Edit to say - I’m really glad I asked my stupid question. I was so jaded by the con artists in recycling I forgot that when done right there’s so much good - and still loads of consequences to not finding a place to reuse the paper products. I’m not huge with using packaging - and thanks for all the thoughtful answers :))
I found myself wondering this as I got annoyed at the plastics industry and their stupid propaganda, as I do everytime I go to recycle something. But anyway, I had been thinking I’d heard something about people going to ‘mine’ landfills for metal because people weren’t recycling and it’s ‘bad for the environment’ and 'filling up ‘landfills’
Bitch Please. I can see the dollar symbols on your pupils from here.
So it made me think, paper and the such breaks down quickly. Food too. The huge drives for community composting efforts and cardboard drives for schools etc - It’s really all a matter of the fact we can re-use it all easily. Metal is worth money, used again and again, as it was straight from the earth. Just that plastic. Which is all but unrecyclable, save some clear/semi-clear containers.
But without the cardboard, my bin is pretty empty. It’s like recycling exists just to pretend plastic can be.
Edit - I should add in my area if the recycling the plant receives is tainted in anyway they just toss it. The whole load. So unrecyclable plastic? Dirty? Wrong material? Gone.
There’s this idea that things will just “break down” in the garbage but in reality past a certain point in the landfill heap, there’s too little oxygen to fuel decomposition. And that point keeps rising…
Here’s the hierarchy of recycling.
- aluminum cans, recycle at pretty much any cost. Recycling aluminum is so much cheaper than smelting new aluminum, companies will happily pay you for aluminum.
- corrugated cardboard, recycle if it didn’t touch food, it’s a bit overly restrictive, but contaminated cardboard causes lots of cardboard to be thrown away. Cardboard is super recyclable and profitable for companies. Ideally cardboard used with food goes to industrial composting.
- other paper products that are recyclable, it’s generally down cycled, but still a pretty good deal.
- glass, only if it’s perfectly clean or trivial to clean it. When in doubt toss it. Glass doesn’t recycle well because it’s more difficult to process into new glass, also color have their own chemicals that don’t mix for recycling. Glass is better for a reuse target as recycling is at best breaking even economically.
- plastic, put it in the trash. Maybe if you are next to a recycling bin and the plastic is perfectly clean then recycle, but even then trash is probably better. Developed countries waste management systems will keep that plastic out of the water and it won’t contaminate other materials.
There are some countries where you can reclaim a few cents if you return your plastic PET bootles on a specialized container.
On this particular case, since the plastic isn’t mixed with other incompatible plastics, the recyclability is actually really good, as good as paper/cardboard.
If you can, paper and cardboard are compostable at home, help put that carbon back in the ground and grow more carbon scrubbing plants
Clean paper and cardboard are easily recyclable and worth money. I first figured this out over 30 years ago while taking commuter trains into NYC.
There were approximately one yard cubed wagons left on the platform to discard your already read newspapers for recycling. Local hustlers would often reassemble the papers and sell for half.
At some point locking tops eere put on so it was difficult to remove the papers. This was because the agency collecting the old newspaper was making money from it.
Fast forward. Some cities make it a crime to rummage through the recycling bins.
There is money there.
Uhhh what? I always thought those bins were to stop people from sharing papers and forcing everyone to buy a fresh copy
I think a lot of waste management is very local, so the answer might be different for you than it is for me.
In my town, there is a box factory that gobbles up all of our paper products and turns them into new boxes. So I know that putting the cardboard in my recycling bin is worthwhile.
