Great Question - Response to Reader Question

Hi! And thanks for being the recycler for our residential trash service. I was looking at your blog and found it useful. I wonder if you could address a topic in the blog, and/or send me a personal reply. It is said that about 10% of what we put in our home recycle bin gets recycled. The rest goes overseas, into landfills, etc. Can you comment on this? I realize some of the reason for this is that people contaminate their recycling, rendering the whole load unusable, but what other reasons are there that cause such a small percentage of our recycling to not get recycled? Thanks in advance. Thanks for reading, asking, and for your concern in general. When the 10% number is thrown around it sure is concerning. This number, from what I've read when we researched a bit more in-depth, is based upon 10% of ALL materials produced in the US being recycled. That is still terrible, but not reflective of only 10% of the material placed in your recycling bin. Unfortunately, much like media stories in general, shock sells. We should all be concerned about recycling and the lack of it but we should be concerned based on true data, not the shock effect.  While I can not speak with complete certainty on material recycled at other material recovery facilities, I can on the material processed here, at our Hamburg facility. We have an overall residue rate of  ~9.96% for last year (2022). That means, that of ALL the 85 thousand-plus tons of material that were brought in and processed at our facility (in 2022) 9.96% of that was lost due to contamination. Our residual rate is generally due to failure to recycle with care - lack of following bin & program instructions.  Of the ~76 thousand tons of material that are sent from our facility, processed and contaminant free, the recycling rate should be just shy of 100% as it reaches the end users. They may find a small percentage of fine contamination that may need to be removed during processing. In addition to the cost of transportation, the receivers are paying per ton (for paper) or per pound (for plastic & metals) - they are motivated (if only by sheer economics)  to utilize every possible pound of material. Our company, like many other material recovery facilities, is selling to repeat manufacturers or established brokers who have direct relationships and knowledge of the thoroughly vetted end users.  Materials are at times shipped overseas - this occurs because typically because the domestic demand is not present. Thankfully, some of the pain from the iron sword has created end users domestically that previously did not exist. As a MRF we are very excited about the growth of domestic markets for the material.  Can I speak about all MRF's and guarantee their story would echo ours - no. Can I promise that if you've witnessed your garbage and recycling picked up in the same truck it is actually getting recycled - no.  What I can tell you is that if the company you are utilizing for your recycling is doing the environmentally responsible thing, their answer will be much like ours.  Sidenote: CRI does NOT handle trash, only recycling - we pay to have our facility trash removed and taken to a landfill or WTE facility. We aren't affiliated with any landfills. Our goal is to recycle every possible item and limit the material that is considered trash. Our outlook is slightly different than other Material Recovery Facilities based on that information.