Recycling Rethink: What to Do With Trash Now That China Won’t Take It

“No waste” is the new cool thing to do. A friend of ours reveled in the fact that she had just moved without recycling any of her cardboard boxes! Our Instagram feed is focused on the “Life Without Plastic” and “Package Free” solutions to a zero-waste life.

This article today in the journal points up the bad facts about what happens to your recycling. Here in Cincinnati, “If you don’t see it pictured on the lid, don’t put it in the bin.”

Read the entire article here, https://www.wsj.com/articles/recycling-rethink-what-to-do-with-trash-now-china-wont-take-it-11576776536

“This summer, Philadelphia put ads on bus shelters and the radio telling people to “take a minute before you bin it” and “if in doubt throw it out.” The campaign asks residents to stop putting plastic bags in recycling bins and to rinse food containers. It has also sent staff door-to-door to tell residents what should go in the recycling bin, and has put lids on bins to protect paper from the rain.

The waste contractor in Flagstaff, Ariz., stopped taking five types of plastic, including yogurt tubs and clamshell food containers, because it couldn’t sell those types on to processors. Much of that material now goes to landfills.

The city is running appeals on its social-media pages to encourage its roughly 70,000 residents to put only bottles, jugs and jars in recycling bins to comply with the change. “Do you experience confusion when recycling plastic?” asks a video, styled like a commercial for prescription drugs. “If you live in Flagstaff, talk to your doctor about recycling plastic by shape.””