Recycling Education

I was in the materials recovery facility trying to get some action shots as the single-stream material was being processed. It's always helpful to have visuals as you present to help everyone understand the journey of your recyclables. As I walked to the loading spot, I passed overflowing barrels—they caught my attention because they wouldn't look great in the video I was trying to capture. 

I paused in the feed area, waiting for a large 100-yarder to empty the community's single stream so I could follow through the entire process. As I waited, the line stopped once, twice, and again. I turned to see why it kept stopping, and the team was expeditiously working together to scoop a shrub, including branches, leaves, and dirt, off the line. 

At that moment, I decided that covering the "ugly" things I didn't initially want to capture in my video was more important than showing the process itself. 

The overflowing barrels were empty at the start of the shift and emptied again at the 9:00 am break; it was 11:18. The first sorting station is in charge of getting out the blatant offenders; they're also there to try and limit the exposure those contaminants will have on the clean material. They open bags, remove contamination, and large items (plastic or metal). To be clear, nearly all programs state that recyclables should not be bagged, yet facilities have teams dedicated to trying to open them. At times, the number of bags is so significant that full bags will be thrown away to keep the system moving. 

There were two barrels next to the main sorting bins, one for metal and wood. Typically (including this day), the barrels aren't large enough to contain everything they were pulling out. 

I am willing to concede that metal can sometimes be confusing. You know it is recyclable, and without knowing exactly how it's handled, you'd put it in the single-stream recycling bin. For the record, don't; only aluminum and tin cans should be placed in your curbside recycling bin (that is all the process is set up to handle). 

 I really have no explanation for the other items constantly contaminating the material. As I started photographing the items, some team members told me I missed the 8x10 rug and the queen-sized mattress. Luckily, I didn't miss the tire (oh, and it's a big one), the mini refrigerator, the plywood, the pile of shoes, bricks, rocks, or the barrels filled with so many other items that should've never been placed in any recycling bin. 

So, as we consider how to better educate people on recycling, I'm left wondering if education is really the most significant problem facing recycling. The even bigger question is how we fix it. We target education, but how do we make people care? This isn't a hypothetical question. We would love your feedback, please!!