Mixed Waste Recycling is it too good to be true?

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As I was leaving Sedona Recycles one night a woman came in to recycle electronics and then left. I got in my car and she pulled up alongside and asked me the following question, one I had heard many times before. “My garbage company collects trash and recyclables all in one can and they say they pull out all the recyclable items, is that really true?” My answer is always the same and requires the person asking the question to use their imagination and visualize the following. You place your garbage in the can along with your recyclable items. You, being a responsible individual bag your food waste and other trash and place your paper, cardboard, cans, plastics and glass into the can alongside the other items. There, you have done your part and count on everything else about the process working out perfectly. Your neatly stacked recyclables will arrive at the mixed waste facility and be plucked easily out of the trash and recycled into new items.

Now picture this instead: Your trash and recyclables along with the hundreds of other people’s trash and recyclables are dumped in a compactor truck where the contents are crushed with liquid sloshing around, glass shattering and food waste smashed and smeared onto all those items you would love to see recycled. Imagine further some of the things that make up the waste stream that have joined your recyclables on their journey: Cat litter, pesticides, paint, solvents, rotting food, dirty diapers and dead animals just to name a few. All of this is commingled with your previously clean paper, rinsed out plastics, flattened cardboard and whole glass bottles. Does this really seem like a workable model? The answer is no.

The method of combining household trash with recyclables is called mixed waste recycling. This is a program that was abandoned by most communities long ago. It is in essence recycling for people who don’t recycle. Anything that is recovered using this collection method is something that wasn’t going to be recycled anyway. This is the only real success to be found in a program like this. For those of you that want to see your materials truly recycled keep this figure in mind. Of the potentially recoverable recyclables you put in the mixed waste can or dumpster it is estimated that only 20% will be recovered. Of this 20% the materials recovered are often contaminated and search long and hard for recyclable material markets and are downgraded due to contamination. By contrast collection using multi-stream methods collecting paper and cardboard separate from plastics and cans and keeping glass apart from all these other materials boasts a recovery rate of 98% plus. Buyers are eager for this clean material and will take the extra time to travel to rural areas to recover and remanufacture using this feedstock.

Now if I seem troubled by the resurgence of this type of collection becoming the new trend I am. There is a reason this method faded out long ago and it is because of the aforementioned contamination and low recovery rates. Mills that receive these materials are the beneficiaries of recyclables that are commingled with other products. The mill buys a bale of paper for a set amount and then finds it is riddled with broken glass and other recyclables and waste products. They paid full price for something and only received a percentage of what they paid for and now bear the disposal cost of these other items many of which are recyclable but are now considered trash. This contamination problem has been one of the reasons that numerous paper mills have closed their doors.

But for me however the most problematic outcome of mixed waste collection is the loss of the educational opportunity. Sedona Recycles is a nonprofit educational organization and we take pride in doing our job. We empower the public to be part of recycling done using best practices. The public separates, we further sort after that and make sure that everything that we can possibly responsibly recover is then truly recycled and remanufactured into new products. This process of education and public participation is our goal and mission. We are not in this alone it takes all of us working together to build a strong community effort that sees the process through to the best conclusion possible. When you put your recyclables in a can alongside your trash you have stopped participating in the process. I challenge everyone to use their imaginations and visualize what I have outlined. Picture the mixed waste recycling process and decide if this is how you want to recycle. Consider if you are willing to participate in the least effectual recycling program available or if you have the few minutes it takes to be a part of real resource recovery. At Sedona Recycles we take this work very seriously. We aren’t in the trash business we are in the recycling education and recovery business. Join the effort and visit one of our free drop-off recycling sites near you.