Plastic is everywhere, and recycling it is not as clear-cut as we have been led to believe. But, recycling, diverting food waste and buying less plastic are still the first steps toward a more sustainable lifestyle.
This past year, two lawsuits took ExxonMobil to task over the corporation’s long-held claims about recycling plastics. The lawsuits claim that ExxonMobil purposefully misled the public for decades by falsely promoting that all plastic is recyclable by typical means, thus exacerbating a global pollution crisis. ExxonMobil makes more single-use plastic than anyone. Plastic is everywhere: our landfills, water, soil, tumble dryers and even our bodies.
“Plastics come from oil,” says Chelsea Hafer, the Community Outreach Manager at Recycle Utah. “So, the creation of virgin plastics is terrible for the environment.” Plastics don’t break down or biodegrade, but they do photo-degrade, meaning when light hits them, they break down into smaller and smaller plastics…the kind of microplastics that permeate everything, causing unknowable health and environmental impacts.
“The issue with using plastic is, number one, that most of it isn’t actually being recycled in the conventional way, which would be turning it into a new product,” says Hafer.
Recycle Utah is a Summit County non-profit that works to educate organizations, children, adults and communities about sustainability. At their recycling center, they recycle 45 different kinds of items, resulting in 4 million pounds of material diverted from the landfill every year.
While recycling plastics is not always as straightforward as tossing them in the blue curbside bin, recycling centers like Recycle Utah’s center do what they can to divert plastics from landfills. But, it all comes down to the type of plastic, designated by numbers 1–7: PET (1) and HDPE (2) are high enough quality to be recycled into something else. “Sometimes that’s another bottle, and sometimes that’s a Patagonia fleece or a kid’s toy, something like that,” explains Hafer. Meanwhile, plastic bags and styrofoam can only be diverted when dropped off at centers like Recycle Utah, but processing them is just not economical.
After reducing plastic use, such as avoiding plastic shopping bags, water bottles or packaging, the next step to a more sustainable lifestyle is diverting more of our food waste. “We push a lot for diverting food waste because, in our landfill in Summit County, it’s a big, big problem. Like 30 to 50% of our landfill is food waste,” explains Hafer. “And that releases a lot of methane.” Compared to carbon dioxide, methane is 82 times more potent in contributing to climate change over 20 years. Food waste can be diverted through composting or anaerobic digestion. An anaerobic digester, like the one Park City Community Foundation enlists as part of its zero food waste initiative, breaks down food waste with bacteria but captures the resulting methane and converts it into natural gas.
As far as what else can go in the blue curbside bin, there are a few ways to ensure it doesn’t end up in landfill. “I think one of the big issues with curbside recycling is people will put it in a trash bag,” says Hafer. “You cannot put your recycling in a plastic bag…If anything is in a plastic bag, they’re going to assume it’s trash.” Contaminates are the other concern—contaminates such as food. “What I do is I just put all of my peanut butter jars, yogurt containers or whatever, in the dishwasher,” says Hafer. “That actually saves water and it’s way less effort. And then you can just recycle it after that.” The same often applies if, lacking curbside pickup—especially for things like glass—you’re personally dropping off materials at a recycling center, but check the specific guidelines for your municipality.
“The three R’s—reduce, reuse, recycle— are in that order for a reason,” says Hafer. “Recycling is great, but hard plastics and paper and cardboard, they can only be recycled so many times, before they lose their quality. Glass and metal can be recycled forever because they’re just really strong, high-quality materials.” In short, “Recycling is the last step. People really need to think about reducing their waste first.”
Plastic Recycling Tips
Recycle in the blue curb side bin
PET (1): drink bottles that can be recycled into fiber fill, carpet fibers or rope.
HDPE (2): milk and juice jugs that can be recycled into other containers.
Drop-off at certain recycling centers
LDPE (4): plastic bags that can be ‘recycled’ into energy. Shopping bags may also be returned to some grocery stores for reuse.
PVC (3)
PP (5): food packaging
PS (6): styrofoam—expanded styrofoam (EPS) can be densifed and recycled.
Other plastics (7)
Call ahead to see which materials your local recycling center accepts.
