You can recycle this! You can’t recycle that! Recycling and composting are simple concepts that have a myriad of complications in sorting, collecting and processing. How do we know what to do with our trash to keep it out of the landfill?

Years ago, I volunteered to help with recycling stations at a set of zero-waste-targeting community events in Colorado. The goal was to host large events without sending a mountain of garbage to the landfill afterward. The vendors of the food festival were required to serve compostable plates and silverware, which could be diverted to an industrial composting facility. 

An enormous percentage of the waste from the event was sorted into the compost bin. Almost everything else was recycled. A minuscule amount of the debris thrown out was headed to the landfill. How did this festival sort through the waste so effectively? Well-marked collection bins alone did not get the job done; a person was stationed at each set of bins to help sort. Essentially, volunteers had to police the bins.

The actual collection stations were three 55-gallon bins with tents over the top. Each tent described what should go in each bucket: compost, recycling or waste. I positioned myself in front of the tent in a way that blocked all three of the bins. 

If I stood to the side, few people would ask me for help or to clarify where the objects should go. They would pause for a second, then toss an entire mix of objects into one of the bins, often choosing the incorrect option but with a sense of unshaken confidence on their faces. With good intentions, but incomplete information, many recyclers are impacting the value and usability of the individual recycling streams. 

Additionally, the events were in tourist destinations, so many attendees played by the recycling rules of their home trash system. Unfortunately for consistency, the individual trash collection services have widely different rules for things such as compost. 

In the mountains of Colorado, the high alpine conditions lead many things to compost slowly compared to warm climates. Transporting tons of compost to a warmer zip code makes it an expensive game.

Composting

Compost needs three things to break down well (https://bit.ly/42uMBmZ): 

1. Oxygen, which is consumed by microorganisms and is reintroduced when you turn or mix the pile. 

2. Water, with a moisture content between 40 to 60 percent to keep the microorganisms active. 

3. Carbon, ideally with a nitrogen ratio of 30:1 to speed the process along. 

There is a trend to replace single-use items, such as coffee cups or straws made of plastic or paper, with plant-based items (often designated as a PLA in the recycling logo on a package). These items are often composted in a commercial process at higher temperatures. 

While compostable single-use cups seem like a good idea, if you throw a compostable cup in the garbage, it won’t compost any time soon. When buried, it likely won’t have the oxygen needed to compost well. Landfills aren’t mixed around like a compost tumbler. Also, don’t recycle PLA cups; they are not recycled like polyethylene or polypropylene and must be sorted out. Admittedly, this isn’t very clear (https://nyti.ms/3NrfQCY). 

The Acceptable/Not Acceptable Question

The inconsistency of whether recyclables will be accepted or not partially relates to the commodity prices of the items in the trash. In Germany, they implemented the Green Dot System in 1991 (https://bit.ly/3P7xsVI). The Green Dot is printed on products that can be recycled. Crediting a mix of high awareness and clear instructions, Germans are recovering a 98.4 percent recycling return rate. 

 When the acceptable/not acceptable question comes up, always take the safe route and throw it in the trash. If not, you may be wish-cycling, which is a term that describes the hopeful thinking many customers have when they recycle something. 

For example, one could throw a microwave made of metal and plastic in the recycling bin. Both of those materials are recyclable. However, the higher likelihood is that someone or something will need to sort out this microwave so it doesn’t corrupt the whole batch. 

If a batch of 10,000 clean plastic water bottles also contains a bunch of crushed microwave debris (metal, glass, microchips, etc.), the buyers won’t want to pay top dollar anymore. Additionally, the contaminated batch may be rerouted to the landfill. 

If the commodity price of aluminum or glass changes and the recovered product is often contaminated, trash haulers and sorting stations may no longer profit from collecting these materials. This makes recycling a moving target, which may explain why your local recycler used to take glass but no longer accepts it. 

Toward the end of one of my shifts of diverting waste, a man pushed me out of the way to throw a stack of compostable silverware into the trash. A few droplets of food hit the side of my face as he launched it into the tent. I began politely explaining to him that he could put those in the compost next time. He retorted in an oddly angry tone, “I know what to do with a plastic fork.” I shouted in return, “They are made of corn!!!” 

The specifics of the plant-based compost diversion were on the verge of starting a street fight. The funniest part is that both of us were trying to do the right thing. 

Throughout the event, I had numerous conversations with festival-goers who questioned my methods. I believe one person who was trying to compost a big stick told on me to one of the event organizers for not knowing what compost is. 

We were not collecting yard waste that day. While a tree limb is biodegradable, it was not a good fit for the collection rules we had at the event. It would be like recycling an entire playground slide in a home recycling bin. While the slide may be the same plastic as a bottle, it could clog up the machines that are anticipating hand-sized, thin-walled plastics. 

These conversations were a perfect fit for a “Portlandia”-style parody TV show. 

I wish there were easier answers to the questions about how to compost, recycle or landfill our trash properly. The two most consistent pieces of advice are first to reduce the amount of single-use items you buy. Even a properly-recycled water bottle must be hauled somewhere and reprocessed, which consumes a lot of energy and resources. 

Second, check for instructions regarding what is or is not accepted by the local trash collection company. If in question, throw it out. The big picture is: The better we sort and discard things, the more likely it is that waste haulers and sorters can be profitable. 

In turn, this encourages the growth of collection categories or collection areas, which will help recycling become a more commonly understood practice and regular habit among Americans.