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RECYCLING 101
Recycling in my NYC apartment building is pretty simple.
You are not required to tie papers together or pull heavy
bottles out to the curb. All you have to do is place your
bottles and jugs in the blue bin and the mixed papers in
the green bin outside the back door. I dutifully do my separating every day. I breathe easier (for a moment) knowing I am doing my part. Other than occasionally rooting through the wastebaskets, pulling out toilet paper rolls that my not-so-recycling-conscious husband tosses in there, it is pretty easy.
End of story. Right?
Well…nothing is ever quite as straightforward as you would like. After several conversations with our superintendent, it became clear there was more to the recycling process than I thought. Turns out our building staff spends precious hours digging into the wet garbage (yuck) and pulling out cans and bottles that tenants have thrown in among soggy diapers and banana peels (double yuck). Sounded like overkill to me until I realized that the NYC Sanitation Department fines buildings during spot checks if the building is not complying with the recycling laws.
How hard is it to throw bottles in a bin? Come on, neighbors and, um, husband! But to be fair, it does get confusing. Take yogurt containers, for instance. In our area, the city doesn’t accept yogurt containers for recycling. Huh? They are plastic and there are lots of them out there. Why wouldn’t you recycle them? Sometimes I put yogurt containers in the blue bins thinking that because I am so enthusiastic with my desire to recycle, clearly someone on the other end will do something with them.
I needed the full rundown on the do’s and don’ts of recycling. With a few clicks on the computer, I signed myself up for the NYC Apartment Building Recycling Initiative (ABRI) offered by the NYC Sanitation Department and became our co-op’s self-appointed recycling guru.
The course was informative. I never knew that plastic bottle tops cannot be recycled but metal can tops and the tops of cat food containers can. I also now understand why yogurt containers cannot be recycled. At the moment, there is no end user for this type of plastic. The same is true for plastic bags. If there is no company that will buy the recycled yogurt containers, the city doesn’t want it in their recycling stream. The most important advice we received was how to make it super easy to recycle. It is all in the signage. Make it clear what goes where and people will recycle.
The next stop was a field trip to the Sims Group recycling plant in New Jersey, hosted by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). This plant picks up and processes metals, plastics and glass from NYC’s curbside recycling program. I was mesmerized by the mountain of plastic jugs and bottles in a football field–size tent collected in one day. The bottles go through massive sorting machines and are then baled and sold to other companies that further process the plastics before turning them into a whole host of things, including new water bottles, carpeting, clothing and plastic furniture.
It is great to know where this stuff goes. And I have already written a note to the tenants in my building about improving our recycling habits. But what I learned more than anything is how important it is not to buy as many bottles and jugs and cans. Reuse when you can and buy in bulk when you have to buy new. Check out your local sanitation department website or call and ask questions about what can or can’t be recycled and where the recycled stuff goes.
And most importantly, tell your friends and neighbors about how to recycle. Spread the word!
In 2006, Francesca Olivieri co-founded the company sage baby, an online eco-friendly baby store offering everything from organic clothes and skincare to furniture. She also writes a monthly blog for Scenic Hudson as well as contributes articles to Daily Candy Kids, CitiScoop and NRDC’s Simple Steps. She continues to watch her green business grow while seeking to apply her values to her own home and family. Francesca lives in New York City with her husband and three kids, 8, 6 and 4.
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