🌱 Rethinking Recycling: Unveiling the Truth Behind America's Plastic Problem

While recycling and industrial composting are touted as solutions to the global plastics crisis, the reality tells a different story. Did you know that only 10% of plastics in the United States are recycled? With a national recycling rate of just 32%, we are facing a crisis of efficiency, largely due to recycling contamination. This occurs when non-recyclable items mistakenly enter the recycling stream, tainting the process and other materials along the way. This challenge is amplified in single-stream recycling systems, where sorting plastics, metals, and paper becomes a herculean task with 1 in 4 items contaminated.

The woes extend to industrial composting facilities too, where contamination and inconsistent feedstocks compromise the quality of compost. Despite the push for green products, the majority of these facilities only accept yard trimmings. That means those compostable containers and cutlery, which sound eco-friendly, often end up in landfills, where they take hundreds of years to degrade.

🔄 It's time for a critical reassessment of our strategies. Are we really making the impact we hope for, or are we just scratching the surface of a deeper issue?