Part II of Single-Use Plastics, Recycling and the Golf Industry

In the introduction to this series of articles, I shared many disturbing facts surrounding the effects plastics are having on our society and our planet. Here are a few to refresh your memory:

• In just six decades, 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic have been created and only 9% of that has actually been recycled. For perspective, 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic is equal to 1,220,588,235 male African elephants (there are a total of only 415,000 elephants left on the planet!).

• Plastic constitutes 90 percent of all the trash floating in the ocean - approximately 46,000 pieces of plastic per square mile of ocean surface. There are 139.7 million square miles of ocean surface.

• Up to 50% of plastics placed in recycling bins are sent to the landfill instead of being processed at a recycling facility.

• It can take from 400 to 1,000 years for plastics to decompose. That means the first piece of synthetic plastic developed in 1907 still has at minimum 300 more years of existence!

Recycling has long been the baseline for living a sustainable life. It seemed a simple enough solution for our growing reliance on plastic: buy plastic products with the recycling symbol, toss the material waste into the recycling bin, put it on the curb and return the bin when it’s emptied. The reassuring ease of the system and rinse and repeat method of recycling brought peace of mind to our lives and let us feel like we were making an actionable difference in our communities. It made us feel we had a handle on it, that everything would be just fine. Unfortunately, that was never really the case as clearly stated with the previously mentioned facts.

That begs the question: How is it possible that we have this ‘silver bullet’ system in place to recycle all of our plastic and yet we have actually only recycled roughly 9% of the plastic ever created? Unfortunately, there is no silver bullet when it comes to our plastic problem so we must do the best we can with what we have (our current recycling system) until something better comes along.

So let us embark on this journey by exposing and identifying some of the intricacies of the recycling system, including:

• Basic Recycling Definitions

• Recycling Misconceptions

• Recycling Industry Trends

State Your Name and Where You’re From - Recycling Definitions

Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) - A MRF is a facility that receives commingled materials and uses equipment and manual labor to separate and prepare materials for downstream reuse with leftovers diverted to the landfill. MRF’s handle materials including metal, aluminum, glass, plastic and mixed paper.

Single Stream Recycling - A recycling system where all recyclable materials are commingled. This is the most popular system in the US and though it has increased our recycling rate, it creates more costly issues that decrease how much waste can actually be recycled thanks to:

• Greater contamination of other materials

• Decreased quality of recyclable material

• Must be paired with an effective MRF

Dual Stream Recycling - A recycling system where mixed paper and fiber are separated from everything else. This system offers higher end-of-life value for materials but requires increased accountability and heavy assumptions that the consumer will make the correct sorting decision.

Source Separated Recycling - All materials are separated by type at the point of discard to be recycled (i.e. bins for glass, plastic, paper and metal). This system captures the highest end market value of the material and saves time and money at the processing facilities but again is heavily reliant on the consumer to make the right decision.

Recycling Economics - Our waste is a commodity that is bought and sold for post-consumer reuse, following basic economic principles of demand and supply. There is currently a surplus for recyclable materials in the U.S. meaning the value of recyclable materials is very low and the cheapest option is often to divert materials directly to the landfill. Much of this is from China’s decision to stop purchasing our plastic, more on this a little later.

Contamination/Moisture Content - Moisture, food residue and oil & grease greatly depreciate the value of recyclable materials. Proper disposal requires the consumer to clean the product prior to placing it in the bin. Contamination and moisture can render an entire lot of recyclable materials unfit for processing meaning they are diverted directly to the landfill.

Resin Identification Code (RIC) - This is the identification system that features the triangle with the number on the bottom of plastics. 

Wishcycling - The well intentioned thought that all items can be recycled and if not, the recycling company will know what to do with it. Wishcycling does more harm than good and is a side effect of insufficient education and communication with the general public.

Peeling Back The Curtain - Misconception-Busting Truths 

‘Only buying products packaged in non-plastic materials is better for the environment*.’

Sustainability is a game of pick your poison and trade-offs lie around every corner. Let’s use coffee containers as an example. Coffee packaged in a metal container is infinitely more recyclable (about 80% of all metal and aluminum ever used is still in circulation today) yet the coffee packaged in a vacuum sealed plastic bag created less of a carbon footprint despite being harder to divert from the landfill (mining of materials > diversion to landfill) . So, do you want something that is easier to recycle or do you want something that created fewer carbon emissions? Putting this decision in the hands of the consumer creates an unnecessary burden on the system. We shouldn’t have to make concessions like this to make our world healthier.

‘It has the recycle symbol so that means it can be recycled.’

The recycle symbol we have come to know and love does not actually indicate whether something can be recycled. Established by the plastics industry in 1988, the Resin Identification Code was created to identify different categories of plastics and communicate to recycling facilities the type of resin found in any given object. Which leads to...

‘Aren’t ALL plastics created equal?’

Of the 7 types of plastic listed above, 1’s and 2’s are the most recyclable and carry the most end market value. #5’s come in third but their recyclability depends greatly on the volume collected at a MRF. However, many facilities across the country lack the capabilities to process RIC #’s 3-7 and all too often these materials are diverted directly to the landfill.

‘Just put it in there, it’s not like one bad apple is going to ruin the whole lot*.’

Wishcycling and contaminated plastics can often ruin the entire lot and divert everything directly to the landfill because it is too costly (time and money) for the collectors to sort everything just for one bad apple.

‘Plastic lasts forever so it can be recycled lots of times*.’

Unlike paper, metal and glass, the properties of plastic deteriorate every time it is recycled which means virgin plastic must be incorporated to strengthen the material. Because of the depressed value of used plastic (too much supply and increased contamination levels from single stream recycling) and the low cost of oil, it is significantly cheaper to make products with all virgin materials.

Today’s Trend Ends Up in Tomorrow’s Landfill*

If recycling trends over the last few years are any indication, we are nowhere near turning this bogey into a par save. 

• The US makes inferior recyclable commodities which is why China stopped buying our plastic. Until 2018, China was purchasing 95% of our plastic exports but thanks to our single-stream system, the plastic we exported was well above China’s contamination threshold of 1-1.5% so they stopped buying our plastics. Now we are left to deal with an ever increasing surplus of material that is worth next to nothing.

• The movement to lessen our dependence on plastic has created less demand for existing plastic to be recycled which means plastic that is normally processed for consumer needs will essentially collect dust at a facility before spending eternity in a landfill.

• The low cost of oil means new virgin plastic is cheaper to make, which again renders existing plastic useless and destined to live out an eternity in a landfill.

• Increases in online shopping combined with a national shortage of truck drivers are driving up transportation costs for MRFs looking to move recyclables across markets. When it becomes too expensive to move materials, the next best option is to cut losses and send recyclables to the landfill. 

Reduce And Reuse……………...And When All Else Fails, Then Recycle

There is a reason why ‘recycle’ is at the end of the phrase ‘Reduce, Reuse, Recycle’, it’s a last resort! To live sustainably today we must go beyond the simple act of recycling. We have to REDUCE our consumption and we have to REUSE what is left over. To do that, we need to shift our society’s mindset around the products we buy so we can be more thoughtful when it comes to purchasing a product. We need to ask ourselves:

1. Where did the materials to make and package this product come from? 

2. Is there a useful life for any of these materials when I’m finished with them? 

3. What is an alternative to this product that might be less harmful or more sustainable?

4. Do I really need this product right now or can it wait until next week? 

We must empower John and Joan Q. Public to make informed purchasing decisions and give them the knowledge and understanding of how their local recycling systems work so they can properly divert waste materials. 

Most consumers don’t want this burden hanging over their heads with every decision they make. Our lives are seemingly too busy to worry about where our trash and recycling go which is why we’ve designed our current system to be so ‘user-friendly’. 

The time has come to make our recycling systems more ‘planet-friendly’. The issues we are facing no longer make our system user-friendly and it is having a devastating effect on our end of life systems. In the next part of this series, we will work to identify and explore solutions and alternatives to our current system and explore how the golf industry can be a contributing member of society.

*Knowledge shared by Jess Loding of Schupan Sustainability and her Recycling 101 presentation.