Opinion | Everything Americans think they know about recycling is probably wrong

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Opinion | Erin Biba: 'Recycling is important, but a lot of the products Americans put in their recycling bins end up in landfills anyway.' - NBCNewsTHINK

Before we get into the problems with recycling in the U.S. it’s important to point out that, though we could be doing a much better job, even a little bit of inefficient recycling is better than no recycling at all., Americans are still returning about 68 million tons of raw materials back into the manufacturing market every year.

This means you think you’ve recycled 100 percent of the recyclable goods you buy when, in fact, you probably haven’t. And that means you end up having consumers knowingly and unknowingly participating in what Ruth Abbe, president of Zero Waste USA, calls wishcycling. “We wish it was recyclable, so we recycle it anyway,” even if it’s just going to end up in a landfill, she says.

“The reason why recycling costs so much is because the big waste management companies realized recycling was taking away from their profits. Recycling is their enemy,” says Neil Seldman, director of the Waste to Wealth Initiative at the Institute for Local Self Reliance. “That’s the achilles heel of big waste.”

 

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THINK A significant amount of recyclables are exported to Asia to be recycled. Some of these recyclables are simply dumped into the ocean. Solution? Sweden converts 97% of all their recyclables/waste into energy.

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