.png)
You're cleaning up after a long Saturday night of binge watching Too Hot to Handle with your girlfriends. You have Corona glasses, Domino’s pizza boxes, and Solo cups strayed across the living room floor of your apartment. The apartment complex does not have a recycling bin, so you throw everything in the trash and hope that the waste pickers diligently sort through the mix when it reaches the facility. Unfortunately, your wish was not granted. Wish-cycling starts off with good intentions, but it actually creates more problems in the long run. Instead of relying on Aladdin’s genie to grant your last wish, you may be better off throwing out food containers and boozes in the trash can. Here’s why.
What is Wish-cycling?
According to Roadrunner, a technology service that helps businesses recover valuable materials, stated that wish-cycling is the process of adding an item to your recycling bin without knowing if it’s actually recyclable. Common wish cycled items include pizza boxes, Styrofoam, coffee cups, plastic straws, plastic bags, plastic silverware, coffee pods, and containers with residue. Many people assume that these items are recyclable, which they’re not wrong because they are eligible. However, the truth is the quality of the product diminishes by the time it reaches waste facilities due to contamination. Ipso facto the product is unable to be processed and sent to landfills. This could be a result of many Americans not knowing what to recycle properly. In a survey conducted by OnePoll and commissioned by Covanta, 62% of Americans believe that lack of knowledge is causing them to recycle incorrectly. The inadequate education on recycling contributed to the national recycling rate dropping from an all-time high of 34.9% in 2016 to 32.1% in 2018.
Where Does Wish-cycling Thinking Come From?
Wish-cycling stems from guilt behind contributing more waste to rising landfills. Americans' wishful thinking is congruent with their assumption that recycling facilities are just as efficient as an email’s spam folder. I hate to break it to ya, but they’re not that savvy. Waste pickers have to sort through recyclables at MRFs - Material Recovery Facilities. Waste picking leaves room for human errors, and contamination on recyclable materials leads to higher sorting costs and delayed timelines. So even if your greasy pizza box ends up in the recycling bin, it’s not really helping us eliminate waste. Along with old jeans, metal chains, and plastic bags, your pizza box easily clogged up the sorting machines and did not grant your wish. Some facilities are not able to recycle all of the materials, which leads them to ship paper, plastic, and glass to Asian countries.
Where is the Waste Going?
China was the world’s destination for two-thirds of the world’s plastic waste. However, in 2016 China stopped allowing waste from the U.S. to be disposed of in their landfills. Most of our recyclables that entered into the country were contaminated and the infrastructure was lost. Thus, the U.S. was sending them loads of waste that did not meet the recycling requirements. As a result, the U.S. is shifting the waste industry to a domestic market, but this is heavily frowned upon because for lack of better words--it takes money. Keefe Harrison, CEO of The Recycling Partnership, stated in an interview that U.S. trash haulers and cities can’t make money selling recyclables. “This is a shift of the entire industry, but it’s not an indicator that the system is broken...It’s that it needs help to be healthy and robust for years to come,” Harrison said.
What are the Do’s and Don'ts to Avoid Wish-cycling?
Option #1
Do check your community's waste management website to confirm the items that are recyclable. Doing this will also help you understand how to care for your recyclables before curbside pick up arrives at your door.
Option #2
( if you live in an apartment complex)
Do look up drop-off sites where you can find recycling centers closest to your apartment building. Earth911.com is a great resource for this!
Do clean and dry your items before dropping them off.
Do reduce the amount of waste you are consuming.
Do recycle electronics. Sell them online or find a place where they will be carefully handled.
Don’t recycle paper or coffee cups.
Don’t recycle greasy pizza boxes.
Don’t recycle cardboard boxes covered with dirt.
Don’t recycle plastic utensils and straws.
Don’t recycle Styrofoam or containers that have embedded food stains.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Sources
Deer, Ryan. “What Is Wishcycling?” RoadRunner Recycling, www.roadrunnerwm.com/blog/wishcycling.
“Help Put a Stop to Wish-Cycling.” Recycle Coach, 16 Sept. 2019, recyclecoach.com/residents/blog/help-put-a-stop-to-wish-cycling/.
trentCNBC. “How to Keep Recycling from Turning into 'Wishcycling'.” CNBC, CNBC, 19 Nov. 2018, www.cnbc.com/2018/11/16/how-to-keep-recycling-from-turning-into-wishcycling.html.
“Why Americans Aren't Recycling.” Waste Advantage Magazine, 22 Apr. 2019, wasteadvantagemag.com/why-americans-arent-recycling/.
Comments