Every week, millions of homeowners and renters collect everything with a recycling symbol or made of paper, glass, or metal. As they roll their blue bins to the curb or carry recyclables to a collection station, they believe they’re protecting the environment. The sad truth is that any non-recyclable items that go into the recycling create a range of problems.
This habit, known as “wishcycling,” comes down to hoping that something can be recycled. It’s not always the case. Even if a recycling symbol is printed on a label or the container itself, your local material recovery facility (MRF) may not accept it.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the national recycling and composting rate is just over 32%. However, national recycling contamination rates sit at around 25%. This means one out of four items aren’t actually recyclable.
When you put the wrong items in your recycling bin, it creates problems for workers and the equipment they use every day. It’s important to know what happens to those wishcycled items.
What Happens at the Sorting Facility
The collection truck’s been through your neighborhood or complex. They’re done with their route and return to the MRF. Now it’s time to sort and process everything, and it is a complex procedure.
Trucks dump their contents into the appropriate location for bucket loaders to bring items to conveyor belts. They go through optical sorters, magnetic rollers, and ballistic separators (shape, size, and weight) to separate rigid plastic, metal, glass, and paper.
When a non-conforming item is detected, the equipment must stop so the item can be removed; otherwise, issues can arise that put workers and even entire communities at risk.
- Batteries and Hazardous Materials: Electronics and lithium-ion batteries are not recyclable. If a lithium-ion battery is crushed, it can spark and set nearby paper and cardboard on fire. The National Waste and Recycling Association tied more than 5,000 MRF fires to lithium-ion batteries.
- Food and Liquid Residue: Any paper/fiber materials that are wet or stained with grease are no longer the quality fiber mills look for. If they won’t purchase a load of cardboard or paper, everything in that bundle goes to the trash. All it takes is one wet or oily container. Wet cardboard or paper can also grow mold, which affects workers with mold allergies.
- Material That Tangles: Christmas lights, extension cords, flexible plastic film, and hoses are all examples of recyclable materials that tangle on sorting equipment. When they wrap around any rotating item, they become impossibly tangled. Workers must shut down the equipment, access the tangle, and cut everything away with a utility knife.
Depending on your district, there may be additional steps. Some facilities have workers who eyeball what you’ve put out for recycling. If you have a high number of unacceptable items, a warning notice is taped to your tote or bin. You have to sort recyclables for the next pick-up date.
In states like California, Florida, and Ohio, homeowners who continually violate contamination policies are fined. The more you ignore the rules, the higher the fee.
The High Cost of Improperly Recycled Items
When recycling started, the goal was to collect materials for reuse. Because so many workers are needed, there is a financial aspect that can’t be ignored. Wages, insurance premiums, equipment costs, electricity and fuel, and vehicle upkeep must be covered by the recyclables collected.
Contamination affects the money MRFs collect. It raises costs for municipalities, which often pass them on to consumers through property taxes or curbside trash collection fees.
Impact on Recyclables | Economic Impact | |
Food and Chemical Residue | Paper fiber degrades, and mold growth is possible. | Lower market price per ton of cardboard and paper |
Glass Breakage | Glass shards become embedded in cardboard or plastic items. | Damage to sorting equipment, potential injury risk to workers, and lower-quality glass being sent to the market |
High Contamination Rate | Buyer rejects recyclables at their processing plants. | Increased processing costs for municipalities, leading to higher bills for residents. |
Machine Downtime | Manual removal of tanglers and non-recyclables causes full shutdowns, which slow processing or increase items sent straight to the landfill. | Higher fees passed to taxpayers. |
Consumer actions aren’t the only factor affecting costs. The U.S. used to export mixed recyclables overseas to countries like China. In 2018, China banned imports of many plastics and set a contamination limit of 0.5%, making it hard for the U.S. to meet. Suddenly, MRFs had fewer options for selling their recyclable materials.
U.S. Regulations Regarding Solid Waste Management
Many countries have uniform federal waste regulations. In the U.S., states set their own rules. Someone moving to California from Ohio faces a steep learning curve figuring out what is and isn’t recyclable.
A number of states embrace Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) Laws. It makes the producer (manufacturer) responsible for the recyclables they generate. This not only lowers costs for area taxpayers and municipalities, but also leads to many take-back programs where consumers can send recyclables back to the manufacturer for responsible recycling.
States with one or more EPR laws are:
- California (12)
- Maine (11)
- Vermont (10)
- Washington (8)
- Connecticut (7)
- Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, and Rhode Island (6)
- Colorado and New Jersey (4)
- Iowa and Massachusetts (3)
- Indiana, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and Wisconsin (2)
- Arkansas, Florida, Hawaii, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia (1)
How to Prevent Contamination
Wishcycling may not be intentional on your part. Recycling rules vary from one town to the next, and area waste and recycling companies don’t always keep their websites updated. We have four tips for avoiding contamination in your recycling tote or bin.
- Prioritize the Big Four: Clean cardboard and paper, metal cans, glass bottles, and rigid plastic jugs and bottles are almost always accepted.
- Keep Everything Clean and Dry: Bottles, cans, and jars need to be relatively clean. Rinse or scrape off remaining food residue, like peanut butter and jam, before rinsing items. Let them dry completely before putting them in your bin.
- Never Use Plastic Bags: You might like staying organized, but plastic bags catch on equipment and cause damage. It’s also time-consuming for workers to tear open bags and move the plastic bag to another area. The entire bag is more likely to end up in the trash later.
- Separate Special Recyclables: While you may not be able to recycle items like household batteries, old electronics, and plastic bags in your curbside recyclables, they are recyclable. Bag or box them separately and drive to your nearest MRF when you have the time.
Find your nearest MRF using the search tool on RecycleNation. We even allow you to search for specific items (batteries, clothing, laptops, etc.) to see where the closest drop-off point is.
