Think your plastic is recyclable? Think again
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The recycling yard display in West Des Moines. Photos: Courtesy of Natasha Kennedy
A West Des Moines family is displaying a year's worth of plastic waste that wasn't allowed to go into their recycling.
Why it matters: Even if your plastic has the recycling symbol on it, it often still ends up in the trash.
State of play: West Des Moines resident Natasha Kennedy used to recycle everything. At work, she would save her plastic Starbucks cups to recycle at home, going so far as to even take her co-workers' cups.
- That is, until a colleague told her she actually can't recycle the cups, despite them displaying the signature recycling symbol.
- "I'm like, 'This is ridiculous,'" Kennedy tells Axios. "I didn't believe her, so I went online and no, you can't recycle it — and there's a lot of other things you can't recycle."
Driving the news: That prompted Kennedy to save her family's impermissible recyclables for a year, string them together and display them on her lawn and public right of way, including berry boxes, produce packaging and, of course, Starbucks cups.
How it works: Recycling is a commodity, and if the processed materials can't be sold, they go to a landfill, says Joe Horaney, deputy director of Solid Waste Agency in Cedar Rapids and Linn County.
- Recyclable plastics are labeled with a number denoting their plastic type. In Cedar Rapids, recyclable plastics labeled 1-5 and 7 are allowed, but ultimately, only 1-2 are recycled because there is no market demand for the others, Horaney says.
- Solid Waste Agency works with third-party Republic Services to process their recycling. Once all the plastics are sorted through, items labeled 3-7 end up in a landfill that's not in Linn County. They plan on banning more plastics in the future.
- "I tell folks, it's kind of a waste at that point because it costs more to recycle," he says. "At my home, I only recycle ones and twos."
What they're saying: Metro Waste Authority (MWA), based in Des Moines, tells residents to only recycle plastic containers with a twist-off lid, like laundry detergent, milk jugs and shampoo bottles.
- Berry and Cool Whip containers are not accepted because their packaging is thinner, making them more difficult to melt down and be repurposed, says Emily Grier, spokesperson for MWA.
- MWA opened its own recycling facility in Grimes in 2021 instead of relying on a third party, which has helped it take control and find more partners to purchase its recycling.
- Still, people are using too much plastic to make all of it sellable on the market, Grier says.
Flashback: For 30 years, China purchased nearly half of the United States' exported recycling materials, according to NPR.
- But that ended in 2017, after Chinese officials banned "foreign waste," resulting in a national recycling stockpile that the country is still enduring today.
Zoom in: Kennedy received notice from the city yesterday noting she can keep her signs in the right of way, but must remove the plastics from there.
- Her family said they are willing to move them back into the front lawn.
The big picture: Plastic makers — including oil and gas companies — have spent millions marketing to Americans that their items could be recycled, but investigations have shown they knew there wasn't a market for it.
The bottom line: Out of the "three R's," your hierarchy should be reduce, reuse and then recycle.