A recent report from the non-profit GREENPEACE suggests that many of the plastics placed in our recycling bins aren't actually being recycled. WYSO spoke with a local waste management company, Rumpke Waste and Recycling, to get their take. Jeff Snyder, Rumpke's director of recycling, said items listed on their bins are being recycled.
Transcript (edited lightly for length and clarity)
Jeff Snyder: We touch plastics every single day of our lives. A lot of the plastics are made to be user friendly to the consumer, whether it's holding products that we use every day of our life or, if it's just plastic that's in our phones or in our computers or anything else that we have.
In my mind, there's two types of categories: there are 'plastics' as a whole, and then there are plastics that we can accept in a material recovery facility that can be sorted, baled, and turned back into new plastic products.
An example of plastics that can be accepted by a waste management company are PET (Polyethylene Terephthalate) bottles. If you think about a water bottle that we touch every day, putting that in the recycling bin, where we can bale that material, send it to an end user to have a PET bottle made back out of that same bottle is really what recycling is all about. That could then be turned into a bleach bottle or a laundry detergent bottle, which is high density polyethylene number 2 plastic. Those things are accepted all day long across the United States because they are highly recyclable and highly sought after.
Then you start to throw in polypropylene which is like your yogurt and your cottage cheese and your sour cream containers, your cups that we touch every day. Again, we want all of that polypropylene material in the recycling bin because there's a high demand for that as well.
When you think about the Greenpeace article and you think about recycling, in my mind, you have to segregate those two things because I think that article talks about plastic as a whole. Then, I think you have a specific group of plastics that we can recycle on the residential and commercial side that are accepted every single day, and there's not enough of it. I hear in my travels and in my work life every single day that, 'Jeff, if I could buy more PET or more HDPE (High Density Polyethylene) or more polypropylene, we would buy every bit of it because we can't get enough of it. The demand is so high for those commodities in the recycling world that they can't get enough.
Jerry Kenney: I think even before the NPR report on the Greenpeace data, some people were distrustful of the recycling system. So what is your advice for those people?
JS: My advice is that whatever community that you're living in, and of course I can speak to the Midwest specifically, if you don't believe that what you're putting in the recycling bin is actually being recycled. I would contact your recycler to find out where that material is going, where that material is being sorted and ask to tour that facility. I mean, we give tours every single day and I openly want people to come to our facility, saying that 'if I put in the recycling bin, it's not going to get recycled' is just a false statement.
Now, have there been events in the United States where that has happened? I'm sure. I know there's been some cities that have struggled with that in the past and I know there has to be some trust that when you put things in the recycling, it gets recycled. But if you if you doubt that process, if you don't think that's happening, then a call to your solid waste district or a call to your waste and recycling company to say, 'I would love to have more information on what happens to my products after recycling or after I put it in the bin.'
JK: where can consumers find out more information about the tours you mentioned and how they can participate in this process?
JS: Yeah, absolutely. Just go to our website and you can schedule tours right there. You can also see our 'acceptable list' there—which is what you can put on the bin. At the end of the day just know that if Rumpke is collecting it and it is coming to our material recovery facilities where we sort that product, you can rest assured that it is being turned back into new product and is being recycled.
