Is Recycling Even Worth It?
I’ve been in a rut the past few days. The recycling drop-off center in my county and some neighboring counties are shutting their doors due to illegal dumping and being unable to make a decent profit.
To top that, they also plan on stopping the Curbside Recycling Program that is in place, because the recycling rates are very low, 30–40% of stuff collected goes into the trash, and they are not making much profit due to China closing their doors to imports last year.
Yes, we used to toss all of our recyclables to China, and hope that they will get around to processing it so that we do not have to. But now that they do not want to be our trash dump anymore, we have few other things to do with all of these recycables.
Here in the US, we create more product than we can recycle. And with many companies unwilling to use recycled materials, we have little else that we can do about that.
The Plastic Recycling Rate
Plastic is terrible at being recycled. In my area, about 50% of plastic is recycled here in the US, according to Republic Services when I contacted them on Facebook. That does not even account for the fact that 25% of all waste picked up gets tossed in the trash due to it not being able to be recycled.
So the plastic bottle that I put in the dumpster has a 40% chance of being recycled domestically. The rest is tossed in the landfill, or is exported to countries like Vietnam or Malasia. Here, it litters the ground, is burned, releasing toxins into the air, or else it goes down rivers, making it into our oceans.
I can’t accept that.
From now on, my plastic containers are going into the trash bin. They don’t decompose, and do not release chemicals into the air due to never biodegrading. They will be buried, so they never make it into the oceans. At this time, I just cannot feel right recycling plastic. It is doing more harm to recycle it than to just toss it. It’s no longer worth it to me.
Should we stop recycling then?
No. Aluminum cans, food cans, paper, cardboard, and glass bottles and jars should all still be recycled. They are very likely to be recycled when you put them in the bin, and can all be recycled and/or composted easily.
That said, I think the idea of recycling plastic is a failure, or at least needs to be fixed as soon as possible.
But let us all not forget, it is far better to not buy that plastic bottle in the first place (if possible and practicable) then to buy it and then hope it gets recycled.
If you want to help me continue to do what I do, consider buying from my poshmark:
https://poshmark.com/closet/upcycledlucy
or else purchase from my sustainable Etsy store:
