charge of the recycling in the geography, recycle it at a profit?". Plastic recycling is the reprocessing of plastic waste into new products. The globe is already producing two trillion pounds of solid waste a year and is on pace to. properly managed recycling program can be cheaper, national glass recycling average remains low around 33%, $37.8 billion in wages and $5.5 billion in tax revenues. Especially since some products may be labeled as recyclable by the manufacturer, but not accepted by your local authority. The mountain is littered with oxygen tanks from previous climbs and the watchmaker was able to both clean up the mess, an expensive undertaking, and source metal for its watches, which may add to the story it sells consumers in a way competitors can't match. Creating products using recycled plastic requires less oil and gas than creating new plastic does. Crucial to reduce the problem of microplastics. It's true that the former China-US plastic recycling beltway is now shuttered, and that most of our plastic waste today ends up in landfills or burns. Not so much. 1) Erase the refining by bringing the molecules back to petroleum's value, by burning it or a reverse-refining process called pyrolysis, returning it to an oil form. Virgin plastics are typically cheaper than recycled plastics as they are cheaper to produce in mass given the falling price of oil. (Source: University of Michigan) In 2019, the United States sent an average of US$7.2 billion dollars worth of plastic to landfill, according to new estimates from the Department of Energy (DOE). "The reason the public thinks recycling is the answer is that the plastic industry has spent 30 years on . This is convenient for consumers yet often results in contamination, and materials must be sorted by both machine and human hand, making it more expensive. He says it is important for consumers to understand that just because you recycle an item does not mean it will be recycled in the end. What they. Plastic is also inherently problematic within the recycling industry, and even highly-recyclable #1 (PETE) or #2 (HDPE) plastics will degrade in quality over time, with processing limits of just two to three cycles before they are no longer usable. The size of the worldwide market for recycled plastics was forecast to be 46.09 billion US dollars in 2021, and it is anticipated to reach 47.6 billion US dollars in 2022. Here are some ways recycling . Making new plastic is cheap and there are big companies making billions from the production of new plastic. Its only when we come to plastic, commonly marked with the chasing arrows symbol, that matters get much more complicated. Recycling steel and tin cans saves 60 to 74 percent; recycling paper saves about 60 percent; and recycling plastic and glass saves about one-third of the energy compared to making those. Also, educate everyone around you about the importance of washing contaminants off of recycled plastic. Recycling programs are also sometimes hindered by the systems they use. McAfee argues that instead of worrying about plastic recycling, people should lobby for carbon dividends that would drive money from heavily polluting companies (like oil and gas giants) back into tax revenue, in addition to getting governments more focused on investing in environmentally friendly energy sources, like nuclear power. A lack of recycling options is the most ubiquitous in rural and low . Second, China stopped importing recyclable waste, a move followed by other countries in 2018. Can reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Inconvenience and a lack of access to recycling are two of the most prevalent reasons why people don't recycle.5. The 2021 report surveyed 5,000 adults across the U.S., Mexico, Spain and the U.K. about their attitudes and behaviors around recycling plastic. , recycling plastic minimizes the demand for virgin materials. At least one city, Minneapolis (population 425,000), has already excluded some types of plastic (black plastic and styrene) from materials that residents can place in recycling bins for collection. Today, more recycling education means that consumers are more aware of the challenges around plastic recycling. Benefits of recycling plastic In some cases, it is limited to energy recovery (mainly by incineration with heat recovery) and final waste. "With all three things coming together we can switch a consumer who maybe doesn't even care about sustainability and that's frankly the most important," Szaky said. According to the National Waste and Recycling Association, about 25% of all the goods that Americans try to recycle end up in a landfill anyway because they are too contaminated to be reused.. Szaky says what's really important right now is companies deciding to lean in and create their own recycling programs. Hi-Cone, an Illinois-based beverage packaging supplier, recently released its second annual report on The State of Plastic Recycling. Theres still demand from manufacturers that rely on recovered plastic to make new plastic containers, bags, clothing and other items. NAPCOR estimates that 5.5 billion pounds of PET bottles and jars passed over U.S. shelves in 2006. All businesses generate plastic waste, and many dont have a good system for disposing of it. More people are wondering: Does it work? as well as other partner offers and accept our. The pros and cons of recycling are heavily debated, but there's never an argument over the environmental benefits of limiting disposable packaging and utilizing more durable reusable goods, like. Get this delivered to your inbox, and more info about our products and services. Does recycling plastic cause pollution? Sign up for notifications from Insider! By comparison, just three million tons of plastic were recycled into new products that year. Plastics also usually arent recycled in the west instead, theyre transported across half the world to developing countries that already mismanage much of their own waste, which not only lowers the recycling rate but also significantly increases the carbon footprint. But plastics are usually "downcycled" into lower-quality and lower-value products, such as carpet fiber or car parts. But he vehemently believes Americans should trash plastic waste by burying it underground in well-managed "modern" landfills. "What makes something be recycled in a country doesn't have to do with what we normally think: Can it be recycled? Municipal programs to recycle materials such as paper, glass, plastic, and metal are one way to decrease the amount of resources (especially non-renewable ones) needed to produce a given amount of products, but it may not be obvious whether such programs save more money than they cost, or more energy than they consume. Only 8% of plastic waste in the United States is actually recycled. Glass, metal and plastic recycling costs New York $240 per ton, almost double what it costs to just throw it away. How many plastic bottles does it take to make a pound? What questions do you have about recycling plastic or other materials? There are seven categories of plastics for recycling, but most facilities only accept #1 and #2. Brands that run their own recycling programs should be doing it as part of a plan to drive more market share and brand preference. The US Environmental Protection Agency reported that recycling accounted for around $37.8 billion in wages and $5.5 billion in tax revenues even in 2012, while a 2021 study by international environmental alliance GAIA found that recycling creates 70 times more jobs than landfill and incineration. The 2021 report surveyed 5,000 adults across the U.S., Mexico, Spain and the U.K. about their attitudes and behaviors around recycling plastic. This brings up the question of how cost-effective recycling is, and while its often pointed out that a well-run or properly managed recycling program can be cheaper than other forms of waste disposal, many municipalities have historically come to the conclusion that recycling is more expensive and barely worth it. Due to the fact that 453.59 grams is equivalent to 1 pound, there are about 19 of the 20 Ounce PET bottles in a pound. Recycling can work but only with some materials. Firstly, it is an effective way of reducing the extraction of new resources. If you regularly buy products packaged in plastic, youre likely familiar with the chasing arrows symbol, usually depicted with a number inside. This is due to various reasons, Plastics recycling conserves natural resources, saves energy, and contributes to the economy. The reasons for this are complex and rooted in the global market for scrap materials, the price of oil, and our continued reliance on cheap, single-use products. A large amount of plastic waste is produced every day, and most of it is not biodegradable. By comparison, 68.2 percent of paper and paperboard were recycled that year. Plastics also usually aren't recycled in the west - instead, they're transported across half the world to developing countries that already mismanage much of their own waste, which not only lowers the recycling rate but also significantly increases the carbon footprint. However, as the kinds of recyclable materials (or recyclates) has become more diverse, and households and businesses alike have become increasingly used to recycling, the process of sorting through recyclates has become increasingly difficult. Plastic had an overall recycling rate of just 8.7 percent. Additionally, when the price of oil plummets, like it did starting at the end of 2014, it becomes cheaper to make virgin plastic than to recycle, leading to declining scrap values of PET. Dr Adrian Merrington, in Applied Plastics Engineering Handbook, 2011. 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