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The Road to Recycling Contamination

Single-stream recycling, the simple act of dumping all of your recyclables into one bin, has become one of the most common recycling methods in the US. Public participation has increased due to the ease of single-stream bins, but the chances for contamination have skyrocketed. Reducing contamination is critical to making our recycling system effective and sustainable. Unfortunately, contamination can occur anywhere in the recycling journey: Broken glass and food or liquid residues can ruin paper bales. Likewise, the wrong types of plastic and food/liquid residues can spoil plastic bales. These items then become unrecyclable and likely to end up in landfills or incinerators, or they may be sold to countries with lower contamination standards.

1. Your curbside bin is where you have the most control over reducing contamination (click the image to see our 9 steps for how to help). Toss in a coated paper receipt or #5 plastic bottle, a dirty aluminum can, or a handful of broken glass, and you can contaminate entire batches of recycling.

2. Waste management trucks scoop up your recyclables, where they remain commingled and are tossed in with all your neighbor's bin contents. Glass may break, posing risk to recycling workers, and food and liquid residue can ruin batches of recyclables.

3. The materials then arrive at a waste transfer station if you live in a larger city, which is like a pit stop for waste to be sorted into what goes to a landfill and what can be taken to a composting or recycling facility (depending on what your community offers.) Transfer stations offer another opportunity for glass to break or food and liquid to contaminate paper.
 

4. At last, the recyclables arrive at a materials recovery facility (MRF), where they are pre-sorted by hand. Mechanized screens seperate items by weight and shape, and powerful magnets sort aluminum out. Each type of recyclable is packaged into bales, which are sent on to facilities specializing in recycling those particular materials. These facilities are where the contamination occurring at any point on the recycling journey takes effect. Broken glass may make its way into paper or plastic bales, making them unfit to recycle. And food or liquid can spoil entire bales of paper.

Mainstream waste-management companies will often landfill or incinerate dirty glass or plastic, as well as contaminated bales of recycling. It’s up to us to maximize recycling. Wash and dry your recyclables, and don’t “wish-cycle”!

Ninety-four percent of Americans say they recycle in some manner, according to a 2014 Harris Survey. That can only be a good thing, right? For most people, yes. But for some, the impacts of recycling aren’t always all positive. In fact, they can be devastating.

“For those who make environmental and industrial decisions, communities of color—regardless of their class status—have been considered to be throw-away communities; therefore, their land [is most often] used for garbage dumps, waste transfer stations, incinerators, dirty materials recovery facilities, and other waste disposal infrastructure,” says Dr. Robert D. Bullard at Texas Southern University, who has conducted pioneering research and leadership on environmental justice. In other words, along with the environmental benefits recycling brings come deep concerns that all communities must consider to ensure that no one is bearing too much of the trash burden.

“Dirty” vs. “Clean” Recycling

Community recycling systems come in two main types—and one inherently brings more environmental-justice problems than the other. When garbage trucks come to collect your curbside recycling bins, their destination is usually a waste transfer station. Here, waste is sorted and taken to a MRF or materials recovery facility (recyclables), a municipal composter (organic waste), or a landfill or an incinerator (everything else). Rural areas may have some combination of these in one or two locations.

At a MRF (rhymes with “smurf”), recyclables are sorted by type (i.e. paper, glass, plastic, etc.), then sent out to facilities that specialize in doing the actual recycling. Here’s where the key differences lie. MRFs come in two types: clean or dirty. In a clean MRF, recyclable materials arrive at the facility already separated from regular trash—generally by individuals who sorted them at home. Either all recyclables will arrive commingled, which is called single-stream recycling, or further sorted by separating fiber (paper and cardboard) from containers (metal, plastic, and glass), known as dual-stream recycling. Any further pre-sorting is known as multi-stream recycling.

Generally speaking, the more pre-sorting that occurs before the recyclables arrive at the MRF, the cleaner the MRF is. However, single-stream MRFs using best practices to recover as many recyclables as possible can still be top-notch. A “dirty” MRF is one where trash and recyclables arrive mixed together, no at-home separation required. It’s the easiest for households because it requires no thinking whatsoever. Just toss everything into the garbage with the knowledge that it will all be sorted right at the end. Or will it?

Along with the environmental benefits recycling brings come deep concerns that all communities must consider to ensure no one is bearing too much of the trash burden.

The city of Houston is currently fighting off plans for a dirty MRF. The proposed “One Bin for All” initiative would get rid of all recycling programs in the city and build one giant dirty MRF that would accept recyclables mingled with trash for sorting. The problem with this plan is twofold, says Melanie Scruggs, Houston program director with the Texas Campaign for the Environment (TCE). First, she says, “recyclers are looking for materials that are clean and dry. The biggest problem when you combine trash and recycling is that it contaminates the recyclables and diminishes their value.”

Since China and other major buyers of US recyclables no longer want dirty materials that aren’t cost-effective to recycle, US waste management companies have become much more careful about what they send to recyclers (see p. 15). More often than not, they’ll divert dirty recyclables to landfills or incinerators as a precaution. Dirty MRFs automatically cause excessive recycling contamination. Therefore, it’s very appealing for operators to pair them with incinerators, says Scruggs.

She points to a dirty MRF in Indianapolis that was trying to get a municipal contract last year. Representatives claimed the facility would recycle 100 percent of what went in, but it actually ended up incinerating 80 percent and recycling only 20.

“Dirty MRFs don’t have to set a particularly high recycling target and can still call themselves a recycling facility,” even with an incinerator on site, she says.

Incinerators spew a variety of toxins into the air, including carcinogenic dioxin, according to the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA). In addition, they create toxic “bottom ash” containing heavy metals, dioxin, and other pollutants that must then be landfilled. And while many incineration projects tout their “waste-to-energy” benefits, these are more than offset by the fact that incinerators emit more carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour than any fossil- fuel-based power source, including coal plants, according to GAIA. Dirty MRFs also often tend to be located in communities of color. Houston’s proposed dirty MRF is no exception.

“The city was originally going to build [the dirty MRF] at an existing landfill or transfer station, which are all located in predominantly minority communities,” says Scruggs. “Houston’s trash is distributed to nine landfills and three recycling facilities right now. We don’t need to consolidate it into one neighborhood.” But when Dr. Bullard, TCE, and their allies raised this issue with the city, “local officials were quick to respond that Houston would not be burdening one community like that,” says Scruggs. “They changed their tune very quickly.”

For those who make environmental and industrial decisions, communities of color—regardless of their class status—have been considered to be throw-away communities; therefore, their land [is most often] used for garbage dumps, waste transfer stations, incinerators, dirty materials recovery facilities, and other waste disposal infrastructure.

Dr. Robert D. Bullard, “Father of Environmental Justice," Texas Southern University

More Waste Means More Trucks

New York City residents and visitors produce over 20,000 tons of solid waste every single day, according to the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance (NYC-EJA), a network of local environmental- justice organizations. “About 75 percent of that solid waste is processed in just a handful of communities: specifically in Southeast Queens, South Bronx, and North Brooklyn,” says Priya Mulgaonkar, a policy organizer with NYC-EJA. The population in these areas is primarily African-American and Latino.

The resulting concentration of waste transfer stations and MRFs has been making people in those neighborhoods sick—literally.

“Especially in the summertime, when these facilities aren’t being closed properly, then people live and breathe garbage,” she says. “Some of the [waste-hauling] trucks aren’t sealed, so trash flies off during transport. It’s right in people’s backyards.”

Further exacerbating the pollution in these areas are the trucks that carry trash and recyclables to and from the facilities. Mulgaonkar notes that the commercial waste haulers, in particular, tend to be very inefficient about their routes: “These huge diesel trucks chug pollution into the streets, traveling an unnecessary amount of miles in these three main communities.” Due in part to the number of garbage and recycling trucks that rumble in and out of the South Bronx, a 2013 University of New York study found the area to have one of the highest asthma rates in the US.

Mulgaonkar notes that this extra truck traffic also contributes to safety concerns. “With over 250 carters competing to pick up enough waste to make a profit, drivers are often pressured by their bosses to speed, cut corners, and to ignore traffic signals,” she says. “This puts pedestrians at risk on the roads, and is also really unfair to the workers themselves, who are largely people of color, undocumented, and formerly incarcerated folks, and who often work 12-14 hour shifts.”

It’s not a matter of luxury for us. … It’s about, ‘Can my kid breathe? Can I breathe? Can we have a healthy and happy family here in the places we have to live?'

Kellie Terrie, South Bronx resident

Environmental Justice Advocates Fight Back

Thanks to activist-led initiatives, municipalities across the country are waking up to the fact that there are ways to recycle that don’t put an undue burden on one neighborhood over another.

The Texas Campaign for the Environment is pushing for the state to embrace true zero waste—no dirty MRFs or incinerators. Austin and Dallas now aim to divert 90 percent of their trash from landfills and incinerators by 2020, and San Antonio aims to divert 60 percent by 2025. San Antonio and Austin have mandatory recycling and municipal curbside composting already in place, and Dallas is working toward both. TCE is pushing for Houston to adopt a zerowaste plan as well.

Dr. Bullard, TCE, and their allies have fought off One Bin for All—so far. Though the plan could come back, the city just signed a two-year curbside recycling contract that has stalled the dirty MRF.

NYC-EJA and its allies have been uniting their efforts around the Transform Don’t Trash campaign, advocating for a cleaner, healthier waste system in New York City. In particular, they are calling for the city to award commercial waste-hauling contracts to companies that have the highest environmental standards, worker-safety and health standards, and worker salaries. In 2006, NYC-EJA and other organizations worked closely with then-Mayor Bloomberg’s office to develop a 20-year city-wide waste-disposal policy that, for the first time, relied on environmental- justice principles. The plan called for a reduction in waste facilities and truck traffic in overburdened communities, and a reduction in overall waste processing.

Unfortunately, Mulgaonkar says that the plan has yet to be fully implemented. The groups continue to pressure city leaders to fulfill the promises they made in 2006. Because, as Kellie Terrie, a resident of the South Bronx, told Transform Don’t Trash, environmental justice around recycling and waste hauling is critical. “It’s not a matter of luxury for us. We don’t have a choice,” Terrie said. “It’s about, ‘Can my kid breathe? Can I breathe? Can we have a healthy and happy family here in the places we have to live?’ Environmental justice is not an option for us. It’s a life-or-death issue.”

In our latest issue of Green American, we look at how to do recycling better. It's not only important to reduce, reuse and recycle: it's important to do it the right way.

At Green America, social justice is a key part of what we mean when we say "green." Without social justice, we cannot achieve environmental justice.

The people on the frontlines of environmental movements are often on the frontlines of social justice movements, working towards a shared vision of human and planetary health and safety. Often, these are communities of color, the LGBTQ community, and marginalized communities working hard to bring forth collective justice.

We share their stories to inspire action within your own communities and to work together in creating a more just and equitable society for all people.

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