What does it mean to be recyclable?
The journey of a plastic yogurt container demonstrates our recycling challenges
Recycling plastic is one of those things that works better in theory than in practice, like grocery shopping without a list. Case in point: In 2018, only 4.4 percent of plastics were actually recycled. That’s because in order for something old to be recycled into something new, it has to meet specific criteria, and a lot of things need to go right. To illustrate this, consider the journey of the plastic yogurt container.
Step 1: Collection
If you look at the bottom of a yogurt container, you’ll see a number inside a triangular recycling symbol, which tells you what kind of plastic it’s made from. Many, including the one pictured below, are made from #5 plastic, or “PP” for polypropylene. There are seven general types of plastic, represented by the numbers 1–7.
To confirm that your #5 container will be accepted for recycling in your area, check your local waste department’s website. Frustratingly, one municipality’s list of acceptable materials may be different from the next.
If #5 plastics are accepted in your area, great! Give your yogurt container a good rinse and toss it into the recycling bin. If it’s not, then you’re out of luck, and your container is headed to the landfill.
Step 2: Sorting
Let’s assume for the sake of this story that your municipality accepts #5 yogurt containers. Once collected, the container will be transported to a local material recovery facility (MRF) to be sorted. The purpose of a MRF is to separate recyclable materials from one another. In this case, our yogurt container and other #5 plastics from things like paper, aluminum, steel, glass and other plastics. Better separation — by plastic type, even by color — equals better value down the line.
MRFs have varying capabilities. Many rely on manual sorting. Some have fancy machine sorters that can separate plastic types automatically with lasers, but as you might imagine, laser-powered sorting equipment is expensive and relatively uncommon. It’s also very difficult to sort small and oddly shaped items, such as straws or coffee pods, so if your yogurt is a single-serving sized container that’s too small to be sorted, it heads to the landfill.
Step 3: Selling
Let’s assume again that everything goes right, and our #5 yogurt container is successfully sorted into a bale with a bunch of other plastic containers.
Now, somebody has to buy this bale from the recycling facility. You might be wondering, who would want a bunch of plastic containers? This is the million dollar question. Here in the U.S., we have little domestic infrastructure, and therefore little interest. Countries like China and India used to be big buyers, but have both recently banned the import of scrap plastics. Other countries, such as Malaysia, might be interested unless they find a cheaper bale elsewhere. Even if another country does buy the plastic, there’s no guarantee that your yogurt container won’t be illegally dumped, finding its way into the ocean.
Regardless, the value of plastic scrap has dropped so much that some recycling facilities are now losing money to get rid of material. In the probable case that nobody buys the bale, it will go — you guessed it — to the landfill.
Step 4: Reprocessing
Some cities no longer accept mixed plastics. Others have halted curbside recycling altogether. With that said, it remains possible (though highly unlikely) that somebody will buy the bale with the intention of handling the material responsibly. Even then, your yogurt container may not be valued as highly as other containers in the bale, and will be sent to the landfill anyway. Maybe, just maybe, it will have a second life, shredded and blended with virgin plastic to make a new container, or woven into an industrial fabric.
But probably not. After all, your yogurt container was never designed to have a second life. Over time, producers have produced cheaper and cheaper forms of disposable plastic, which is great for their bottom line but terrible for recycling because those items can’t be profitably turned into something new.
Perhaps the truth shouldn’t surprise us. How can we expect things that were designed to be used for a few minutes — yogurt containers, plastic bags, foam cups, straws — to hold value?
That’s not to say that we should give up on recycling as an ethos, but we need to recognize that cheap, disposable plastics need to be replaced with more durable and reusable options. If you’re a yogurt consumer, that’s tough, because most containers are made from relatively un-recyclable plastic. Outside of making your own yogurt, here are a couple things you can do:
- Talk to your legislator. Advocate for policies that reduce single-use plastic waste, not just yogurt containers, but plastic bags, foam containers, straws, and other products.
- Support “extended producer responsibility” policies, too. Currently, producers don’t bear any of the cost of disposing their products. If they did, they’d be more inclined to design their products for reuse.
- Talk to producers directly. Tell your favorite yogurt brand to embrace reusable packaging. Some companies are now investing in a new, 21st-century milk man model, allowing customers to consume and return goods in reusable packaging. We need more of that.
Ultimately, we have to think outside of the box to solve our recycling woes. Certainly, we need producers to design products intended for reuse. But we also need to support collective movement to consume less stuff, and less disposable stuff. Doing so will not only help de-contaminate our recycling streams and restore value, but it will also bring much-needed reprieve to our plastic-laden planet.
