Recycling—One Way to Honor Earth Day
We all know the three green Rs are Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. Reduction and Reuse save us money and don’t consume new resources. The discussion around these three Rs often seems to focus on Recycling. Maybe because it seems the easiest one. However, it can be complicated.
In 2010, the Delaware Legislature set recycling goals for 50 percent of municipal solid waste by 2015 and 60 percent of municipal solid waste by 2020. Delaware has repeatedly missed these goals. The calendar year 2022 recycling rate was 37.3 percent according to the DNREC Recycling Public Advisory Council report dated November 2023. The best year since these numbers have been tracked was 2016 when we reached 44.5 percent.
Public outreach is key to meeting these goals. But we all can do our part. One of the most common questions I get from friends and acquaintances is “How come they don’t recycle that here?”
What is or is not recycled in a community is not what people can set out, but what there is a market for, from the processor’s point of view. Delaware has one program, run by the Delaware Solid Waste Authority. Regardless of which trash hauling service you use, that trash hauler must provide recycling to you. And because it all goes to one location for processing, what is collected for recycling by the blue truck is the same as the green or white truck.
If you used to live in another community that had different rules, you shouldn’t follow those old rules here. Recycling is what is called “sticky learning.” The rules you learned when you were growing up seem to be what you want to follow, regardless of where you live now. That is not necessarily good.
The best information on what is and is not recycled in your bin today is at the Delaware Solid Waste Authority website (dswa.com/programs/single-stream-recycling/#) or the DNREC website (dnrec.delaware.gov/waste-hazardous/recycling/).
It used to be that recycling was simple: paper, cardboard, and glass; we all knew what to do. But packagers today have become very creative with their packaging, using multiple layers of paperboard and plastic, even multilayers of plastic.
When I grew up in the 60s and 70s, at school we had milk in little cartons. These were wax covered to keep the milk from soaking through. Today, our milk cartons and juice cartons feel the same, but they are not—they are coated with plastic. Here in Delaware this is not a problem, because we recycle those here (don’t ask me the details but it’s something about how the paperboard floats and the other paper fibers sink). The plastic caps for these can be screwed on to recycled cartons but shouldn’t be thrown in the bin loosely.
We know metal cans recycle, that includes steel, “tin,” and aluminum. In Delaware, aluminum tins like pie tins are fine if rinsed, but aluminum foil should be placed in the trash. Bottle caps are metal but go in the trash. They are too small and end up as part of the recycling center’s waste stream.
Plastic is something that varies from region to region. In Delaware, the number in the triangle matters: 1s, 2s, 3s, 5s and 7s are good to recycle if they are not plastic film. But 4s and 6s do not recycle here. And clamshells, in which you get Cosco apples or maybe muffins? If the recycling number is not a 4 or 6, feel free to put that in your bin.
Does recycling really make a difference? Yes. It creates green jobs, saves resources, and conserves landfill space. Once shuttered papermills are now making cardboard out of recycled paper fiber. Shredded plastic chips are being used for all kinds of things. Sixty-five percent of America’s aluminum is recycled. Sixty-nine percent of steel in North America is recycled.
That does not, however, remove the burden of the first two Rs—Reduce and Reuse—from those of us trying to live with less impact on our world. Those habits can be sticky, too. We should form them and take them with us, regardless where we live. ▼
Jeff Dannis is a Delaware professional engineer, nutrient consultant, and certified composter. He can be reached at FitnessEngineering.net or at Jeff.Dannis.FE@outlook.com.