Inhabitat

This is ridiculous! I live in Oakland, where I can recycle anything with a number on it by dumping it in the gray can outside. Ever since I started recycling, I’ve come to realize that I take that out every couple of days…. while my big trash gets taken out once every 2 weeks or so. The city was also nice enough to provide green trash cans for compost trash.
It is so convenient that there’s no excuse not to do it. Come on NY!

How are recycling measures supposed to reach any type of scale if we make it so difficult for people to figure out what is recyclable and not. I want everyone to be conscious of what they are buying and what they are throwing away, that is really the only solution, but if you have to be extra careful of what your are recycling, I am worried that people will take the lazy way out and just throw it away. They should bring stuff back up to you if it can be recycled and you put it in the trash.

If you find this issue frustrating, complain to the NYC government and let them know. Visit the link above to give NYC your two-cents, Copy and paste the message below or write your own response and tell the how you feel. Watch your word count, plastic is not the only thing they don’t have time for. 150 word limit.

VOICE YOUR OPINION WHERE IT COUNTS.

I learned that the NYC government WON’T TAKE ANY PLASTIC EXCEPT PLASTIC BOTTLES, even easily recyclable #1 (PET) and #2 (HDPE) plastic! PLEASE reevaluate the long-term consequences of this outdated policy. How are recycling measures supposed to reach any type of scale if it is difficult for people to figure out what is recyclable and not.

This is ridiculous! In Oakland, one can recycle anything with a number on it by dumping it in a gray bin. This, overall, reduces the need for normal trash pick up. The gray bin is taken out every couple of days, while the big trash is taken out once every 2 weeks. Oakland also has green trashcans for compost trash.

Come on NYC! With forward thinking, your trash program will be MORE affordable, and MORE responsible. There is an ‘i’ in responsible. NYC, GET IT TOGETHER.

You would think that in such a major city, which produces tons of waste each day, that recycling would be more important. Laziness just shouldn’t be an excuse to not recycle. Maybe more people should be hired to sort through recyclables; create jobs and be more environmentally responsible at the same time. I’m from Baton Rouge and we definitely recycle here!

It’s the same story in Minneapolis, and I agree — it’s extremely frustrating. Though I hope someday municipalities will accept more non-bottle plastics more universally, I think there’s a good interim solution in grocers accepting them and sending them to commercial facilities that will handle them. (Many places do this for plastic bags.) I think if grocery stores are selling recyclable material in an area that doesn’t accept that material, they have a duty to provide a way to recycle the material responsibly. Whole Foods (with Recycline) has already started doing this with their “Gimme 5″ program.

It has come down to the $$$ figure. Recyclable have lost their value over the last few months, basically less demand from almighty China. So therefore it is cheaper to just landfill the items instead of sending a second truck all around the city to pick up recyclable.
But what’s more interesting is why NYC doesn’t have single stream recycling machines at their dump stations. This basically allows for all recyclables to come in together and them sorted out.

However you all must understand that these materials are not being recycled, but down-cycled. Companies are not reusing the plastics for new bottles. The plastics are lower grade and get made into such products as decking material for homes.

What I think is most frustrating it that everything come packaged now a days and trucked from one part of the country to the other… that’s the world we live in.

Suppose I told you that there is no recycling going on anywhere in the U.S., that it all winds up in a landfill?
Follow the trucks.You should see trains that go right beside my house.It is simply too expensive to send these to 3rd world
countries, once recycling started.When you go shopping, please consider this.Take net or cloth bags and stop buying things in plastic.Plastic is a hormone-disrupter, if heated in the MW.It causes cancer.

i am quite shocked and disappointed that we arent recycling everything possible including these plastics. until then ill keep my eyes open at my local grocery stores.

Um, hello? Where have you been? NYC has NEVER recycled anything other than #1 and #2 PET bottles (and milk cartons, but that\’s another story). This is not exactly news. Incidentally, the DOS & DEP websites explain this stance. If there was a time to mention this it would have been about two years ago as commodity prices took off and the city had more money to institute a wider-ranging program. Complaining now just looks silly, not to mention wasteful–you should have checked what could be recycled as municipalities usually have different programs.

I did a joint project with the nyc dept of sanitation in college exploring the limits of their recycling program. essentially, it is NOT laziness that prevents the city from expanding the program, it is the sheer fact that it would be so expensive to pay for the facilities alterations and extra man power needed to support it that the department would have to submit a proposal for a budget increase that would cause a massive outcry in the public. sure, everyone wants better recycling options until it raises their taxes. and while it\’s very nice that oakland westchester have successful programs, comparing those cities in terms of not only population but physical space limitations is like comparing central park to your front yard.

Just came back from San Francisco and I loved that their takeout food containers are so much more enviro-conscious than ours. No styrofoam! Also all those composting bins everywhere, great!

Don’t be too disappointed with NYC though. Last year when I was in Japan, I found out that Tokyo doesn’t recycle either. And coming from such an ‘advanced’ society as Tokyo’s I was shocked.

http://blog.dcdomain.org/2008/03/weekend-in-tokyo-part-1-of-2.html
“Odaiba
The island the Big Sight sits on has an interesting history that I won’t bother repeating here. I’m not sure if garbage was used as landfill material, but there is mention on the web of landfills nearby Odaiba. I’ve made a big deal about how clean Tokyo seems and how much they recycle, but I was disappointed to find out that they bury their plastic rather than washing and recycling it. If you care enough to read about Tokyo’s garbage treatment, check out this informative Japan Times article.”

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fd20071007pb.html

This article only demonstrates your inability to do 5 minutes of research. The cartoonish recycling fliers and labels that we all get in the mail have told you what you can and cannot recycle for years. Even if you don’t know English very well you can figure it out (and they’re available in multiple languages).
Secondly, and this is what really irks me about your annoyance, San Francisco accepts those containers for recycling merely to simplify the process for residents. San Francisco then THROWS AWAY the plastics that are too difficult to recycle. New York just minimizes that cycle by having residents do it instead.
The idea that New York City sanitation workers are lazy for not being able to sort your trash is also laughable. Obviously you don’t know that they actually sort through all the subway system trash and sort out the recycling. Is that lazy?
While you’re entitled to your opinion, it’s rather reckless of you to post such an ignorant post when the information is so easily found online. It’s really disappointing that you’ve stoked the anger and frustration of many other commenters based on your ignorance. Nice job.

So I’ve lived in SF,& now live in Santa monica. The person above that said so. Cal. Doesn’t recycle doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Recycling is free, you no longer even have to sort the plastic from the paper, they also recycle lawn waste,& I’ve never lived in a city that made it easier! I just read an article stating that my city ( in southern calif.) recycles 80% of their waste. When I lived 5 minutes away in LA, it was just as easy! It’s sad the NYC chooses not to do more for the earth. Maybe that’s why we get so many people moving here from NY.

As a public official who has devoted her life to the pursuit of sustainable waste management, I am saddened by the lack of understanding and correct information that is presented in this green rant and many of its comments (those of davidbivins excepted). This lack may be explained by the unavoidable complexity of the subject. Below is an attempt to lead the concern recycler through this complexity.

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The Department of Sanitation asks residents to recycle plastic bottles and jugs, and not other types of plastic, in curbside recycling. We do not accept plastic tubs, trays, cups, bags, crates, flower pots, Styrofoam, toys or any other type of plastics besides bottles and jugs. An easy rule to remember is: if you would not call it a bottle or a jug, and it’s plastic, don’t recycle it with your curbside recycling. No exceptions.

We understand, and appreciate, that many residents are confused, frustrated and even angry that our curbside recycling program allows them to recycle only plastic bottles and jugs, as opposed to other types of plastic. If we could make the program simpler and take a wider range of plastics, we would. As will be explained below, we do however have very good, well-studied reasons to insist only plastic bottles and jugs at this time. The reasons take a while to explain, so have patience as you read on to understand.

Like with Like: The First Basic Concept
Unlike metal, glass or paper, different types of plastic cannot be recycled together. Each individual type of plastic must be kept separate in the recycling process. The type of plastic reflects what resin it is made of, as well as the specific plastic molding process used to produce it. If different resins and/or molding methods mixed together for recycling, the result is a useless glop that is unsuitable for the production of any new product.

Numerical Resin Codes: Don’t Tell the Whole Story
On the bottom of many rigid plastic containers you can find a code number from 1 to 7, surrounded by “chasing arrows”, the international symbol for recycling. These code numbers identify seven separate types, or resins, of plastics. (You may be interested in the section of our website that addresses recycling symbols

.)

It would be nice if the code numbers on plastic containers specified what type of plastics could be combined in the recycling process. Unfortunately, this is not the case. The numbers are misleading when it comes to recycling. The code numbers were adopted by the Society of the Plastics Industry (SPI) in 1988 to provide an industry-wide standard that would make it easier for manufacturers to identify different types of plastic they produced. The code numbers indicate the general type of chemical compound used to make the product. But as the SPI points out on its web site, (http://www.plasticsindustry.org/AboutPlastics) “The code was not intended to be — nor was it ever promoted as — a guarantee to consumers that a given item bearing the code will be accepted for recycling in their community.”

In fact, the codes cause more confusion than clarity. They give the impression that anything with a “chasing arrow” can and should be recycled in any municipal program. In reality, the numbers do not guide recycling fully, because they do not reflect all of the different features of any plastic item that we need to know to recycle it. In particular, the numbers do not distinguish between different types of plastic molding. So, for example, a #1 blow molded bottle cannot be combined with a #1 injection molded tub, and so on.

Why Molding Method is Important
Molding is the process by which molten plastic is turned into a container or other rigid object in the factory. Plastic bottles are blow-molded, which means that the plastic is extruded by blowing air into it much as a glass bottle is blown. Plastic tubs and trays are injection molded, which means that the plastic is extruded into a fixed mold to form its shape. Blow molded and injection molded plastics have different melting points and cannot be combined in the plastics recycling process, even if they are of the same resin. This is why you cannot mix bottles and jugs with tubs and trays together, even if they share the same code!

Different Quantities of Differently Molded Resin in NYC Waste
In 1994/1995, we conducted a detailed and in-depth study of the contents of New Yorkers’ trash and recycling. We sorted through thousands of randomly selected samples Because of the complexity of plastics, we made sure to categorize each of the seven resin codes and molding types. As shown below, #1 and #2 bottles and jugs (which are by definition blow molded) constitute the majority of numbered containers in what New Yorkers consume. They are also the materials that have the strongest secondary markets.

[img]http://www.inhabitat.com/wp-content/uploads/2b33fa76c2a2e9f7413f00044ba46d6b.jpg[/img] | back

Secondary Markets: Why They Are Important
The most plentiful varieties of numbered plastic containers – #1 and #2 bottles and jugs –are also the ones that have strong markets. For any material to get recycled into a new product, it has to find a buyer – a company, known as a “remanufacturer” that is willing to buy the discarded material after it has been collected, sorted, cleaned and baled. Otherwise, we pay to collect and sort discarded materials, but we cannot recoup our costs, and the materials either sit around, or have to be disposed of.

Recycled #1 and #2 bottles are traded heavily on what are called secondary materials markets. In other words, there are always buyers and sellers. Other types of plastics may have markets that are not as strong. For example, #5 Polypropylene Tubs (such as yogurt tubs) sometimes find buyers, and sometimes don’t. While there are a few companies that buy sorted #5 PP tubs, demand is limited and distance to markets may be too great to be worth the cost of shipping.

Curbside Recycling and Drop Off Recycling Have Different Secondary Markets
Markets are not the same for commingled residential collections as for other kinds of collections. Curbside collections are commingled – cans, glass bottles and jugs, foil, metal and beverage cartons are mixed with plastic bottles and jugs when collected, with sorting and cleaning taking place later at a materials recovery facility. To justify sending trucks and collection labor out, we need economies of scale and commingling is part of that economy.

Drop-Off Programs such as the Park Slope Food Coop or Whole Foods accept, store, and periodically transport clean, pre-sorted plastics that residents bring in to the store voluntarily. This is a very different model of collection, because the sorting and cleaning is done ahead of time by the consumer. This “free labor” changes the economics of recycling, and allows weak markets to find buyers for recycled plastic that are not available for NYC’s commingled residential recycling.

Both strong and weak secondary markets fluctuate. Sometimes certain materials are worth a lot, other times very little. In contrast, commingled collections don’t fluctuate. The material put in the recycling bin day in, day out has to be collected, no matter what. This means that only markets that are strong in the long term can work reliably with commingled collections.

Making Sure What You Recycle Actually Ends Up Being Recycled
If we allowed people to recycle their plastic yogurt tub, # 1 tray, Styrofoam cup, or beach ball in their curbside recycling program, many would probably be very happy. But this happiness would have a false basis, because in most cases these additional plastic items would be sorted out at the recycling plant and sent to the trash. The reason we ask residents to recycle only plastic bottles and jugs – and not other types of plastics – is to make sure that most of what residents put in the recycling bin actually ends up being made into new products, instead of being sorted out later and disposed of as residue.

NYC’s Curbside Program vs. Other Cities’ Programs
As mentioned above, strong secondary markets only exist for #1 PET Bottles and #2 HDPE bottles. These two types of plastic bottles make up 95% of all bottles, so the vast majority of plastic bottles recycled in NYC do end up being made into new products. The remainder (5%) are currently discarded as residue – this is a pretty low rate of residue. In fact, this rate is far lower than residue plastics discarded from programs in other cities that accept a wider range of types of plastics in their municipal recycling.

If you look at what other cities are doing with regard to plastic recycling, you’ll find that some ask for anything plastic in the recycling bin, others any plastic container, and still others any plastic with a resin code. In reality, these cities are all recycling #1 PET and #2 HDPE bottles like NYC, but are not necessarily recycling any of the other plastics.

There are two reasons why these cities ask for a wider range of plastics than NYC. On the East Coast, other cities ask for all numbered containers because this will maximize the chance for people to properly recycle #1 and #2 bottles and jugs that have well-developed recycling markets, technologies, and remanufacturing processes. Other types of plastic are disposed of as refuse after the most valuable plastics are sorted out.

On the West Coast, the economics are different. Proximity to Asian markets with low wages and high appetites for plastics mean that it is economical to ship unsorted loads of plastics to China and countries. There, the costs of sorting are lower and environmental laws less restrictive in remanufacturing and disposal practices than in the US. The proximity of West Coast cities to these markets means that a container full of mixed bottles, tubs, bags, and even toys will be worth something in Asia. Not everything in this mixed load will necessarily end up recycled, but Asian buyers find it worth it to buy the whole load because some of the mixed load will command a price.

Conclusion
By now the logic behind asking for only plastic bottles and jugs in our commingled curbside recycling should be coming into focus:

- All plastic bottles and jugs are blow-molded.
- The vast majority of plastic bottles and jugs are #1 or #2.
- Strong secondary markets only exist for #1 and #2 blow molded plastics when collected in commingled form

We are currently in the process of updating our website to convey this information, and more, on the very complex subject of plastics and plastics recycling. If you have any comments or questions on this response to your inquiry, I would be interested in hearing from you. Please submit comments via the Wasteless website: http://www.nyc.gov/wasteless.

I know, right? I am right there with you sister. When I think of all the time I wasted washing totally unrecyclable containers, I really get heated. Just to let you know, though, there is some hope. Whole Foods has a recycling program called Gimme 5 where you can bring in your #5 yogurt, hummus and other containers to be remade into Preserve toothbrushes, razors etc.: http://blog.wholefoodsmarket.com/2009/01/gimme-5-recycling/ It’s a start!

[...] NYC.GOV gives an explanation, but doesn’t say why they only accept “bottles and jugs (with necks smaller than their bodies).” As I said in my previous post, the faciliatator in the training I attended said it had to do with keeping the paper products “clean” and therefore easier to transport. A ZPP reader found this post at Inhabit.com [...]