by MAURA KELLER
Consumers across the country have a hard time distinguishing between recyclable plastics and hard-to-recycle plastic counterparts that land in recycling containers and, ultimately, must be sorted at recycling facilities.
To offset the difficulty emerging in properly deciphering the correct plastics to recycle, municipalities, recycling companies and companies are banding together to educate consumers and create new avenues of use for hard-to-recycle plastics.
Tony Perrotta, PA Consulting sustainability expert helps PA’s U.S. consumer and manufacturing clients with growth strategy, sustainability and regenerative economy projects. He said there are a number of issues that impede municipalities in effectively and sustainably offering plastic recycling programs – and an equal number of ways to help combat these issues.
“One option in particular is critical and worthy of further exploration and consideration – consumer confusion. Given such varying regulations on what can or cannot be recycled by geographic location, anything municipalities can do to provide clarity would be welcomed,” Perrotta said. “Yes, that means helping consumers understand what can and cannot go into curbside recycling. But it also means further pressure on producers to clearly and effectively label their products. By way of example, the “chasing arrows” logo has long been interpreted by consumers as a sign that an item is welcome in the recycling stream.
Unfortunately, the symbol only denotes composition – not actual recyclability; let alone in your specific geography. Consumers want to do the right thing, hence the ‘wish-cycling’ activity we see all too often – they just need a bit of clarity on what can and cannot be recycled effectively today.”
Perrotta pointed to the importance of municipalities addressing the issue of hard-to-recycle plastics head on. That’s exactly what Emmet County Recycling in Harbor Springs, Michigan did.
According to Kate Melby, communication and education coordinator of Emmet County Recycling in Harbor Springs, Michigan, the evolution of plastics recycling looks like chaos at the municipal level.
“People using our recycling collection systems have a very difficult time understanding what is and isn’t recyclable. Many have a vague idea that ‘all plastics are recyclable.’ Some are frustrated when we tell them we can’t recycle their foam items, CPAP tubing, sporks…the list is infinite,” Melby said.
Emmet County went with the “all containers” approach, which was supposed to simplify the message, but customers are still confused. And, although their markets have use for 95 percent of the plastics Emmet County accept for recycling, the message has led local businesses, which are very committed to recycling, to accidentally choose non-recyclable packaging for their products.
Currently Emmet County operates a dual-stream system. “On the papers, boxes and bags side we see less than 2 percent contamination. On the containers side we see 20 percent contamination and plastics are by far the biggest culprits,” Melby said. This past year Emmet County participated in a study the Recycling Partnership was conducting on how to reduce contamination coming into public recycling drop-off sites. Emmet County has 13 drop sites and its MRF receives materials from two other counties with an additional 17 sites.
“As part of the study, we audited our container stream and the findings simply confirmed our impression that non-recyclable plastics are by far the biggest contamination problem we face,” Melby said.
The confusion is not limited to customers however. As brands churn out more and more different packaging systems and products, it is hard for Emmet County staff – from education to customer service to collection and processing – to keep up with what is and isn’t really recyclable.
“We regularly have to research the composition of new products and/or go back to our markets and ask whether they can use different materials,” Melby said.
And then there is the issue of compostable plastics. While, in the long run, biobased plastics would probably be an improvement, they are mainly adding to the confusion.
“Compostable plastics are leading some of our most well intentioned businesses to choose packaging that will end up in the landfill. Carry-out containers are the classic example” Melby said. “Restaurants do not have the bigger picture – that, until composting collection mechanisms and composting facilities are able to capture the compostable wares, recyclables would be a better choice.”
Emmet County Recycling current accepts all plastic containers under 2.5 gallons, excluding foam items, and plastic film curbside and at their drop-off sites. They also accept plant plastics and bulky rigid plastics by drop-off only.
“Our MRF sorts a 1-7 mix, HDPE Colored, HDPE Natura, and PET clear bottles,” Melby said. “Plastic film is one of the materials that we frequently talk about. It is accepted curbside and at our drop-off sites. The bags have – no pun intended – been a mixed bag for us. We ask customers to bag them all up in one bag, but many people don’t. It ends up being a lot of labor to sort them while resulting in very little volume.”
In addition, while Emmet County asks that plastic bags be put in the papers, boxes and bags stream, many customers assume that plastic bags go in with the plastic containers in the containers stream. As such, they have engineered ways to capture bags from both lines to address this issue.
As Melby explained, for the most part, they see municipal recycling systems (and waste systems) bearing the brunt of the deluge of different plastic items as a huge labor and equipment issue.
“The Recycling Partnership is trying to address the problem of contamination generally through education and infrastructure improvements. They have shown success with using education to reduce contamination curbside,” Melby said. “However, this does require unusual education spending to see results. Hopefully we will see recycling systems start to understand the critical need to better fund education in order to achieve quality, efficient recycling.”
Innovation At Its Best
Experts agree that in recent years, secondary markets for no/low-value, hard-to-recycle plastic have shrunk dramatically; this means that higher volumes of these materials end up in landfills. “This, coupled with the fact that more people have become aware of the adverse impact plastic waste has on our environment, means more people are asking tough questions about how their waste is being recycled,” said Heidi Kujawa, chief executive officer of ByFusion, a company that developed its proprietary Blocker System. The system repurposes hard-to-recycle plastic, including marine debris and agricultural plastic, into an alternative, reusable building material called ByBlock.
As Kujawa further explained, hard-to-recycle plastics, such as films and flexible packaging, wreak havoc on waste management systems. They are difficult to sort, contaminate high-value loads, and jam systems, which leads to significant downtime. This downtime drives up operational costs and leads to higher service fees to municipalities.
“Sadly, the increased services fee coupled with the overall complexity of the problem often result in municipalities cutting curbside recycling programs altogether. It is difficult to grasp that multiple cities in states including Florida, Arizona, Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Ohio, Virginia, Texas and several others have eliminated or paused their recycling programs.
“In this moment of environmental crisis, we cannot afford to have any city in the U.S. abandoning their recycling program,” Kujawa said.
What makes ByBlocks unique is that no cleaning, sorting, or pre-processing is required – they are made using only plastic waste and are not dependent on other additives or fillers. The Blocker System, which is manufactured in the U.S., was designed to plug into existing waste management infrastructure; it can also be installed as a standalone system. Their modular nature allows ByFusion to configure each blocker to meet the volume demands of the waste management facility for maximum landfill diversion. ByFusion’s zero waste Blocker Systems produce usable products on the spot while being repurposed into a building material that can be used to revitalize parks and neighborhoods, as well as for infrastructure projects.
“Unlike before, residents are now demanding more transparency from their government leaders and waste management service providers,” Kujawa said. “They want to know where their waste is going and what is being done with it.”
Continued Efforts
As part of Emmet County’s educational efforts to reduce plastic contamination, the county now has a new website, a new guide, a social media campaign, repainted and re-labeled bins, purchased new signs for the drop sites, sent mailers to all households, created magnets for distribution and installed cameras at drop sites.
For plastics recycling to be more than a greenwashing mechanism, Emmet County sees three critical ways plastics must evolve:
•Switching away from fossil-fuel feed stocks. No amount of recycling will be meaningful if climate change is not contained and reversed.
•Developing products and systems that make refill/reuse a major part of the container space.
•Designing all single-use products to be made from single, highly recyclable resins and providing for the systems to collect and recycle nearly 100 percent of these products. This sounds ridiculous, but Michigan’s bottle deposit system collects at these levels. Anything less is contributing to the plastics pollution problem.
“Municipalities can also work with industry groups such as TRP and Closed Loop Partners which may have leverage over brand owners to make substantial changes,” Melby said. “It is hard not to foresee more of the same for plastics recycling: the plastics industry co-opting ‘recycling’ to deflect attention from the fundamental issues with plastics. The big brands in plastics make noise about doing the right thing, at the same time they lobby for limits on policy to address the issues with plastics.”
Kujawa also pointed out that plastic is cheap to manufacture, strong and durable. “It was never designed to degrade or go away,” she said. “This has created one of the most complex challenges of our time. We cannot rely on old recycling tactics for this new crisis – we need a fundamentally new model.”
Published in the November 2021 Edition
