Taylor Swift's famous words that “Trash takes itself out every single time” seems to foreshadow a future in which the trash really takes itself out. But with the recent development of recycling technology, the notion is not unlikely. As our demand for sustainability continues to skyrocket, our trust in our recycling systems also continues to fall, with a survey from the Recycling Partnership concluding that “44 percent of respondents admitted they are unsure if their recycling is in fact being recycled, and another 35 percent of respondents admitted to wondering if their local recycling program is “handling recycling properly”” (Plastic Reimagined). But in our constantly advancing world, advanced recycling technologies are paving a real path for change with recycling policies and AI.
Our world's clean recycling hubs
Germany has one of the highest rates of recycling in the world, and while Japan only has a recycling rate of 20%, its plastic water bottles recycling rates exceed 80%, an aspect of the recycling system that the United States continuously seems to struggle with. Looking at both of these countries could provide useful insights into how the United States could tackle its recycling problem. Germany’s GreenDot system has been in practice for about 35 years, and is the most successful recycling initiative worldwide. Companies manufacturing goods are forced to pay fees, and products with thicker paper glass or other material will need to pay a higher fee by the government. The implementation of this policy has allowed Germany to sport a recycling rate of 68%, and by implementing policies such as this one, Germany can stop overconsumption of goods and overuse of certain materials. An initiative such as this would be extremely useful in the United States, “the world's leading country in overconsumption. The U.S. population is less than 5% of the world's population, but it accounts for 33% of its consumption” (ScienceX).
Japan’s program is slightly different, as instead of tackling overconsumption, it finds ways to tackle the plastic waste problem in the area. Due to its smaller landmass, Japan needed to find ways to take out the trash that wouldn’t take up as much space, so just dumping the waste in landfills wouldn’t work. But the process of thermal recycling by burning plastics to create electricity might seem revolutionary yet is only a short term solution due to its inevitable environmental impacts. By contrasting both these countries and the United States, let’s understand the tools that we have at our disposal to counter climate change and change our recycling systems for the better.
Understanding America's recycling system
To start off, American recycling systems are extremely inconsistent. Since recycling operates differently in different communities and different states, it is not centralized and there aren’t enough regulations on the recycling after that, especially for plastics. But for areas with proper recycling programs, the plastic recycling is recycled using one of the two methods, mechanical or chemical recycling. “Currently, the dominant technology for plastic recycling is mechanical recycling, which uses physical processes—such as sorting, grinding, washing, separating, drying, and re-granulating—to recover plastics that can be substituted for virgin, or new, plastics. However, mechanical recycling technology is expensive, labor intensive, and generally results in lower quality plastics than virgin plastics.” (GOA) Chemical recycling on the other hand which is not as widely used in the United States is the process of using chemical reactions to turn plastics back into raw material or fuel which doesn’t result in degradation of quality. Despite concerns about toxicity of plastics after recycling, efforts are ongoing to make recycled products better and safer.
Furthermore, one of the biggest barriers in the recycling system is that the United States used to be completely dependent on China for plastic recycling. Prior to this ban, the United States would ship recycled plastic to China. Yet in 2018, China’s National Sword policy banned the import of most plastics and other materials that were not up to new, more stringent purity standards since a large portion of United States plastics given for recycling were not properly sorted. In addition, aluminum, paper, and glass materials were not impacted largely by China’s ban, but the United States plastic recycling industry clearly was. Since our plastic recycling market was dependent on China for so long our domestic market never received the chance to develop, causing our plastic recycling rate to rest at a comfortable and dismal 9% even though the actual amount recycled is more than that.
Solutions
In order to solve the problem of plastic recycling, only 3 solutions remain. First, that the U.S. government can completely revamp its recycling systems, building additional recycling facilities to keep up with the large amount of recycling produced by the United States. But while the government is currently striving to do that, such a widespread effort takes time, and even if these recycling centers were built right away, the United States faces the same problem that it did with China-contamination. Solving this takes effort both by technology to properly sort recycling(the 2nd solution) and our own efforts to learn about recycling(the 3rd solution) to sort waste. It takes a collective effort on all of our parts to learn and implement this recycling education, and after doing it becomes a habit, it is not too hard to continue.
Conclusion
In all, learning about recycling as well as implementing what we learn in our own lives is possibly one of the best things that we can do for our plastic problem. If every single person in the world recycled, not only would we reduce plastic waste by a significant amount, but we would also create a circular economy, and carve out a future of sustainability. As the United States’s recycling industry is taking its time to get things back together, let’s not be self-indulgent since technology can only do so much without our contribution. Let’s do our part to start recycling more, and learn how to recycle properly. Because quite contrary to what Taylor said, we can’t just wait for the trash to take out itself.