CHARLOTTE, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) -- If your recycle bin at home is full, you may be recycling all wrong. Environmental enthusiasts are reacting to a report that says recycling plastic is a “dead-end street”.
All plastic is not the same, which makes it labor-intensive and costly to recycle. In most major cities across the country, including Charlotte, a majority of plastic ends up in a landfill.
"If you are recycling, you've already done it wrong,” said the Executive Director of Envision Charlotte, Amy Aussieker.
So what makes most of the plastics in your green bin end up in a landfill? There are seven different types of plastic, some harder than others to break down and some with more toxins than others.
"Most municipalities take number one, PTE, or maybe number two, HTP, but the rest of them they don't take,” said Aussieker.
In Mecklenburg County that means when it comes to recycling plastic, only plastic bottles with necks can go in your curbside bin.
The Charlotte Innovation Barn does accept #5 plastics. They are melted down and made into bricks. Other plastics, like #4, burn instead of melting down. That is why they cannot be recycled together at most recycling facilities.
The Innovation Barn in Charlotte is where most people who love to recycle find out about the different types of plastics and how much plastic goes to waste.
"It's very disheartening for a lot of people,” said Aussieker.
The study that says recycling is a “dead-end street” came out in October and was published by Greenpeace USA.
"It's great to see there is increasing awareness and interest and moving towards zero waste policies,” said Katie Craig from the North Carolina Public Interest Reach Group.
Craig tracks studies on recycling in North Carolina. Right now the success rate of recycling in the tar heel state has been on a decline since 2015, according to the Department of Environmental Quality.
The rate can bounce back if you think back to what you learned in elementary school.
"Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, but then we really spend a lot more time talking about recycling and forgetting about those first two,” said Craig.
Reusing or eliminating the use of plastic altogether is the only guaranteed way to keep them out of landfills.
"It takes I don't even know how many years to break down in a landfill, so if you've ever seen a landfill I don’t think you wanna add to it,” said Aussieker.
The amount of plastics humans consume has also been on the rise, in the form of microplastics.
Microplastics are tiny plastic particles that come from commercial product development and the breakdown of larger plastics. They are often consumed by fish and other wildlife, which are then consumed by humans.
0 Comments