Why does NYC send easily recyclable PET plastic containers to landfill?
New York City recycles plastic – or so I thought! For the last several years I have been carefully scrubbing all plastic number 1 (PET) and number 2 (HDPE) containers (such as most deli containers that you get when you buy tomatoes or sliced fruit) and collecting them for NYC recycling. Just yesterday the superintendent of my building brought a giant bag of deli containers back up to me from the recycling bin and said ‘This all needs to go in the trash – NYC won’t recycle it‘. I stared at him disbelief until he pulled out a flyer from the NYC government stating that it WON’T TAKE ANY PLASTIC EXCEPT PLASTIC BOTTLES – even easily recyclable #1 (PET) and #2 (HDPE) plastic!
This news blew my mind – why would the New York City government waste a chance to recycle all the PET and HDPE in non-bottle containers such as fruit and deli containers? Especially when most other cities (such as San Francisco) DO recycle all plastics? According to the NYC recycling website, it seems that the reason NYC is not doing it is because ‘it is not worth the effort’:
