The Greenwashing of 'America Recycles'

Today is America Recycles Day. Brought to you by Pepsico, Nestle Water, Johnson & Johnson, Glad plastic bags, Rubbermaid, and Waste Management.

Do you see a pattern? These are the same corporations that contribute to the problem of the large volume of trash that Americans generate every day. The ones that want to head off bottle bills and restrictions on packaging. They are all against mandatory recycling and against banning certain materials from disposal.

In the flyer that announces all the happy events associated with America Recycles Day the sponsors point to Barbara Bush Elementary School in Texas that celebrated America Recycles Day “by promoting plastic bag recycling through ‘It’s a Bag’s Life’ program – which educates individuals on the importance of plastic bag and film recycling. They worked in conjunction with their local Kroger grocery store to educate their community and hosted a collection event during the week of America Recycles Day. A total of 5,000 pounds of plastic bags were recycled!”

You’ll notice that there’s no mention of reusable bags. Or of reusing plastic bags after an initial use. The State of Florida has mandated that local communities cannot ban or tax plastic bags.

So is recycling actually worth it? Are local communities such as Key West that obsess over recycling rates wasting time when the problems may go much deeper? The Blue Paper asked this question of Mitch Kessler, president of Kessler Consulting in Tampa. His organization is currently advising Key West about its solid waste program. Kessler himself has over 22 years of experience in developing and evaluating integrated solid waste management systems and knows the industry inside out.

When Kessler Consulting talks about recycling they are really discussing the full gamut: reduce, reuse and then recycle.

“I think that continuing education about what one can do to reduce their consumption makes sense,” he said. “I think things that get people to look at how items are packaged, to do what they can to buy in bulk, buying things that have packaging that’s 100 percent recyclable all help.”

It’s not always easy. Not many places in the Keys sell items in bulk. There’s very little guidance about packaging and, often, it’s nearly impossible to avoid plastic bags or those impossible to open plastic shells.

Kessler indicated that there’s ongoing national debate going about who’s responsible for the reduce and reuse part of the equation.

“Is that a government responsibility? Is it an industry responsibility? Is it the packaging industry, the people who make the very products we’re talking about?” he wondered.

Nor is there a national effort to reduce consumption. That’s not a message that any politician, from top to bottom, wants to send when the perception is that the country must reinvigorate growth.

Kessler emphasizes reuse before recycling.

“There should be as much emphasis as possible on what we can reuse. The measurement is not about how much we recycle but the measurement that’s important is how we can reduce the tonnage that we’re disposing of,” he said. “If you’re disposing of 100 tons of material and your recycling rate goes up you’re still disposing of 100 tons of material. I would argue that the measurement should be how much are we diverting from disposal. If the same amount is being transferred out as garbage then we’re not succeeding.”

And that’s part of the problem with putting such a strong emphasis upon recycling. The material is still being loaded into diesel powered trucks and shipped all the way up to Broward County. Even with greater recycling, the Keys are not reducing greenhouse gases with its impact on sea level rise and global warming. Efforts to reduce the amount being shipped out by composting yard waste or using glass locally have not gotten very far.

Another significant issue concerns the recycling of plastic, an ubiquitous material. For many years the United States has been shipping plastic, paper, and cardboard to China. That country needs those materials to reconstitute into new products to ship back here. The exchange also helps the balance of trade.

However, lately China has been implementing higher standards on imports of recycled material via what’s called Operation Green Fence. The initiative that kicked off in February of this year is designed to prevent the importation of shipments of contaminated solid waste. Operation Green Fence has set a limit of 1.5 percent of allowable contaminant in each bale in an effort to keep trash out of China. This could have quite an impact on the recycling industry and the United States in a broader context, forcing the United States to have higher standards for what they export worldwide.

Kessler said that it’s a very real problem.

“There’s no sense in recovering materials that don’t have the quality to be made back into a product,” he said. “The short-term implication is that the processors have had to adjust and slow down their lines and work on technology to make a cleaner product. That’s why China is cutting off importing materials.”

So what’s the answer? Clearly it’s very important for people to reduce what they use and to reuse what they can. Cloth rags instead of paper towels. Reusable cloth bags instead of taking plastic at the store. Getting and paying bills electronically to reduce paper. Eliminating plastic water bottles and using metal water bottles. And much more.

Because the less people consume, the less will be loaded onto huge diesel trucks and shipped to Broward to be incinerated.

Maybe we need an America Reduces Day.