In some cities garbage workers are intstructed to take a look at a recycling bin beforehand. If they see a single plastic bag they dump the whole thing with the landfill pile. Same for "compostable plastic bags". Bags break really expensive machinery regularly and are probably one of the single worst things you could throw away
There are so many gaps like these in the public's understanding of how recycling works (and doesn't!) and the reality. Mixed plastics are useless; you need to wash your dirty plastics; the triangle doesn't mean it's recyclable it's there to tell you what type of plastic it is (usually only 1, PET, and 2, HDPE, are recyclable). These are the very basics of recycling that, from my experience, the majority of people don't understand. It would take literally 10 minutes to explain most of this to people
We keep bending over backwards trying to innovate our way towards making recycling really behave like the magic green plastic/paper eating box people imagine it to be but I feel like we'd get so much more return on investment if we spent a fraction of our investments on simple public education. At least at this point where that latter investment is basically nil in most places
There are so many gaps like these in the public's understanding of how recycling works (and doesn't!) and the reality. Mixed plastics are useless; you need to wash your dirty plastics; the triangle doesn't mean it's recyclable it's there to tell you what type of plastic it is (usually only 1, PET, and 2, HDPE, are recyclable). These are the very basics of recycling that, from my experience, the majority of people don't understand. It would take literally 10 minutes to explain most of this to people
We keep bending over backwards trying to innovate our way towards making recycling really behave like the magic green plastic/paper eating box people imagine it to be but I feel like we'd get so much more return on investment if we spent a fraction of our investments on simple public education. At least at this point where that latter investment is basically nil in most places