Recycling in My Kitchen

"While there remains a viable market in the United States for scrap like soda bottles and cardboard, it is not large enough to soak up all of the plastics and paper that Americans try to recycle. The recycling companies say they cannot depend on selling used plastic and paper at prices that cover their processing costs, so they are asking municipalities to pay significantly more for their recycling services. Some companies are also charging customers additional 'contamination' fees for recycled material that is mixed in with trash." -- NY Times, "As Costs Skyrocket, More U.S. Cities Stop Recycling," March 16, 2019.

In my kitchen: lots of containers and packaging that need recycling. Or at least I think they do. The rules for recycling have been changing rapidly. A few years ago, most containers, clean cardboard, and lots of other things were welcomed into the recycling center where they were sorted and sent to manufacturers who paid at least some money. Our city, Ann Arbor, made money out of trash.

As I said in a recent blog post about the history of recycling, expecting too much from recycling was not a sustainable habit for Ann Arbor citizens or anyone throughout the country to have acquired, and many practical recycling problems now plague us. Like many people, I'm worried about the vast quantities of plastic polluting our waterways and endangering fish and wildlife, and about the vast quantities of all kinds of trash piling up in our landfills.

My pantry shelves are full of containers. My understanding: the metal and glass can all be recycled, though glass is
becoming less desirable. The soup packages are recyclable now, but may become more problematic.

Here's one of the mistakes I have learned: you can't recycle the plastic that
wraps the cardboard that contains the Coke cans. It's great that Michigan
requires a 10-cent deposit on cans, and so they are really recycled. But the
rest is up to us: the plastic is trash, not recycling!

How do we buy vegetables? Here's a recent picture of the offerings at Argus Farm Stop, a consignment store where local
farmers bring their produce. In March, there's not a lot of soft fruit, but I did find hoop-house lettuce, carrots and other
root vegetables that I think were saved from last season, and a few other things. You could use your own bags or use
paper or plastic bags that Argus provides. Sadly, plastic bags are one of the most serious problems for recycle centers.

Trader Joe's also offers lots of unpackaged fruit and vegetables, obviously
not local. Some like these are offered unwrapped, others in plastic boxes.

At Costco, there's a lot of packaging that has to be recycled. These light-
weight plastic boxes have a number 1 in the little triangle, so they are
recyclable in Ann Arbor. Maybe better than plastic bags?

Here in my kitchen: plastics marked with the little triangle with a "2" in it.
All bottles and tubs in this plastic are accepted for city recycling. No lids.

Also in my kitchen: plastics with the number 1. "The City of Ann Arbor accepts
all #1 bottle and tub-shaped containers in the curbside recycling program."

My worry: am I putting the wrong things in the bin? Juice cartons are still allowed. My junk mail is ok.
But the big question: can we keep on doing things the same way? Will a lot of this have to go to landfill?

It's hard to avoid what they call "aspirational recycling" -- that is, putting not-recyclable items in the bin with the good stuff. Greasy pizza boxes or take-out containers, any and all plastic bags, disposable beverage cups and their lids, K-cups from pod coffee makers, and the wrong kinds of plastic packaging are the worst offenders. A few mistakes by consumers, well-meaning or not,  can make large amounts of recycling unacceptable. Many cities are being priced out of the market for selling recyclables because of too many mistakes in people's kitchens as well as because as of last January, China has ceased to accept the shiploads of poorly sorted American recycling.

Am I irresponsible for buying these madeleines that are in a box and each
individually packaged? I like them this way because they don't get stale.

"About 25 percent of what ends up in the blue bins is contaminated, according to the National Waste & Recycling Association. For decades, we’ve been throwing just about whatever we wanted—wire hangers and pizza boxes and ketchup bottles and yogurt containers—into the bin and sending it to China, where low-paid workers sorted through it and cleaned it up. That’s no longer an option. And in the United States, at least, it rarely makes sense to employ people to sort through our recycling so that it can be made into new material, because virgin plastics and paper are still cheaper in comparison." -- The Atlantic, "Is This the End of Recycling?" March 5, 2019.

Winter tomatoes are tasteless, but  the best are Campari tomatoes grown in
hoop houses in Canada. The box definitely protects the fragile fruit.
It's a number 1, but what are the consequences for the environment?

Recyclable? Ann Arbor recycling says yes to numbers 4-7
tubs and containers. Other programs may not accept them.

Much of the US population drinks K-Cup coffee, and most K Cups aren't recyclable. At least I do right in this department.
These are locally roasted beans, packaged in a paper bag, and made into coffee without any filters or waste other
than the coffee grounds. Even K Cups that are said to be recyclable are often too small for the equipment and
cause problems at recycling plants. Something like 40% of coffee drinkers now use K-Cup machines.

Many other environmental issues have become pressing in recent years. Pollution comes from cars, planes, farm animals, careless trash disposal, factory effluent, smoke, and many other sources. I have tried to limit my discussion here to just one small corner of the problem, but a corner where I can actually do something no matter how small.

Every month, bloggers on several continents share what's in their kitchens by posting at Sherry's "In My Kitchen" (http://sherryspickings.blogspot.com/). I'm sharing this post with them, and I hope some of them will tell us about recycling issues in their environments.