Challenge yourself on recycling on national recycling day and beyond

It’s America Recycles Day this Saturday, and its organizers have suggestions for how you can have an environmental impact by disposing of unwanted household and personal items properly, and not just on this one day but every day.

Pennsylvania Resources Council’s western office Environmental Education Coordinator Laura Blood agrees with those efforts, of course. That impact can increase, though, if people concentrate on two important steps — reduce and reuse — that come before recycling.

Plus she knows PRC can play a major role in expanding that effort even further by dispelling recycling myths that persist.

PRC always marks this special day, sponsored by Keep America Beautiful across the country. The nonprofit organization, founded in 1953, reminds people annually that their small actions can help reduce waste, save energy and conserve resources. Its website states it has “grown into a dynamic movement powered by millions of volunteers, nearly 700 local affiliates, and a coast-to-coast network of civic leaders, companies and local governments.”

Blood said at this time of the year PRC’s collection events — for hard to recycle items and household chemicals — are finishing up, so it promotes the day mainly through educational efforts.

She wrote a blog post on PRC’s website disputing three major recycling myths linking readers to a recycling quiz. It suggests that they take the #AmericaRecycles challenge and use this calendar to try a something new each day of November. 

For example, they can pledge to recycle materials other than glass and plastic not collected in curbside waste collections, such as batteries, bulbs and plastic films. PRC and the Department of Environmental Protection have a recycling hotline at 800-346-4242 to answer questions.

The hard part of dispelling those persistent myths, Blood said, is that outdated information remains out there, circulating on the web and social media. She pointed to these three in particular:

Myth No. 1: Recycling isn’t worth it. Only 9% of the plastics set out for curbside collections get recycled. 

The truth: This statistic comes from a 2017 paper and 2022 data. The reality is it pertains to all plastics produced globally and includes car parts and more. In the city of Pittsburgh, 85% of the recyclables residents put in into their single-stream curbside bins get recycled, according to a 2023 performance audit. That is true for the wider region. About 85% of what Allegheny County residents put in their curbside recycling bins gets sorted, sold and made into new products, proof that recycling really works, according to Allegheny County Health Department Public Health Information Officer Ronnie Das.

Das wrote in an email, “Recycling is good for the economy, environment and our community. When you recycle it’s good for the economy and the environment. National Recycling Day is the perfect time to double-check what goes in your bin.”

Myth No. 2: All the plastic in the ocean comes from people littering. Litter flows into the rivers and eventually into the oceans. 

The truth: Yes, plastic is a large component of litter that can flow into rivers and oceans. However, studies have determined that the main cause of ocean plastic is from mismanaged refuse piles from countries where the U.S. and other developed countries send their excess plastic. They then dump it in open piles, which leads to plastic leaking onto the land, water, air and our bodies. 

Myth No. 3: Recycling facilities should be able to tell what new items are being made from recyclables. 

The truth: Many recycling facilities work with a broker who sells recyclables to a midstream processor. That midstream processor further sorts, separates and refines the material and then sells their refined product to the manufacturer that turns it into a new item. Local recycling facilities often don’t know what manufacturer the midstream processor sells their refined materials to in this process.  

Blood has taken time to link more recent statistics and information on the PRC website, and PRC posts this and all its efforts on social media. What is also critical to her is that people learn more about the life cycle of products and understand why reducing goods and items from their households can make more of an impact.

Why is that important? Because all that occurs to produce goods — including resource extraction, processing, transportation, manufacturing, packaging and more transportation — requires energy and resources. Blood has been including more of this explanation in PRC’s educational programming, including zero-waste workshops, more and more.

“So because of that, it is much better to try to reduce what we use in the first place and reuse things before we even get to the recycle step,” she said. “PRC is kind of known as like the recycle people. … We need to focus a little bit a more upstream in that process before we even get to recycling.”

Suggestions for reducing purchases include limiting food waste, thrifting for clothing and household item purchases, and donating clothing and more to charities and nonprofits to reduce what gets thrown into landfill. Countries across the world have developed sustainable development goals to push those efforts.

An issue is that many of the countries that normally took recyclables, such as plastic, and excess trash from the U.S. aren’t doing so anymore. Blood sees a possibility in that. “[It] gives more opportunity for job creation and business creation in the reuse and recycling space [here],” she said.

She had some simple suggestions for sustainability. Those include using mesh bags for produce purchases instead of plastic bags; buying meat wrapped in paper from counters in stores instead picking up items wrapped in plastic and Styrofoam; sending those single socks, shoes, accessories and old underwear to companies that collect them and plastic bags, wine corks, snack packages and other items not accepted in curbside recycling pickups; and looking for a refillery, a zero-waste store where people can bring, borrow or buy empty containers to reuse and refill with personal and home essentials. 

Two recycling companies that accept items not collected at curbside are Trashie and Ridwell. Those are subscription services, Blood explained, that can provide mailers with QR codes for postage or offer home pickups.

One local decluttering and organizing operation is Redd Up Pittsburgh, which offers a bin collection and in-house services. Blood said it is connected to nonprofits in the region, and it sorts through the items and donates items to women’s shelters and other organizations.  

The education efforts PRC conducts, in person and online, push these solutions. PRC had a successful pilot Eco Scout program this year and would like to repeat if funding can be secured. It also wants to offer more zero-waste workshops. Those are being worked on, and it would involve giving participants kits that include those mesh bags, reusable zip-close bags and reusable water bottles. Blood said those could become swap events with people bringing in grocery store plastic bags for Mason jars, for example, that could hold bulk items or bring home food instead of those Styrofoam containers.  

One aspect of the Eco Scouts program that PRC will continue is teaching the bokashi composting method. A clothing repair and reuse workshop is in Blood’s sights, too, which was also part of Eco Scouts.

Holding these types of educational seminars resonate with her for another reason: “They also tend to give people very low cost resources because we want to make sure that all of these strategies are super accessible, and they’re not just for people that are at high income levels.” 

PRC located its Eco Scouts pilot in McKeesport and Homewood this year, and Blood wants to continue holding workshops in similar communities and develop a list of resources that’s specific to that neighborhood.

That also expands PRC’s educational efforts. “People can use that information, [and] they can share that with whatever community groups are around them,” she said. Another benefit: participants can learn how to advocate for the environment.  

Within all of this, Blood doesn’t want people to get overwhelmed. And reducing and reusing can differ from community to community. She would urge people to do something different each month, keeping in mind resources accessible and practical for them.

She follows this in her life, of course. One month, she and her partner did a garbage audit and realized that 80 to 90% of it was plastic packaging with “way too many takeout containers.” One solution? When they eat out, they don’t bring those containers home.

PRC practices what it advocates as an organization, too. Outgoing PRC Executive Director Darren Spielman posted on its website the success of the fourth annual Zero Waste Non-Event this year. This started three years ago when the organization stopped holding an annual fundraising gala attended by hundreds and avoided an estimated 750 pounds of waste typically generated by the dinners. Instead, PRC is now recognizing donors on digital platforms and at its community education events.