Is the recycling process truly effective, or is it all just an illusion?

As your recyclables are collected, questions start to arise: Where do they go next? Will they truly be recycled, or could they end up in a landfill instead?

The campaign to get Americans to recycle rather than simply throw items away has been one of the most successful public efforts in the country's history. In 1973, University City, Mo., became the first to offer curbside recycling for newspapers. By 2006, there were over 8,660 curbside recycling programs across the U.S. [source: EPA].

Initially, people were required to sort their recyclables: plastics in one bin, glass in another, paper in yet another. But with the advent of single-stream collection, everything could be tossed into a single bin. This shift from sorting to a more chaotic method raised doubts: Are our recyclables truly being processed, or is the whole system a sham? Worse, it seemed like recycling companies were no longer even trying to maintain the illusion.

The shift to single-stream recycling is driven by advances in technology. New equipment has been developed that can sort through recyclables automatically. Magnets and electric currents are used to separate metals, while infrared lasers sort various types of paper and plastic by detecting the light wavelengths they emit.

Although it’s impossible to track your recyclables through the entire process to confirm they are actually recycled, you can feel confident that most of them are. This assurance stems from the fact that recyclables hold monetary value.

Recyclables are treated as commodities – items that can be sold. The cans, bottles, and boxes you recycle are broken down into raw materials and resold to manufacturers. Since there is a demand for recycled products, manufacturers continue to buy these materials, which makes recycling financially viable.

Recyclables have value, but trash does not. Waste companies often pay fees to dispose of waste in landfills. The key difference between trash and recyclables lies in what happens to them after they're collected. It would be highly unprofitable for a waste management company to collect recyclables only to send them to landfills.

It’s important to note that not everything placed in a recycling bin ends up being recycled. There have been instances of recycling fraud that have garnered significant attention. You can learn more about this issue on the next page.

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Sorting Recycled Materials

Since recyclables are ultimately sold to manufacturers, they must meet specific criteria. They cannot contain excessive impurities, as recycled materials compete with new, virgin materials in the manufacturing process. The cleaner the recyclables, the higher the chances they will be successfully processed.

According to the Minnesota Recycling Program, a pizza box covered in grease and cheese that you throw into the recycling bin will likely end up in a landfill. The same fate awaits small shards of broken glass, particularly when the pieces are of different colors (referred to as mixed-glass cullet). Many recycling initiatives also exclude items that are challenging to recycle, with PVC being one of the top offenders. This type of plastic, recognizable by the number 3 inside the recycling symbol, contains numerous additives that prevent it from being recycled in most cases due to their potential to compromise the purity of recycled plastic batches.

Materials that can't be recycled are known as residual. The less residual a recycling facility produces, the more profit it generates, as residual waste is essentially discarded at a cost to the recycling plant.

Due to its exceptional economic expansion, China has become the world’s leading importer of recycled raw materials. Many of the items you place for recycling are eventually shipped to China; in 2004, China imported $3.1 billion worth of scrap materials from the United States [source: USC]. However, not everything sent to China can be utilized.

When China began purchasing used printer cartridges in the early 21st century, these cartridges quickly transitioned from being seen as trash to valuable resources. This shift led to retailers accepting used cartridges and consumers bringing them in for recycling.

It turns out that the most valuable part of the ink cartridge is the ink itself. Once the last traces are extracted, the ink can be repurposed and sold, while the cartridges are discarded. Consequently, landfills in China are filling up with empty plastic printer cartridges. Worse yet, an investigation found that in Guiyu, China, the dumping and incineration of these cartridges led to the local drinking water being contaminated with 200 times the acceptable level of acid and 2,400 times the acceptable level of lead [source: International ITC].

Numerous instances of recycling fraud have come to light since the recycling movement began. In New Hampshire in 2002, a man was charged with fraud after it was discovered that his fluorescent light bulb recycling business lacked the ability to actually process the bulbs. The company had charged school districts and other agencies across several states to accept their light bulbs for recycling. Fluorescent bulbs contain mercury, a toxic substance, but instead of recycling them, the company stored them in abandoned buildings across the state [source: EPA].

In Illinois, a company that specialized in toxic waste recycling was discovered to have illegally stored large quantities of hazardous materials in abandoned buildings in impoverished neighborhoods of Chicago. Even worse, the company falsely labeled some of the waste as non-toxic and sent it to landfills, where it was disposed of improperly [source: National Post].

Despite incidents like this and ongoing criticisms of recycling – including concerns that it could be harmful to the environment or financially unfeasible – Americans generally seem to prefer sending their waste to recycling facilities rather than to landfills or the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

For further details on recycling and other related topics, please proceed to the next page.