Is Recycling Really the Best Way To Help the Environment

Well, here we all are; trying to get along on a planet that we are most certainly killing. Each one of us, hopefully, trying to do our little bit to save the Earth. The biggest contribution the average citizen makes on a daily basis is recycling. We dutifully separate our newspaper, glass, aluminum, tin and plastic bottles from the regular household waste. Municipalities tout recycling programs and good citizens try to follow the rules. But . . .

The three "R"s are actually Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. There is a very good reason that "recycle" is the last of the three - it's the least effective way for us to reduce our "carbon footprint".

Please don't misunderstand me; I am not advocating that everyone stop recycling. It is a very important way for us to help the environment. But maybe after you read this article, you will realize that it is not the most important way. It gets a little technical, but try to bear with me so that you can get a clearer picture of the situation that we are facing.

Recycling bi-metals, aluminum, glass and paper results in a similar or same product being produced for less money and energy than the first time. In other words, an aluminum can gets recycled back into an aluminum can. The new can did not need to be mined or refined. Less energy, cost and resources were used to produce the new can. Glass and paper follow the same general rules. Once they enter the recycling stream, glass bottles are generally separated by color and remade into more glass bottles, again, using less resources and energy than the first time. This cycle can be repeated endlessly.

Plastics, however, are another story. When you toss that plastic bottle into the recycling bin, chances are very good that it will never be a plastic bottle again.

The reasons for this are numerous and complex. Plastic bottles are made of Polyethylene Terephthalate, generally referred to as PET. PET is what is known as a complex polymer and it starts life as petroleum. When we think of sky-rocketing fuel costs, we generally think of gasoline and heating oil, but consumer packaging accounts for a huge amount of over-all petroleum use around the globe and is constantly climbing

Plastic bottles are estimated to make up twenty percent of the waste stream. The average American household produces seventeen pounds of PET waste each year. One pound equals roughly eight two-liter soda bottles. Even if every single bottle is recycled, next year will see exactly the same seventeen pounds from each household. Those seventeen pounds are all brand new and appearing one time only. When we dutifully place those one-hundred thirty six bottles into recycling, they may revisit our household again, but probably not as a bottle.

In very simple terms, glass, metal and paper are basically natural products with constant properties that can be melted down and reformed over and over again through the same processes. Plastics are chemicals which, by design, change properties through chemical reactions with each step in the manufacturing process. In other words, with plastic, what you start out with is far removed from what you end up with.

PET is a polymer and polymers can only be recombined with identical or nearly identical polymers. If Factory A uses even a slightly different formula or process to produce their bottles than Factory B, it is very difficult to combine them in the post-consumer world of recycling to form a new soda bottle. The process is time-consuming, expensive and uses another round of chemicals with its own set of hazards and by-products. All of these things make it generally unfeasible to recycle plastic bottles back into plastic bottles. While it is done on a small scale, current technology does not allow for it to happen on a large scale.

So what happens to your one hundred thirty six bottles every year? Well, don't panic! They do get recycled, just not in the way you have probably always imagined. Most of it is burned in incinerators and co-generation plants. Not exactly an environmentalists' dream. They are also put through a process which eventually yields pellets of PET which are then used in other industries, most notably, textiles.

Yup, you read right - textiles. Your plastic Diet Pepsi bottle has a better chance of coming back into your life as your bathing suit than as a new Diet Pepsi bottle! (Now that it's a bathing suit, aren't you glad you picked diet?)

Surprisingly enough, polyester is a PET product. PET pellets are used to make carpeting, fabric and polyester fiberfill, just to name a few things. Well, great! It's being recycled into something else. That's wonderful! Right?

The problem is, while you are recycling your plastic bottle, you're not recycling your den carpet or that ratty old pillow that you finally pried away from your 8 year old. Those items are eventually just going to enter the waste stream. And guess what? They are not any less toxic or slow to break down than they would be as a bottle.

So what's the answer? Well, the let's go back to those other two R's - Reduce and Reuse!

Let's start with REDUCE.

The single most important thing that each of us can do to help the environment is to reduce our consumption.

This is really a no-brainer. If we use less, we are making less of an impact, but most people don't know how to do this. START SMALL! I tell myself all the time: K.I.S.S. What's that, you say? Keep It Simple, Stupid! OK, I know it's not PC to call your self "Stupid", but this is more of a self-chastisement. It's a message not to complicate things. Don't over-think things. Look at the facts and do the simplest thing. The simplest thing is usually the right thing.

Let's look at one very simple way we can help the planet.

Did you know . . .

• At least 40% of all bottled water sold in the US is just tap water? Some experts estimate the numbers to be as high as 80%
• FDA Regulations do not require bottled water to be of any higher quality than average city tap water. And FDA regulations for bottled water do not even meet the same standards for certain levels of toxic chemicals, carcinogens and pathogens as city water systems.
• 8 out of 10 plastic water bottles are NEVER recycled? Many are consumed away from home, in places where recycling is not always available.
• The energy we waste using bottled water would be enough to power 190,000 homes.This includes bottles, bottle manufacturing, bottling plants and transportation, but refilling your water bottle from the tap requires a negligible amount of energy.
• More than 1.5 million barrels of oil are used in the US annually to produce plastic bottles. That's enough to fuel 100,000 cars.
• Drinking bottled water costs up to five times more per year than putting gas in your car.

WOW! Why are we drinking this stuff? Mostly because bottled water generates billions of dollars per year in revenue. We have been led to believe, through aggressive and clever advertising, that bottled water is better. Almost everybody has some kind of water filter at home these days. Why not bring a refillable water bottle instead of a throw-away one? If everyone in the US did this for just one day, it would stop an estimated 60 million plastic bottles from ending up in the landfill. That is an astonishing statistic!

If everybody makes a commitment and does this, we can make a huge difference. If everybody doesn't make that commitment, SO WHAT? YOU can still make a difference. Change is viral. It starts out with one person and spreads to another and another and another. It's like your mother always told you: "I don't care what everyone else is doing." It was true when she said it and it's true today. Don't worry about everyone else. Worry about the difference that you can make.

Finally, our third "R" is RE-USE.

Howoften do you re-use anything? We are a disposable society. My parents are both Depression Babies. This is an odd phenomenon which manifests itself as a sort of pack-rat tendency. In many ways, it is not good. It leads to clutter and an unhealthy obsession with hanging on, but it also taught me from an early age to look at things from a different angle: to breathe new life into an old item. If you took a cabinet out of the kitchen it didn't go in the garbage - it went into the garage or the basement or the laundry room. It found a new use.

Re-using is not the same as recycling. Recycling still involves a lot of time, effort and energy. It reduces our carbon foot-print, but it still expends energy and resources. Re-using doesn't take anything. It is simply taking that object and just purely keeping it out of the waste stream. It also helps us reduce, because where we would have purchased an item to serve a particular purpose, we are now re-using an item that has already been created. Once again, it's viral.

So, the next time you are carrying that plastic bottle out to the recycling bin, stop for a second. Think to yourself, what else can I do with this?

Loretta Boyle

www.CraftCycler.com