There's little market for them, and they can cause operational problems at recycling facilities when they get caught in machinery, requiring removal and repairs. Sometimes yogurt tubs and lids, labelled No 5, are pulled from other mixed plastics to be recycled separately, as there is a growing, but limited, US market for recycling them.īags and plastic wrap, known in the industry as "film wrap", are not regarded as mixed plastics but are still extremely problematic. Items made of plastic that is rigid and bulky – crates, coolers, buckets, lawn furniture or play structures – are also defined by the recycling industry as mixed plastics. A lot of mixed plastics are items that consumers encounter every day, such as clamshell-style containers, salad and berry tubs, meat trays, cold beverage cups and lids, plastic cutlery, or dairy tubs and lids. The category of "mixed plastics" (sometimes also called "mixed rigid plastic" in the recycling industry) includes virtually everything except for plastic jugs and bottles labeled No 1 and No 2, which retain a high value. Right now, Kharrat said, “it does not appear that there are any local or foreign markets” for mixed plastics, and that what is collected in residential recycling bins and processed at his organization’s facilities is sent for disposal.Įvery plastic item is given a number from 1-7 to signify the kind of plastic it is made from. The recycling business depends on someone being willing to buy the materials that recyclers are selling. “Mixed plastics is a broad category that could consist of everything from car bumpers to five-gallon buckets or yogurt containers,” said Habib Kharrat, a supervising engineer for the sanitation districts of Los Angeles county, which serve some cities and unincorporated areas. And it appears that many other recyclers are doing exactly the same thing. Los Angeles county public works estimates that in 2018, the county sent more than half a million tons of plastic to four different landfills, and nearly 20,000 tons of plastic to its waste-to-energy incinerator. The Guardian has learned that recycling facilities are separating “mixed plastics” from those plastics which still retain value – such as water bottles, laundry detergent bottles and milk jugs – and, contrary to what customers expect, sending them directly to a landfill or incinerator. Take Los Angeles county, the most populous in America. It has become clear that there are virtually no domestic manufacturers that want to buy this waste in order to turn it into something else. The issue is with a popular class of plastics that people have traditionally been told to put into their recycling bins – a hodgepodge of items such as clamshell-style food packaging, black plastic trays, take-out containers and cold drink cups, which the industry dubs “mixed plastic”. Photograph: Hardy Wilson/The GuardianĪs municipalities are forced to deal with their own trash instead of exporting it, they are discovering a dismaying fact: much of this plastic is completely unrecyclable. Pai recently learned that her recycling center would no longer accept much of what she used to bring.
This is enough plastic to fill 250 Olympic swimming pools each month.
But much of what remains has nowhere to go.Īnalysis of US export records shows that the equivalent of 19,000 shipping containers of plastic recycling per month, once exported abroad, is now stranded at home. This week, the Guardian revealed that what still goes overseas is inundating countries including Vietnam, Turkey, Malaysia and Senegal. In total, only about half (56%) of the plastic waste that America once exported is still being accepted by foreign markets in the wake of China’s ban.
#INTO THE TRASH IT GOES FULL#
“All these years I have been feeling like I’m doing something responsible,” said Pai, clearly dumbstruck as she walked away with a full bag. Now the turmoil besetting a global trade network, which is normally hidden from view, is hitting home. The move sent shockwaves through the American industry as recyclers scrambled, and often failed, to find new buyers. Once the largest buyer of US plastic waste, the country shut its doors to all but highest-quality plastics in 2017. The “market conditions” on the sign Pai saw referred to the situation caused by China.
From Los Angeles to Florida to the Arizona desert, officials say, vast quantities of plastic are now no better than garbage. Instead, they are being landfilled, burned or stockpiled. This is a reality that millions more Americans will have to adjust to.Ī Guardian investigation reveals that cities around the country are no longer recycling many types of plastic dropped into recycling bins.
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