Recycling Failures 101: It’s not Always Your Fault

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(May 16, 2021) I wrote that headline to appease the SEO gods. Those of you who work regularly with social media know what I mean. If you don’t, even better. I believe in “don’t ask, don’t tell” when it comes In this case, the headline is doing double duty. It delivers a good SEO score. It also gives me a chance to teach my course, Recycling Failures 101: It’s not Always Your Fault. I mean, you, the public. You’re often blamed for recycling failures beyond your control. Why is it so difficult? Why can’t we fix it, especially in Chicago? We explore those questions on today’s show.

If it’s not always your fault, you might wonder why I posted the above photo. To be clear, that ain’t recycling. That’s recycling bin abuse. Food, coffee cups and gym shoes. Yeesh. I want to talk to those folks. I want to understand why they don’t get it. More important, I want someone to teach them good recycling practices. We don’t do that. Not nearly enough. We don’t educate folks about recycling. Also, in the 21st century, we make too much stuff. Stuff that we can’t recycle. And folks don’t know the difference. So they give up.

Marta Keane

Fortunately, we know Marta Keane. She is our fellow instructor for Recycling Failures 101. As Will County proudly points out, she is one busy gal. She recently became the very first president of the Illinois Recycling Foundation (IRF). The IRF became an offshoot of the Illinois Recycling Association (IRA) in 2020. The IRA is a 501(c)6 organization that works on various legislative issues. The new IRF is a 501(c)3 group, which means it provides educational literature, events, tours, networking opportunities, webinars and more. (Full disclosure: I was a board member of the IRA in 2017, before the IRF was created.)

In addition, Keane is on the board of the National Recycling Coalition (NRC). Oh, did I mention she’s chair of the Illinois Product Stewardship Council? She has a real job, too, as Will County Recycling Program Specialist. All of the above is why we invite her to talk recycling on our show.

Recycling Failures 101: How NOT to recycle

Case in point: the City of Chicago. As the Chicago Sun-Times lamented recently, it’s on a road to nowhere, stuck at a rate of 8.8%. Will that change with a new recycling company in the mix?

The city just jettisoned its biggest recycling contractor, Waste Management Inc., North America’s largest waste hauler. A 2018 Better Government Association investigation found that blue bins serviced by Waste Management crews were 20 times more likely to be labeled as contaminated with non-recyclables than bins serviced by other collection crews.

In 2018, we talked to the author of that report, Madison Hopkins. She returned the following year to report on an article with an ominous headline: How Many Of Chicago’s 77,000 Big Buildings Recycle? Nobody Knows. It pulled the covers back on a stunningly ineffective recycling program.

The review of city records found only a tiny fraction of Chicago’s nearly 77,000 larger residential and commercial buildings were ever inspected for compliance despite Emanuel’s get-tough rhetoric, with many being let off the hook by officials, records show.

Personal responsibility

However, we will not torture Marta Keane with Chicago’s nonsensical approach to recycling. At least not for the whole hour. There are other issues we want to discuss in Recycling Failures 101. For instance, why is the public often blamed for low recycling rates? Take the example of Keep America Beautiful. Who can argue with the altruistic philosophy of KAB? David P. Barash can. He is professor of psychology emeritus at the University of Washington. He writes about how, after World War II, Americans were encouraged to throw away products after single use. But Americans learned that lesson too well, resulting in coast-to-coast litter. Enter Keep America Beautiful.

[T]he reason such behemoth companies as Coca Cola and Dixie Cup formed what became the country’s premier anti-littering organization was to co-opt public concern and regulatory responses by shifting the blame from the actual manufacturers of litter—those whose pursuit of profit led to the problem in the first place—to the public, the ostensible culprits whose sin was putting that stuff in the wrong place. Garbage in itself wasn’t the problem, we were told, and industry certainly wasn’t to blame either! We were. 

Meanwhile, public service announcements like “The Crying Indian” reinforced the idea that we were all to blame. Well, all of us except the companies that manufactured all of those single-use products. (By the way, Iron-Eyes Cody, aka “The Crying Indian,” was actually Italian-American.)

EPR

That has led to a concept called Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). EPR adds all of the environmental costs associated with a product throughout its life cycle to the market price of that product. Groups like the Illinois Product Stewardship Council work to make producer responsibility a reality.

Nowhere is that more needed than with plastics. Recycling plastics is difficult. Simply stated, there’s not enough education about how to recycle plastic products. That includes coffee cups, Keurig pods, and too many other items. Don’t even get me started on alkaline batteries. However, you could just reduce and reuse before you recycle. That would help. Yup, we have a lot to discuss. Recycling Failures 101 is now in session.

It’s the biology, stupid

Okay, you’re not stupid. I just want to make that clear. Basically, we like to use that phrase to make a point about soil. And we like to talk about soil with our good friends from Blazing Star Nursery. (Full disclosure: we’re proud that they sponsor our show.) They believe that living soil communities lead to healthy soil and healthy plants. So they team with Tainio Biologicals, Inc and folks like Dennis Warnecke.

Warnecke appeared on our show exactly a year ago. He is Director of Sales and Technical Support at Tainio. He told us this last year.

DON’T TREAT YOUR SOIL LIKE DIRT.  Soil is a living, breathing thing that not only plants depend on, but all life on earth.  Most people regard soil as merely a root anchor and reservoir for chemicals.  The organic approach focuses on prevention.  Potential problems are headed off by using only those fertilizers and other materials that have positive reactions to the soil eco-system.  Great emphasis is placed on the soil and its vitality.  Feed the soil first and the plant will feed itself.  The end result will be a healthier and more productive plant with a deeper root system.

Warnecke believes that focus on soil biology is “long overdue.” He says gardeners can benefit from adding biology to their soil. Of course, questions like why, when and how are important. We will try to squeeze in these points, too.

• Importance of nutrient availability at time of germination.
• Things gardeners do that harm soil health.
• Should you till your soil?
• Ever heard of the rhizophagy cycle? (Me, neither)

Warnecke makes a great final point. As growers, all we’re doing is managing stress. Every time a plant experiences stress, it compromises its health and reduces yield. Keep your plants stress-free. Words to garden by.