When China announced it would no longer accept American trash for recycling, some communities stopped collecting used glass, paper, plastic and metal, but here the enterprise is strong. John Lechler and grandson Carson make frequent trips to the McIntire Recycling Center which serves Charlottesville and Albemarle County.
“We’ve got to take care of the earth and keep it nice and green," he explains. "It’s not looking great right now the way it’s going, so we’ve got to do better at it, so it’s worth coming down here once a week and doing this.”
And this woman, who asked that we not use her name, is here so often that she’s memorized the order of enormous dumpsters that collect each material. In addition to oyster shells and cooking oil, there’s:
“Compost, cardboard, brown paper, plastic wraps, number ones, number twos, office paper, glass, newspapers – yes I still buy newspaper, and then my metals at the back – aluminum and the others.”
The Rivanna Solid Waste Authority has buyers who will recycle all of those things, but Phil McKalips, who oversees the operation, says the enterprise only works with financial support from local governments.
“The days of recycling really paying for itself, getting your costs back out of the material you’re processing, I think may well be done,” he says.
And keeping materials separate is a constant problem.
“A lot of people would like to think that magically this can all be recycled, but there are market considerations and just plain old chemistry,” says Christine Putnam, a volunteer "recycling ambassador" at McIntire. She helps people navigate the complex world of plastics made from many chemical compounds. The center will, for example, take some plastic films but not others.
“We only accept polyethylene, which is a number two or four, and what we don’t accept is polypropylene," she explains. "The best way to explain to people is to show them the stretch test. If you can stretch your thumb through the plastic, it’s the plastic that can be sent to Trex and it gets turned into lumber decking that you often see in our parks.”
Recycling ambassador Betsy Soulsby encourages the public to reuse products like water bottles, and suggests they contact companies to demand packaging that’s easily recycled – like type one used for water and soft drink bottles rather than type five.
“All your dairy products are in five," she says. "Write the company! Starbucks –- their cups are number fives instead of number ones. Why isn’t Starbucks putting it in number one clear cups. Be good stewards and make a fuss.”
But even with good cooperation from companies and consumers, recycling czar Phil McKalips admits keeping up with plastic is a challenge.
“Plastic is tough. Less than 10% of it is being recycled, and by 2050 the amount of plastic resin being produced is going to increase 30-50%, so we’re, in a sense, not keeping up with what we’re making today, and we’re going to be keeping up worse with what we’re making tomorrow.”
Which is why industry is offering another possible solution – what it calls advanced or chemical recycling. We’ll tell you what that’s about, why environmentalists are skeptical and where Virginia lawmakers might have gone wrong in our next report.
