Put your plastic containers into recycling bins and they get recycled, right? No. A new study by the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives finds that most plastics — including plastic bottles — that can be recycled aren’t being recycled. They are either burned in an incinerator or simply dumped into a landfill.
Of the 12,998 tons of plastic put in recycling bins in Minneapolis, 89% is burned. Just 3% of plastic bottles are recycled into new plastic bottles, and 34% of recyclable plastic is burned, not recycled. That’s pretty typical: In Baltimore for every ton of plastic recycled, two tons can’t be recycled. That’s also true in Detroit. The picture is even worst in Newark and Long Beach where for every ton that is recycled, three tons are not.
That’s an important fact for bev/al producers because the easiest thing for elected officials to do is to blame beverage makers, including beer, wine and spirits, for many recyclables not being recycled. But the truth is, recycling is hard for public or private recycling operators. The result, the study finds, is that of all plastic included in the study, 64.3% is plastic film, containers and other non-recyclable plastic are not recycled.
The highest and best use for clear No. 1 PET and natural No. 2 HDPE bottles is bottle-to-bottle recycling. But in actuality, today very few of those bottles are recycled back into bottles (24% of #1 PET and 32% of #2 HDPE sorted at a MRF or PRF is currently made back into bottles based on current national averages in the US), the study says. While viable non-bottle markets exist for #5 PP, these containers are most often used to make other products that are less likely to be recycled again. According to the data, 87% of PP is made into crates, pipes, buckets, etc. and 13% is exported.
Compared to other types of containers, only 23% of recyclable plastic is captured in a municipal collection and redemption system, the study says, compared to 57% of glass, 42% of aluminum and 26% of steel.
“Recycling cannot be the first line of defense against waste, especially plastic waste,” the study says, calling for the development of a “robust reuse economy” involving businesses that provide goods in refinallable packaging or are package-free as well as repair and reuse stores and sharing opportunities.