Recycling has been in the news recently, and not in a good light. Some good questions were asked in recent letters to the editor.
As a past chair of St. Albert’s environmental advisory committee, I learned hard truths about recycling about a decade ago. I was on a sub-committee that met with actual recycling and waste management experts.
The hardest truth was that most “recyclable” plastics being collected weren’t actually being recycled. They were being stockpiled or landfilled because there wasn’t a market for them. With the new exclusion of clamshell plastics, it seems that not only have things not changed, they have become worse.
So, to the first question – why can’t clamshell plastic containers be recycled and why couldn’t we just put a new bin for them in the city’s recycling yard? As with all things in recycling, it is about economics. Period. If no one wants to buy it, why spend the money collecting and storing it? There is also the difference between something being recyclable – which is a purely theoretical concept – and actually being recycled – meaning that someone wants it, buys it and turns the material into a new product.
The identifying number stamp on a plastic container makes it theoretically recyclable. But it is only if a company finds it cheaper to use waste stream plastics than the pure starting materials that plastic will move from being recyclable to actually being recycled.
The economic reality is that pure petrochemicals are cheaper than recyclables as feedstocks. There is a chemical explanation for the economics. Clamshells use hard, clear plastics which are costlier to recycle because more energy is needed to melt them so they can be moulded into a different shape – and that’s assuming the plastic is pure.
Here’s where the “oops” comes. Most clamshell plastics have identifying adhesive labels. The labels are not easily removed and contaminate the melted resin, usually turning it brown and changing its composition. Economics once more. Who needs a lower grade, brown plastic resin? Apparently not enough companies (see https://www.adhesives.org/docs/pdfs/plastic_clamshell_recycling_report_.pdf?sfvrsn=0). There is a solution to this – band clamshells with cardboard labels having no adhesives – but this must be more expensive or it would be done already.
Second question – why not have 20,000 households drive their recycling to a yard instead of having a handful of trucks drive around the city? Same logic as why it is better to have 30 people on a bus than driving their own cars. The trucks are transit for our recycling. Also, more people blue bag than are willing to drive to a yard, and not everyone drives.
I share frustrations with changes to the system, but it is not some arbitrary administrative decision by the city. It is worldwide economics affecting the company contracted to run the blue bag system. And if $5 per month is too much for some to pay for the blue bag program, I guarantee you that the much higher price of having government-run programs to find a use for the recyclables that aren’t being actually recycled would cost an awful lot more.
This is not a “St. Albert problem.” As Mayor Cathy Heron pointed out recently, it is a national and international one.
So unfortunately, for now, clamshell plastics are garbage until an entrepreneur finds a good use for them.
And although our blue bag program accepts less, I am still far happier to use it than to store and drive my own recycling to a yard that is a 15-kilometre round trip from my home.
Jason Cooke, PhD (Chemistry), St. Albert
