I feel like recycling is an IQ test, and I’ve been failing.
I’m just realizing, I didn’t really know how to recycle. For most of my adult life I had just been following an inner recycling instinct. And relying on what people told me was recyclable. If it looked plasticy, papery, metalish, glassy or maybe even made out of all of the above I just figured, someone — perhaps one of the magical recycling elves down at the local dump ought to know how to reuse this!
Turns out, magical recycling elves don’t exist, and this sparked lots of curious questions. To find the answers I recently did some research to figure out how to properly recycle in my bin. My mind could hardly handle all the mistakes I was making.
Did you know plastic grocery bags aren’t recyclable? This might be common knowledge to you, but to me, it's news. And if you want to give them a second life, you have to tote those wrinkly buggers back into the grocery store. Which begs an even bigger question, why isn’t there a universal law against stores using these landfill-fugitive, child-suffocating, sea-turtle sabotaging plastic bags? Beyond a single-use grocery getter trip, they’re toxic garbage.
As the research continued more recycling revelations surfaced: plastic Ziploc baggies are also in the same category as the grocery bags, you gotta zippity-doo-dah them all the way back to the speciality recycling situation they have at grocery stores. Same deal with plastic Saran wrap, that flimsy food wrapping stuff is worthless at the recycling station.
Plastic hangers — are probably not recyclable. Plastic toys — nope sorry kids, that’s more plastic for your future. Styrofoam egg containers and take-out stuff — nope that’s not recyclable either. I could have built a styrofoam yacht with all the pieces I’ve sent to recycling centers. And all of it was a waste. I was delusional in thinking I was a responsible recycler, meanwhile I’m jacking up the whole process week after week. There’s also a debate about plastic bottles and caps. You used to have to separate the bottles and caps, but they changed the rule. You can keep the caps on, they can separate them by squeezing the bottles and blasting off the caps. And that’s another thing, they keep changing the recycling rules! No wonder I can’t keep up.
Furthermore, paper cups for hot coffee or tea — nope, not recyclable! That’s because there’s a little pesky plastic liner on the inside of the cups. Although, it has a pretty important function of keeping the liquid contained. I had been proudly recycling my Timmy Horton’s and other joe cups for years, but I just learned that recycling facilities can’t separate the plastic lining from the paper. But the good news is that you can usually recycle the plastic lid and the little Java Jacket sleeve! So cheers to that.
Paper is recyclable, but not if it’s shredded. Cardboard also a yes. But here’s where it gets tricky, pizza boxes are only recyclable with a clean caveat — it’s got to be sans grease stains. For a pro-tip, rip off and recycle only the top or non-greasy sections, and that mini plastic pizza-protecting table stand.
It’s preferred and requested that all recycling in your bin is clean. Which means someone appreciates how well I always rinse my Chobani yogurt containers. As for glass bottles and cans, those are totally recyclable. The rule hasn’t changed. But I’m guessing all my Corona bottles with a soon-to-be-moldy lime stuck in it, well, that might have caused some contamination problems. And all that aluminum foil with the salmon skin stuck on it, that certainly didn’t win the award for most appreciated piece of recycling. Yes indeed, these are my unsanitary sins, committed in blue bins.
And one more thing, what about boxes with metal parts? Like the Reynolds Wrap box with the metal cutting blade? Am I supposed to tear that mini saw off and separate it? Should I meticulously deconstruct my dental floss containers? I don't know why, but the forces of being a good recycler are starting to make me care about things like this.
While recycling has me rethinking a lot of my actions, I’ve also found composting to be a whole other world of confusing. Because a lot of compostable stuff looks like paper or plastic but because it’s made of plant-based material or bioplastic it isn’t recyclable yet. And compostable stuff, even some food waste, doesn’t just break down into dust in your standard orange Homer Home Depot bucket. It is only compostable at sophisticated processing facilities and there’s seemingly absolutely no where in my condo building to currently get your compost on. What on earth is an aspiring eco-friendly fella to do? Pay for a service to come pick up my compost? No thanks, in fact I rightfully feel like someone should pay me to do that! And holy crap, I’m just learning all this in 2018! Where have I been? Under a landfill?
I also have a confession. Not long ago, my Apple mouse stopped working. The issue, two AA batteries had come to a point where they could no longer provide the juice necessary to keep me clicking and scrolling. I found some new batteries in storage and replaced them. And then I had an environmental dilemma; I had two dead Duracells in my hands and no convenient way to dispose of them properly. I paced the room. I hovered over the trash can. I knew they didn’t belong in there. I knew that these little alkaline vessels must be dropped in a special location. Highly trained e-waste elves were diligently deconstructing and repurposing batteries somewhere on the outskirts of town. But I didn’t know where. And it just seemed so far out of the way for two measly batteries. I simply didn’t have the energy to do it. So I tossed them right in the trash. I told Earth to eat it. Yup, shame on me. For it was not my greenest moment.
Without any easy ways to recycle e-waste, and increasing amounts of it year after year, it’s clearly a growing issue. But still it’s so much extra effort for people like me to get rid of their electronics responsibly. I'm definitely guilty of putting a few big ol' boob tubes right on the curb. And before I discovered Best Buy’s e-waste recycling program, I recall one laptop of mine being taken out into the backyard and having the memory beaten out of it via the impact of a steel Louisville Slugger. I even turned on some gangster music, and stomped the gigabytes out of its hard-driving ass Office Space style. All of its valuable pieces, now shattered and cracked into smithereens were then unwisely sent to the landfill, or left in the grass to wreak a little havoc on our lawn crew’s mower.
For what it’s worth, Mother Earth, and lawn dude, I’m sorry.
While I’ve done some dumb things. One thing that has always been against my nature is littering. I simply can’t understand why someone would do it. I can’t relate to the careless psychology of a full grown human who chooses to drop or throw garbage out of their hand and onto the ground. If the world was filled with toddlers I would understand. Because I have a nephew, he's two and that’s what he does best. He throws things. Sometimes aiming them at my head and hitting the target.
There’s a Burger King on the corner by where I live in downtown Miami. No matter how many times a clean-up crew comes by, there is always litter and the majority of it on the surrounding sidewalks is branded with BK. Cups, bags, sometimes Whopper sandwiches. Just chucked on the street. It would make sense if there were gangs of stray toddlers going in and out of that restaurant, but that isn’t the case. These are adults. Full grown savages.
Litter looks terrible. Litter makes me feel terrible. And it has terrible effects on the local community and the long term health of our planet. Why would you do such a dumb thing? And if I’m being completely honest, even as someone who has the flight over fight instinct, there’s an odd trigger that makes me want to go pummel someone in the head when I see them litter. Or if I see a bag of mangled Wendy's on the side of the road, I'll get angry picturing the jackass who threw it out. I imagine he drives a rusty Silverado truck and he probably smokes too, flicking his lit cigarette butt into a pregnant lady’s Town & Country minivan while she panics and swerves into a ditch... What a scumbag.
While I don’t have all the solutions, the good news is that there are a lot of people, communities and companies taking action against waste. I discovered a lot of hopeful and interesting things like Recyclebank which rewards people for recycling. It doesn’t look like the most promising program so far, but it’s definitely a thought in the right direction.
I’m sure I can’t be the only guy on earth who is still learning the rules of recycling. My guess is that there’s a pretty big knowledge gap out there. Plus there’s an extremely low incentive to do it right. It's a problem, sure but it seems like there is wide open territory for creative opportunity to do something great. Something engaging that increases participation and educates people about how to handle all this valuable and recyclable material.
Because hey, those magic elves sure aren’t going to do it for us.