HeraldNet: Score one for recycling, composting! Sort of.



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Eco Geek

October 22, 2009

Score one for recycling, composting! Sort of.

Posted at 12:05 pm by Sarah Jackson

Thanks to the lovely little Sightline newsletter, I've been spending way too much time reading about the success of recycling.

First, we have San Fransisco where, as of yesterday composting is the law.

Zero waste, meanwhile, is catching on from Yellowstone to Atlanta to Nantucket, not to mention, of course, the gains made in recent months by Seattle in terms of what is accepted for food-waste composting and recycling (PDF).

The other side of the coin, of course, is that we don't all enjoy the same recycling systems.

Take the yogurt cup, for example. It seems perfectly recyclable.

In Seattle, the No. 5 plastic containers can be thrown in the curbside bin with everything else, including margarine tubs.

You can't do that in Everett.

Why?

I'm not exactly sure. I called Rubatino — which serves most of Everett and parts of Mukilteo — and the friendly and knowledgeable office manager, Larry Goulet, told me there simply isn't a market for that kind of plastic.

If Seattle had found a market for it, he'd sure like to hear about it, he said.

I have a call into Seattle Public Utilities, so I'll keep you posted.

I called Snohomish County and found out no plastics of any kind are accepted at local transfer stations.

Where does that leave us?

If you put your yogurt cups in the recycle bin in protest, you won't be helping your service provider. It will effectively contaminate the load, making it a harder sell to businesses that use recycled materials.

And, yet, it feels horrible to throw them in the garbage, knowing they would be recycled, in theory, if you live a few miles to the south.

I'm afraid there's not much we can do to change this, apart from urging manufacturers to use more recycling-friendly plastics.

Do you have any ideas? Do any of you Eco Geeks store up your unrecyclable recyclables and take them to friends' houses down south?

Write me here to share your thoughts. I am working on a print-edition story and need all the information I can get!