Why Are Recycling Programs Across North America Stopping?
The world is slowly making strides toward a sustainable future on the back of renewable energy and a circular economy. But it’s not a straight road to the top! In fact, several cities have ceased operation of their recycling programs. Why is this happening? We looked at trends to understand this a bit further. If there’s one thing we found it always coming back to, it was money. So how can we make a sustainable future and affordable one?
Pandemic
Covid-19 has taken its toll on a large number of industries. Not only have general operational costs increased, there has been staff shortages of drivers and material sorters. Government policies introduced new layers of complexity toward work and as a result, hindered system efficiencies. This then also caused supply chain issues which led to shortages of vital equipment. Shipping expenses increased and ship availability fell. Late shipments became the norm. It seems to have been the domino effect unfortunately. Amid these huge logistical challenges, scrap recycling materials were among the first products to get left behind at ports as they did not deliver the highest financial return. It seemed that when the pandemic hit, recycling systems got pushed to the side.
Fortunately the pandemic will not rage forever (despite how it may feel), and some degree of normalcy will return to the systems and efficiencies, albeit with some permanent changes (such as sick leave and testing capacities). Normalcy is not a question of ‘if’ but a question of ‘when’, and the answer to that is still within the realm of speculation. If there’s one positive outcome from the pandemic we can appreciate, it’s how it opened our eyes to the importance of preserving our ecosystem. Recycling systems are key to achieving this and the awareness is now finally being understood by the public too.
Resident Responsibility
Recycling is a unique resource, the ‘raw materials’ comes from an array of incredibly diverse sources. Maintaining quality when it comes to recycling is difficult as it requires a high-level of buy-in from a team of thousands. Unfortunately, residents are the biggest culprits in contaminating the recycling stream. We can classify the contamination based on intent:
- Malicious Intent / No Intent - Municipalities and haulers are trying to place as little burden as possible on residents, yet there are still a few asks. For some, washing and separating of recycling is too much of a burden so everything goes to the garbage. This effectively throws money away, and residents may not be aware that this costs them in landfill operational costs. Others still may view the recycling cart as a second waste receptacle. They put whatever they want into the blue bin, and it disappears! The issue being because they have not been appropriately educated on what their impact does.
- Good Intent - The people mentioned above are thankfully a minority of the population. A much more common error is when residents get too over eager with their recycling. Just because something is technically recyclable does not mean that the region can process it, or that there is a buyer for it. These materials are considered contamination by definition of that particular region. Some eco-conscious residents have a philosophy of “when in doubt, recycle”, all whilst being completely unaware of the harm this causes the recycling stream or the costs they incur. This phenomenon is called ‘wishcycling’ and emerges from well intentioned people. With some education, this behavior has a chance of being corrected.
In all cases, the residents and businesses within a municipality are those tasked with maintaining the quality of the input materials to the recycling stream. Ensuring they are making the right action is key to the success of the recycling programme. Failure to do so manifests itself in operational costs at material recovery facilities, inability to sell product and the loss of loads to the landfill.
China’s National Sword Policy
This is perhaps the most frequently cited reason for the loss of recycling programs in North America. At one point North America was able to export the recycling stream with very little effort. China was an eager purchaser and was willing to step up to the processing challenge. This created a dependency and enabled complacency in regards to high contamination rates. Until now. Very recently this came to an end with China no longer wishing to be a dumping ground. The National Sword policy bans outright several recyclables and severely restricts remaining recyclables to loads with minimal contamination (0.5% contamination for paper!). While it may be technically possible to meet these low rates, it has in practice ended the export of recyclables to China. Most cities have contamination rates in excess of 15% (and many are much higher). So unless the US can adapt its recycling to meet such low contamination requirements, it won’t be possible to export their goods anymore. Recycling has accordingly transitioned from a revenue generator to a cost for many municipalities. Waste haulers have also had their revenues slashed.
Five years into the national sword policy, there are processing facilities opening to do the same job domestically. This is an opportunity to keep the work in North America and promote circularity regionally. With more local recyclables processing, complacency should remain low and a goal of the least contaminated recycling input stream should be sought.
The dominant issue facing recycling is contamination negatively affecting the quality of the scrap materials. As contamination increases the ability to sell the material resource is reduced. China’s National Sword Policy has been a clear example of this. Unfortunately a high degree of this material quality burden is shouldered by populations that may not fully comprehend their integral role. The impacts are far reaching in both environmental and financial terms. We have seen many cities place recycling on hold, or canceled outright. This is a phenomenon that must be reversed! What we’re learning is that a lot of this comes from educating residents right from the start and routinely there after. Unless municipalities start to do this, we won’t see a positive outcome any time soon.
