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Actually, no. While recycling is certainly important -- we do it in our home -- it's not enough, and here are a few reasons why:
Recycling is a business.
Like any business, recycling relies on markets to survive. Do you know what happens to the metal, glass, paper and plastic you put into your recycle bin? After sorting at your community's recycling center, it is sold to companies that do the actual recycling, breaking down the materials and incorporating them into new products. But what happens if no one wants to buy the stuff we toss in the bin?
A NY Times article last year reported that much of our community recycling was piling up in warehouses or ending up in landfills, due to the economic downturn and lack of demand from China, the biggest export market for recyclables from the United States.
Recycling costs communities money.
According to an L.A. Times article last month, recycling centers across California are shutting down in response to tough economic times. The state has been forced to borrow from beverage container recycling funds in an effort to balance the budget. Yet manufacturers of disposable containers continue to produce this wasteful packaging, relying on taxpayers and governments to fund recycling programs instead of taking responsibility themselves.
Our recycling may simply create pollution in other parts of the world.
This heartbreaking video released by Britain's Sky News reveals that recycling workers in China have been subjected to toxic conditions due to lack of worker safeguards.
The entire town of Lian Jiao, China had basically become a toxic waste dump, with residents and children exposed to fumes from melting plastics and rivers contaminated with recycling chemicals. Since this exposé, the facilities have been shut down. But what about other cities overseas that receive our discards?
A chasing arrows symbol does not mean the material is actually recyclable.
That recycling symbol on the bottom of a container does not necessarily mean the item can be recycled in your area. Some cities collect only narrow-necked bottles. Others collect only #1 or #2. What's more, some cities accept every kind of plastic, but then sort through it and send to the landfill anything for which there is no market. Do you know what happens to all the materials your city collects? Most do not want plastic bags in the recycling bin because they can seriously interfere with the sorting machines (I’ve witnessed this problem first-hand). Here are a few other items that routinely cause these machines to jam. These photos were taken at the Davis Street Recycling Center in San Leandro, California.
Here is a list of other materials that people have actually dropped in their recycle bins that can wrap around the machine and cause it to jam: chains, Christmas lights, clothing, copper tubing, cords from electronic devices, extension cords, tarps and other plastic film, metal hangers, sheets, string, wading pools (yep, it’s on the list!), wires. Do not put these items in your recycling bin.
Plastics are generally downcycled rather than truly recycled.
Plastic containers, for example, are not recycled into new containers but into other products like lumber or outdoor furniture. Even the plastic yogurt containers recycled by responsible companies like Preserve into toothbrushes and cutting boards are actually downcycled, since the manufacturers of the yogurt containers continue to extract virgin materials for their disposable products.
So what's the solution?
As I mentioned in my Thanksgiving post,
between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, Americans generate 25 percent more waste per week than during the rest of the year. This creates an additional 1.2 million tons per week, or an extra 6 million tons, for the holiday season.
We can stem the tide of holiday waste by following the first two R's in the zero waste mantra: Reduce and Reuse. Here are a few ideas:
1) Instead of buying new wrapping paper, reuse paper and ribbons from prior years or create cloth gift bags that can easily be reused year after
