It’s a new explanation of the idea of recycling that I heard on TV recently. A huge part of Recycling is the Cycle. If you purchase a product and its packaging and they are manufactured from virgin material and then you toss what you can of the packaging into the recycling bin – IS THAT REALLY RECYCLING?
Those arrows we are so familiar with create a loop. The first part of the loop is consumers placing recyclable materials in a special bin, not the trash. The second part of the loop is manufacturers purchasing the post-consumer waste to be re-purposed into a product or packaging. The last part of the loop is that we as consumers need to purchase products made of recycled material to show manufacturers that we appreciate their effort and to help keep them in business.
Just because I send a full recycling bin out to the curb every week does not mean that I am helping the environment. I need to be more careful about making sure to purchase products and packaging that are MADE of recycled material (it is usually proudly listed on the back of the product/packaging). It seems a daunting task. I purchase so many products, where do I start? Here is an idea (I found it on the BRBA Australia website):
- Identify one product you purchase
- Identify a similar product that uses recycled content
- Purchase it, if you like it, keep it, if not continue searching
- Start at #1 again with a different product you can replace
When you look for products and packaging made from recycled content, don’t just look for the triple looping arrows symbol. There is not really government regulation regarding the symbol. Look for wording near the symbol like “Contains Recycled Content”, ” Made from Post-Consumer Waste” and “Made from Pre-Consumer Waste”. Sometimes a percentage will be included. Obviously, the higher the percentage, the better.
I was giving myself a free pass to purchase plastics just because they had a recycle symbol on them.
Not all things recycle neatly into the same thing, as do glass and aluminum. Plastics are a good example. They don’t recycle as well as natural materials and most of it may end up in a landfill anyway. I was able to download a plastic packaging resin code chart from the American Chemistry Council’s website. A good example would be the plastic bottles used for water, made from PET/PETE (Polyethylene Terephthalate) can be recycled into, among other things, fiber for carpet. Bottles for milk, plastic bags and cereal box liners are made from HDPE (High Density Polyethylene) and it is usually recycled into bottles for non-food items and plastic lumber. Plastic products are made from non-renewable natural resources. A plastic product that is remade and then possibly not recycled after it’s end use will still end up in a landfill. This ends the cycle, instead of completing the loop of recycling. The unnecessary purchasing of products and packaging that use non-renewable resources is like throwing those resources away.
It may be a little more work until you get used to it, but by purchasing recycled products you are:
- supporting recycling programs
- creating jobs
- conserving natural resources
- saving energy
- reducing waste and pollution
Thanks for the reminder! It’s incredible how I forget some of these simple KEY components of the full cycle! Most of the exposure we get on recycling is focused on how we can turn in recyclables. More definately needs to be said about supporting recycling with our purchasing dollars.