A Message from the Founder

As we head into 2019 America’s recycling systems still face many challenges.   These include contamination issues, less-than-stellar results from single-stream processing and continuing poor market values.  Despite these challenges however, “the power of the purse,” still remains a significant motivating factor.  When we purchase products made from recycled materials we send a strong signal to product manufacturers to do the right thing.  Let’s keep up the great work in 2019—recycle cleanly and always buy recycled content products.

Very best New Year Wishes,
Stephen E. Baker

Recycled Paper Content Products sold at Greenline Paper Company

The era of easy recycling may be coming to an end

While single stream recycling may have helped increase the volume that we recycle, not enough attention has been spent on keeping unwanted items out or sorting it properly.  On average, single stream recycling contains 25% contamination which is sent to landfill.  This includes careless tossing of trash in the recycling bin, wishful/unsure recycling, and cross contamination including collection trucks compacting the material to the point of that value is destroyed.  Across the country and around the world, recycling programs are now adjusting to changing markets for some materials and figuring out what adjustments need to be made to make their program continue to work.  Read more here.

New Chinese policy is forcing people to think: Is there a better way to recycle?

We are seeing more examples of recycling programs switching back to dual stream recycling where paper/cardboard is kept separate from bottles/cans.  Some materials are better collected separately or via drop-off programs.  But in Wellesley, MA residents separate recyclables into about 20 categories (and more for reuse, compost, electronics and hazardous) and bring to a drop off center.  Although this requires extra work, it not only ensures that the material has value and will be recycled, it also allows opportunity to recycle many more items than collected in typical recycling programs.  This program has been in place for many years and is not in response to the current crisis.  Read more/listen here.

China gets tough on U.S. Recyclables.  How one Maine town is fighting back.

On the other hand, when Sanford Maine was faced with a huge increase in recycling costs instead of switching away from single stream they focused on heavy education and enforcement.  Collection trucks slowed down so they could check bins for contamination.  If too many items that didn’t belong were in there, bins were tagged with a non-collection sticker and left behind for the resident to learn and fix.  This paid off and contamination dropped from as high as 20% to lower than 3%.  Read more here.

Thank you to the Container Recycling Institute for helping us gather these articles.  CRI’s mission is to make North America a global model for the collection and quality recycling of packaging materials.