recycling glass

Do your recyclables need to be clean?

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Day 314 – Choosing to recycle is a big step in helping the planet. However, it can get confusing. One question that many people have is, “How clean do I need to get my recyclables?” The folks at Earth911 put together a guide to help answer that question and they broke it down by type of material.

Jars, Bottle and Cans

  1. These usually only need a quick rinsing.
  2. If dealing with something like mayonnaise or peanut butter, try to get the majority out, but it does not need to be spotless.
  3. For stickier stuff like honey or jelly, give it a good scrubbing with soap, so you can remove most if not all of the substance.
  4. You do not need to remove labels from jars, bottles and cans.
  5. Allow these containers to dry if you are placing them with mixed recyclables (like paper or cardboard).

Cardboard and Paper

  1. When dealing with cardboard, like a pizza box, recycle what you can. Usually the lid is without grease or food, and can be put with your recyclables.
  2. Don’t be ready to trash a box if you happened to spill a little food on it, while cooking. If it’s not a significant amount, still get that box to the recycle bin.
  3. When it comes to paper, crumbled or wrinkled paper can go into a recycle bin. However, shredded paper can not.

Plastic Bags and Film

  1. If a bag has food on it, make sure you clean it.
  2. Make sure they are dry.
  3. Some crumbs would not hinder the recycling process, but be sure to shake out bags before recycling.
  4. Don’t put your plastic bags and film in your curbside recycling. Find a location (most grocery stores and Target) that will accept them.

By keeping contaminants out of your recycling bin the better chance your items will get recycled.

Tomorrow, drinkable ocean water.

Lasso: The Home Recycling Solution

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Day 310 – Recycling rates across the country are not great. Many cities, like Chicago, recycles less than 10% of what is collected. Recycling is not the sole solution, we are going to have to refuse, reduce and reuse. However, the idea of being able to recycle plastic, glass and metal at your home sounds very appealing.

Lasso, at home recycling machine, recycles the following:

  1. PET and HDPE plastic
  2. Clear, green and brown glass
  3. Aluminum and steel

Here is how Lasso works:

  1. Lasso accepts your used materials using internal sensors, cameras and AI machine learning.
  2. If an item is not recyclable, Lasso simply returns it to you. No more recycling confusion.
  3. Lasso tracks your items in real-time, and you can even check products for recyclability on the move before buying them, with our in-app bar code scanner.
  4. 100% of contaminants like food, grease, dirt and sticky packaging labels – all removed for you.
  5. Lasso steam cleans every item, saving precious water versus manual washing.
  6. Plastic, metals and glass are broken down separately, reducing to a fraction of their size and maintaining valuable purity throughout.
  7. Once processed, Lasso channels your purified products into the storage container at the base of the appliance.
  8. When storage is approaching capacity, Lasso automatically notifies you via the smartphone app – required just 3-8 times per year.
  9. Lasso collects when it suits you – your app suggests on-demand collection slots to fit any schedule.
  10. When collection is due, simply detach Lasso’s storage container and leave it at the curb. Our pickup drivers take care of the rest.
  11. Lasso guarantees close-loop recycling, where every item is made new again, from a bottle to a bottle, a can to a can.
  12. Receive cash returns within five years of ownership, subject to your consumption.

Lasso is not on the market yet, but you can reserve one today. It will cost around $3500 – $4000.

I sure hope the Lasso is a huge success and I hope the price comes down. I would love to have a Lasso in the kitchen recycling my plastic, glass and metal, while making me money and saving the planet!

Tomorrow,

Beverage Container Deposit Laws Need to be Nationwide

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Day 277 – It’s not a difficult concept to understand.

  1. When a retailer buys beverages from a distributor, a deposit is paid to the distributor for each container purchased.
  2. The consumer pays the deposit to the retailer when buying the beverage.
  3. The consumer receives a refund when the empty container is returned to a supermarket or other redemption center. 
  4. The distributor then reimburses the retailer or redemption center the deposit amount for each container, plus an additional handling fee in most states.
  5. Unredeemed deposits are either returned to the state, retained by distributors, or used for program administration.

The Can Manufacturers Institute, Glass Packaging Institute and National Association for PET Container Resources have come together to push the idea of a deposit program. The associations say deposit systems lead to higher recycling rates, as well as to better quality material.

“The organizations also say the increase in deposits can decrease litter, provide more pure material beneficial to each of the industries they represent and produce a resilient supply of material needed to make new beverage containers.” – Recycling Today

Ten states plus Guam participate in a deposit program and these programs are making a difference.

“According to the Container Recycling Institute, in 2018, in the 10 states with deposit systems, recycling rates for polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles, glass bottles and aluminum beverage cans were 62 percent, 64 percent and 77 percent, respectively. That’s compared with countrywide recovery rates of 28 percent, 40 percent and 46 percent, respectively.” – Recycling Today

The can, glass and plastic companies want their containers back. The only way we can move from a single-use society to a circular economy is to get these highly recyclable materials back to those that can use them again. Otherwise, they will continue ending up in the landfill or incinerator.

Does your state have a deposit law?

Tomorrow, when sustainability and art collide.

Don’t Trash Glass Program Comes to Chicago

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Day 241 – We hear it all the time.

“Recycling is not working.”

“We can not solve or waste issue with recycling.”

Though, I do believe these statements are true, we also need recycling. Even if it’s not perfect. Cardboard, glass and aluminum are all great options to avoid plastic. However, in order for them to be reused they need to be rescued from the landfill and recycled.

More than 28 million glass bottles and jars end up in landfills each year.

A pilot program to help save as many glass bottles from entering the landfill is underway in Chicago. The Don’t Trash Glass Program (DTG) is an eight-week program which seeks to collect glass containers at Greater Chicago area bars and restaurants to be recycled into new bottles, fiberglass and more. 

“The program is funded by the nonprofit Glass Recycling Foundation (GRF) based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in partnership with Legacy Marketing in Chicago and beer importer Constellation Brands of Victor, New York. The organizations and businesses involved in the program include glass hauler GlassKing, of Phoenix, waste hauler Lakeshore Recycling Systems (LRS) and glass recycler Strategic Materials, which is headquartered in Houston.” – Recycling Today

The hope is that with more education and information, restaurants and bars will understand the importance of recycling. The goal is to create a self-sustaining program that will be scalable in other parts of the country.  

Keeping highly recyclable materials out the landfill is our first step in the fight against waste. If we can not move forward in creating a circular economy with the materials we have, then we will run out places to bury it all

Tomorrow, building healthy and sustainable communities.

Recycling Facts

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Day 232 – There are currently over 2,000 landfills in the United States. The reason we have so many landfills is due to the fact that we, Americans, throw a lot of stuff away. We are constantly tossing things in the trash without giving a second thought as to where it goes. If we just took a moment to ask, “Where is away?”, maybe we could start making changes in our behavior to minimize the amount of waste we produce.

Rubicon is the leading provider of cloud-based waste and recycling solutions for businesses, governments, and organizations worldwide. With more than 4.9 million service locations, Rubicon focuses on developing software solutions that bring new transparency to the waste and recycling industry—encouraging customers to make data-driven decisions that lead to more efficient and effective operations as well as more sustainable outcomes.

Rubicon put together a list of 50 Recycling and Landfill Facts That Will Make You Think Twice About Your Trash. I thought I would just share 20 of them in hopes it will get you thinking about trash and ways to start reducing your amount.

  1. Nine-tenths of all solid waste in the United States does not get recycled.
  2. Landfills are among the biggest contributors to soil pollution – roughly 80% of the items buried in landfills could be recycled.
  3. The U.S. recycling rate is around 34.5%. If we’re able to get the rate to 75%, the effect will be like removing 50 million passenger cars from U.S. roads.
  4.  9 out of 10 people said they would recycle if it were “easier”.
  5. The United States throws away $11.4 billion worth of recyclable containers and packaging every year.
  6. In the United States, we throw away 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour – about 42,000 per minute, or about 695 per second.
  7. The amount of plastic film and wrap produced annually could shrink-wrap the state of Texas.
  8. According to a study done by the University of Georgia, 18 billion pounds of plastic trash winds up in our oceans each year. To put that in perspective, it’s enough trash to cover every foot of coastline around the world with five full trash bags of plastic…compounding every year.
  9. Over 100,000 marine animals die every year from plastic entanglement and ingestion.
  10. Glass, like aluminum, is infinitely recyclable – without any loss in purity or quality.
  11. Glass container manufacturers hope to achieve 50 percent recycled content in the manufacture of new glass bottles. This achievement would save enough energy to power 21,978 homes for one year and while removing over 181 tons of waste from landfills monthly.
  12. In only three months, enough aluminum cans are thrown out in the United States to rebuild all of our commercial air fleets.
  13. You can make 20 new cans from recycled material using the same amount of energy that it takes to make 1 brand new can.
  14. While the United States celebrates the holidays, Americans produce an additional 5 million tons of waste (four million of the 5 million tons consisting of wrapping paper and shopping bags).
  15. The majority of the 4 million tons of junk mail that Americans receive annually ends up in landfills.
  16. On average, Americans use 650 pounds of paper a year. Each.
  17. Americans make nearly 400 billion photocopies a year, which comes out to 750,000 copies every minute.
  18. The average office worker in the United States goes through roughly 500 disposable cups annually.
  19.  2,000 pounds (or 1 ton) of recycled paper helps to save over 350 gallons of oil, 17 trees, and a large portion of landfill space
  20. Of the 62 million newspapers printed daily in the United States, 44 million will be thrown away (roughly 500,000 trees).

Until we begin to realize that even though our trash may leave our house, it is not leaving our town or city. It is just being transported to another location, where the pile will continue to grow and grow. When will we begin to realize that a change needs to happen? Maybe when that pile becomes so large that the trash finds its way back to your home.

Tomorrow, a use for mango skins you most likely had no idea was possible.