Recycling is the OG greenwashing

Author

Nia Shalise
October 10, 2021

The year marches on as the temperatures drop, but we can’t neglect to take care of ourselves amid a relentless workflow. For me, you may have noticed, this meant delaying this newsletter and refocusing my priorities. It can feel counterintuitive to slow down and check in with ourselves while emails pile up and the climate crisis rages on. Capitalism is of course the culprit, intertwining our sense of self-worth with productivity, the value we can bring to our work, and our stuff.

Make time to get outside (before it gets too cold!) sans-screens and watch as day by day the leaves embrace a new hue. Put on your fanciest layers and take a stroll down to the Common.

If we can take a step back, we just may find meaningful channels for rest and new solace in the immaterial aspects that bring value to our lives.

With love,

Nia Shalise

By now, you’ve probably heard the cringeworthy statistic that only 9 percent of all plastic waste ever created has been recycled. Collecting and processing materials to create new products seems like the perfect bridge to a circular economy, but there’s a reason it falls last on our waste hierarchy—especially when it comes to plastic.

It can be so easy to toss every plastic item with the infamous triangle recycle symbol into the bin, but whether that item is actually recyclable is far more complex. In the late ‘80s, the Society of Plastics Industry, (I repeat, the plastic industry itself!), created a system of Resin Identification Codes (RICs) for different plastic types—codes that were soon plastered across almost every plastic bottle, box, and bag. But those ever-present symbols don’t automatically mean that these items can go into your local bins!

Most municipal recycling programs don’t accept the same materials, and the responsibility falls on consumers to know the local regulations. Every item you’ve wish-cycled (it wasn’t recyclable, but you threw it in with hopes that it would be processed), is not only in a landfill now, but took extra time and resources to be sorted and discarded by the recycling company. Plus, recycling plastic is an inherently expensive process, and it can’t be recycled more than a couple times as the materials degrade.

The plastic industry has known from the beginning that recycling its materials would not be a viable system, and they spent a lot of money to ingrain it in our society and to shift responsibility to the public. “If the public thinks that recycling is working, then they are not going to be as concerned about the environment,” Larry Thomas, the former president of the Society of the Plastics Industry, shared with NPR.

Now that China is no longer accepting our recycling, the value of these materials has dropped drastically, and the expense of keeping this system alive grows. It’s not hard to see how disposing of resources in this manner is a last resort. Even in navigating this broken system, we can take thoughtful steps to ensure as much of what we put into our blue bins as possible is appropriately disposed of!

Fortunately, the City of Boston has a comprehensive collection of resources for getting rid of old items including:

Quick recycling tips:

  • Super greasy packaging is a big no! Tear off the food-soaked parts or just toss the entire (most likely pizza box) in the trash

  • Similarly, wash out those food containers so they don’t make entire batches of recyclables moldy

  • Find the right drop off locations for plastic film, like bags and wraps. Here’s a fun resource with a lot more info on plastic film recycling

  • Most importantly, refer to your respective municipal guide

Helpsy, Boston’s new textile recycling partner, wants to change how you think about your clothes’ next life. The New York-based company collects and mindfully redistributes clothing, shoes, bedding, backpacks, and more across the Northeast. Just shy of a year past its program initiation, the city of Boston has already expanded its offerings to over 25 drop off locations.

I love that Helpsy places its emphasis on reuse first and foremost, reselling about half of what it receives as clothes before downcycling remaining textiles to wiping rags or insulation.

“We need to address how few times people wear clothes, and I think the best way to do that is to match the clothes that someone doesn’t want with someone else who wants those clothes,” CEO Dan Green shared with me last year.

He also wants participants to know that they need your discarded high-value items, and not just your unwearables, to keep the system going.

When you think about how much clothing we wear as related to how often we wear it before disposal, the environmental impacts add up. The next time your clothes no longer serve you, skip the trash! Drop them at one of the Boston Helpsy bin locations.

Take a deeper look at recycling and Massachusetts:

Upcoming events

About me

Nia Shalise is an environmentalist content creator (an eco-creative, if you will) passionate about educating and empowering her peers to lead environmentally-mindful lifestyles. Find more content on YouTube, Instagram, and niashalise.com. If you enjoy my free content, you can donate the cost of a chai latte here.

Have questions or a topic you’d like me to cover? Email me at [email protected] or DM me on Instagram!

This newsletter may contain affiliate links. All opinions are my own.