Yahoo Finance Are you recycling responsibly in Sacramento? Here’s what to toss in the bin — plus more tips
Typically, a person gathers the recyclables they’ve collected for several days and lugs a color-coded bin — branded with circling arrows — to the curb of their house with the idea that they’ve recycled.
But the process of recycling has just begun — and not all of it will make it to reuse.
To recycle materials responsibly means to first understand what recycling means. It’s not just the act of putting an empty soda can into a recycling bin, nor is it when materials are sorted and processed by facility workers. The cycle is only complete when a material is converted into a new product and used again.
“Just throwing stuff haphazardly in your recycling cart doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to get recycled because if it’s not placed in the cart properly or if it’s not the right item you could ruin other recycling that’s being collected along the state route,” said Paul Rosynsky, the spokesperson for Waste Management Northern California - Nevada.
But for many people, including Sacramento resident Jennifer Wood — who accumulates more recyclable material than garbage — the do’s and don’ts of recycling aren’t clear.
“I don’t even wash out my recycling anymore, I often just throw it into the bin,” said Wood, who asked the California Utility Team to look into the city’s recycling system. “I don’t even rinse out cans because I’ve never really been given any serious messaging about cleaning them out.”
Single-stream recycling, where all recyclables are placed into the same bin, has made recycling easier for consumers but results in about one-quarter of the material being contaminated by being placed in the wrong bin or getting soiled with food, according to a Columbia University Climate School 2020 report.
Rosynsky said, for example, if someone places a half-filled water bottle into the recycling bin, it’ll get crushed and the water will spill out, ruining other material.
“And then that paper or cardboard is kind of dissolved because it’s all wet and it won’t be able to get recycled,” he said.
Another problem recycling facilities face is the use of plastic bags.
“We all put plastic bags in our recycle carts and trash carts, but once it gets here, that plastic is not recyclable — it’s trash,” said Casey Vaccarezza, director of operations at Cal-Waste Recovery Systems, another regional recycling service, in a December 2020 interview with The Bee. “Emptying out those plastic bags that you put in your carts, in your cans in your house, really helps.”
Not everyone knows this, though — and they don’t want to recycle in vain.
“I think people would be interested to know about this because I think a lot of people are just confused and we just do whatever,” said Wood, who recycles about 40 gallons of recycled material bi-weekly.
To further improve the recycling system, California Gov. Newsom recently signed a bill into law that prohibits the placement of the chasing arrow — a symbol that signifies that an item is recyclable — from being placed on an item that cannot be recycled.
“We’ve always said don’t recycle by what you see on the container in terms of the recycling arrows but recycle by object type,” Rosynsky said.
Accepted recyclable materials include plastic bottles and containers, food and beverage cans, paper and flattened cardboard — excluding, for example, your greasy pizza box.
The journey your recyclables take
Recycling is typically picked up by the City of Sacramento and it’s mixed with other residential recycling. The material is then transported to a center — like Waste Management’s Sacramento Center and Transfer Station — where multi-million dollar machines and staff sort through it.
Then optical scanners, air blowers and other machines are used to help sort cardboard and paper, glass and plastic into different piles. If the material is in good condition, the separated piles are pressed together and shipped to companies that turn the material into something else.
Glass gets chopped up and reused and paper and cardboard are turned into newer material.
Rosynsky said any residential plastic that Waste Management collects isn’t shipped overseas, but is rather processed and shipped to a company in the U.S. that makes benches, coats and shoes — to name a few.
In 2019, Waste Management, the U.S.’s largest trash hauler, said it sent almost one-quarter of its plastic recyclables overseas before ending the practice altogether. But even after 180 countries agreed to strict limits on exports of plastic waste from richer countries to poorer ones, data showed that America didn’t listen.
In 2020, Nation Geographic reported that the U.S. has a 30-year history of shipping its recyclable plastic overseas, primarily to China and elsewhere. And while China may be the world’s largest manufacturer of plastic, the United States is the world’s largest generator of plastic waste, producing about 42 million metric tons in 2016.
“The stories about a lot of recycled plastic just getting dumped in various countries and not really being processed, we’ve committed to not doing that,” Rosynsky said. “We’ve committed to making sure that all of the recycling that we collect — plastic — stays in the U.S. and is actually processed.”
Recycling buy-back centers
Another method of recycling is through the California Redemption Value program. Consumers pay California Redemption Value (CRV) when they purchase beverages from a retailer, and receive CRV refunds when they redeem the containers at a recycling center, according to the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery, or Cal Recycle.
Most beverages packaged in aluminum, glass, plastic and Bi-metal containers are eligible for CRV. While milk, wine and distilled spirits are not included in the CRV program.
Consumers are asked to dump any liquid from their cans and jars and separate the materials. The recyclables are then checked for their integrity, weighed and the consumer is paid. Consumers are given 5 cents for each beverage container less than 24 ounces and 10 cents for each container 24 ounces or greater.
The collected materials are then sold to processors who bail it, send it abroad, or to paper mills. In Sacramento, that process is executed by Capital City Recycling and Ming’s Recycling, one of the oldest certified recycling centers in Sacramento County.
“I would say our plastic bottles, which is the most recyclable material nowadays, probably every two or three days we send a truckload to [Ming’s Recycling],” said Jason Wu, the owner of Capital City Recycling. “And then maybe once every five days we send a truckload of cans.”
Capital City Recycling uses machines to condense its collected recycled material, then it is packed into a bin. Ming’s Recycling — which services between 100 to 300 people a day — then further compacts it, bails it and it’s shipped off to be converted into new material.
“Most of those markets are either in California or the U.S., so the CRV program has good material in them,” said Jeff Donlevy, the general manager for Ming’s Recycling. “The curbside programs may have some material that they can’t find homes for anymore.”
The California Statewide Commission on Recycling Markets & Curbside Recycling published an expansive 183-page report in June aimed at providing recommendations for state lawmakers and regulators to help California get back on track with achieving recycling and others goals.
The commission process was kicked off by the 2019 California Recycling Market Development Act and subsequent legislation, which sought recommendations on how the state can meet its recycling goals: recycling, composting or source-reducing at least 75% of solid waste generated in the state by 2020.
The state missed this goal, hitting an estimated 37% in 2020. California reached a 37% recovery rate in 2019, down from a 40% rate the previous year, according to the commissioners’ report.
“I think people are doing a really good job recycling right,” Rosynsky said. “If the material is recyclable material we’re going to capture it to recycle it.”
Make recycling easy
Plastic bottles and containers (make sure they’re clean, dried and the cap is placed back on).
Food and beverage cans
Paper
Flattened cardboard
Recyclable electronics include:
Electronics do not go in the bin. They should be taken to a household hazardous waste collection facility.
Desktop and laptop computers
Monitors and TVs
Printers, copiers and scanners
Ink and toner cartridges
Hard drives
Batteries
Cell phones and tablets
Digital cameras
Cords
Keyboards
Accepted CRV materials include:
Aluminum cans
Glass bottles
Plastic bottles
Bi-Metal cans
Accepted non-ferrous materials include:
Aluminum
Copper
Brass
Other materials (stainless steel, dirty stainless steel, die-cast, 5% cast aluminum, irony aluminum, litho, lead).
Items not accepted in recycle bins:
Bagged recyclables
Plastic bags
Plastic wrap and film
Flexible packaging
Polystyrene foam and plastic
Sacramento-area recycling centers
Ming’s Recycling
Contact: 916-281-0476
Address: 3316 47th Ave., Sacramento
Hours of operation: 8:30 a.m. to noon, 12:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Saturday
Capital City Recycling
Contact: 916-334-3591
Address: 3185 Longview Drive, Sacramento
Hours of operation: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., Saturday to Sunday
For additional certified recycling center locations, visit CalRecycle.
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