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February 22nd Recycling Haul

4 min read

Today, I took about 1 months of recycling from a house of 4 college students to the local recycling center and hope to identify some trends in our waste and how it relates to the bigger picture of solid waste generation in the U.S.

Some numbers

For 1 months worth of recycling from 4 college students we diverted:

  • #1 plastic - 4.2 lbs. (1.9 kg) ← (mostly various drink containers)
  • #2 plastic - 2.2 lbs. (1 kg) ← (typically milk jugs or chemical containers like laundry detergent)
  • Glass - 10.7 lbs. (4.9 kg)
  • Cardboard/Paper - 6.5 lbs. (3 kg)
  • Aluminum/Tin - 2.2 lbs. (1 kg)
    Total: 25.8 lbs. (11.7 kg) diverted

We recycled 39%1 of our waste, noticeably higher than the national average of 23.6%.^[https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/national-overview-facts-and-figures-materials#Landfilling] What if we had composted as well?

Some observations

  • Point: Recycling 5 pizza boxes would divert an additional 2.2 lbs. (1 kg) of cardboard.
  • Point: The vast majority of my plastics, glass, and aluminum were containers that held liquids: water, soda, alcohol, and cleaning chemicals.
    • On one hand, this should signal that we should reduce our consumption of such things, notably water by carrying a reusable container. But on the other hand, it shows that we have done a decent job leaning towards readily recyclable drink containers with largely no legislation.
  • Point: The vast majority of my household waste was soiled food containers and snack containers (chip bags, granola bars).
    • Since we are college students, this tracks, but maybe we should explore ways to make a dent in this kind of waste.
  • Point: If I composted what I could, we would surpass 50% of our waste being diverted.
    • If our food containers were compostable, that would drastically change the amount of landfill we produce. Unfortunately, most places in the U.S. do not have accessible municipal composting services.

Context

My town does not fully support curbside or single stream recycling, so recyclables must be sorted at drop off. Additionally, accepted recyclables are reasonably limited to the following items.

  • Transparent #1 plastic
  • #2 plastic
  • Glass
  • Paper/Cardboard
  • Aluminum/Tin
  • Plastic Bags
  • and other specialty items e.g. batteries, scrap metal, yard debris, electronics, etc.
    Given that our town is on the smaller end (pop. 51k), I believe this system is quite strong since it drastically reduces the contamination rate leading to increased recovery of higher quality materials for comparatively little cost.

A thought experiment on why it’s in our interest to reduce waste

Let’s say the United States managed to reach a fairly ambitious goal of halving municipal solid waste directed to the landfill through various means similar to the EU.

  1. Based on what I wrote in Circular Economy, it becomes apparent that landfill is the equivalent of throwing away money on:
    • Storing trash on limited land
    • Transporting once valuable materials that will never benefit us again
    • Investing in infrastructure to quarantine landfill from causing complications like ground-water seepage, methane off gassing (flammable and highly potent greenhouse gas), and releasing VOCs that contribute to ground-level ozone.
      Reducing landfill would reduce all of these costs.
  2. The U.S. is undoubtedly an influential nation whose decisions may result in a global shift towards sustainability and global health.
  3. It is generally well agreed that reducing our waste will divert lost economy into creating new jobs in growing industries like recycling and reuse, composting, and waste-to-energy.
    • But that will take away from landfill operations jobs!
      Sure! But also create 10 jobs for each one lost. The Tellus Institute did an amazing case study of San Francisco (and others) confirming this.^[https://tellus.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/More-Jobs-Less-Pollution-Growing-the-Recycling-Economy-in-the-US.pdf] (pg. 26, 31-37)
    • More jobs means higher costs for taxpayers!
      Not necessarily! Recall that landfilling literally throws away money as opposed to recycling, composting, and waste-to-energy which recovers material value and is fully capable of being profitable and self-sustainable as opposed to landfills which only consume tax money that can be directed towards other projects.
    • It requires too much upfront capital to do this, we have more important issues to worry about.
      It is true that this requires quite a large investment in our future and we’re not often keen on doing that despite the promise of long term benefits. It’s important to note that the cost wouldn’t necessarily increase spending as much as reallocate what is already spent on landfills and waste management. Additionally, we can focus on gradual implementation to reduce financial shock while still reaping benefits.

Footnotes

  1. For comparison, a standard bag of our household waste is about 6.25 lbs. (2.8 kg). I would estimate we have 6-7 bags in a given month for about ~40 lbs. (18.4 kg). That is a recycling rate of 39%. ↩

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