I bet you are recycling wrong!
Last year, I had written a two-part series for The Plymouth Independent on recycling. Yet, I had to refer back to one of the articles to refresh my own (pathetic) memory.
The article contained this picture of cups (from RecycleSmart.org), asking which cups are recyclable. The answer appears at the end of this story.
A lot of folks remain shocked by the answer.
In fact, I am annoyed that most Plymouth-area trash and recycling haulers, which residents must contract with, do not do a better job at teaching and promoting what is, and what is not, recyclable. This lack of effort only forces more manual sorting at recycling facilities.
Here is a greater infraction: Just prior to publishing my article, one local “recycling” hauler actually picked up both our trash and recyclables in the same truck without bothering to separate the two; this surreptitious vendor just dumped everything at our at West Wareham’s SEMASS facility, which burns trash to generate electricity. Reportedly, this hauler has subsequently corrected that failure.
“Landfills are not a sustainable solution, because we are running out of space; we can’t just keep expanding them forever,” said Ken Stone of Sustainable Plymouth’s Solid Waste and Plastic Reduction Group. “Waste-To-Energy plants are necessary, but not a long-term solution either, since they create a harmful residue that must be disposed of in landfills and they expel contaminants into the environment from their stacks, especially the older facilities.”
You can find a list of recycling and waste haulers approved by the Plymouth town (and information on recycling) on its website: https://www.plymouth-ma.gov/1107/Residential-Trash-Recycling
The answer to that recycling quiz: The only cups that are recyclable are aluminum. Not Styrofoam. Not paper cups. Not those multi-colored plastic cups!
In fact, those black plastic take-out containers? They are not recyclable, because the current machinery cannot detect the color black!
So let’s try to recycle…better.