By Amelia Petty, Sidwell Friends School
Recycling has held the national spotlight as a main solution to fighting plastic pollution and waste reduction for a long time. Despite the attention it receives as a beacon of hope for environmentalism, the system is flawed. Over the past couple of years, the Washington D.C. recycling system has undergone many changes and improvements. While the recycling system in D.C. has shown signs of improvement, it needs major changes and large scale reform of the problems it is facing. If Washington D.C. seeks to improve sustainability and reduce its global footprint, the city must consider reforming its recycling system.
The contamination of recyclables is the first major issue, and is related to another problem: residents not knowing how to recycle and what really is recyclable. The second major issue is e-scrap, or electronic waste in D.C., which is currently being sent to large corporations who use them for metals and materials. Corporate access to reusing electronic waste is framed as a current solution, but I believe that it is more costly and much more difficult. Lastly, the cost of recycling (especially glass recycling) has gone up with the amount of recycling in the city, making alternative solutions more appealing.
The city has a reliable pickup schedule for residential areas which include recycling cans in addition to the normal trash cans. This is an improvement, but there are also issues that come with this seemingly logistically functioning routine. Firstly, many DC residents do not specifically understand which items can be recycled or not, leading to lots of contamination. Contamination includes adding any food product or object that is not meant to be recycled. Throwing trash into a recycling bin renders the whole batch useless, sending it to landfills with the rest of the trash. Around the globe, only nine percent of recyclable materials are actually recycled, which is an alarmingly low amount, and is mainly due to contamination: where materials are recycled with good intention, but are sent to landfills. Amanda Farnan, the Communications Director for the DC council, stated in an Ecosystemic conducted interview that “contamination is one of the biggest issues with the recycling system right now. That, and the lack of knowledge on what can be recycled are very important for the success of city recycling.” Similarly, another flaw in DC’s recycling system is that there is only one general recycling bin for all recycled materials, even when the materials contained are recycled in distinct ways.
Some simple solutions to this issue would be implementing awareness programs that seek to educate DC residents on recyclables. DC currently has something like this in place for compostable items, where residents can sign up for a course called the Community Compost Cooperative Network, included in the Home Composting Incentives Amendments Act. Simple things such as putting up more signs about recycling and acceptable materials would help in a similar way. The addition of a minor fine for obvious mistakes in determining trash from recycling would also serve as a very good solution to the common mistakes made while recycling.
Recycled materials collected from the city, especially electronic scrap metals, are sent to corporate companies, where they are recycled. This is one solution to get rid of the recycled materials, but, alternative solutions could be implemented to improve the situation in DC. With a large unemployment rate in the area, offering jobs to people to repair old electronics and to collect valuable materials from it could be beneficial. This job requires little prior training or skill, and would be monumental for the vast population of jobless people in DC, while simultaneously helping the city’s recycling system. This would also be a cheaper alternative to shipping out the material, since the necessary resources are readily available in the city. There is also a financial aspect of this problem we must consider: the cost of recycling has increased dramatically over the past couple years, from $75-$122 per ton. This is partially due to the cut off of US contaminated recyclables being sent to corporations in China, but also because of the general rising cost to recycle.
These issues are just some of the many that need to be reformed in order for Washington DC’s recycling system and overall sustainability to improve. While the DC Council is currently working towards solutions to these issues, there are still less recycling cans on streets than trash cans overall, especially near the National Mall and other historic sites that attract tourists. In my lifetime as a DC resident, I have noticed an increase in recycling cans throughout the city, but I still observe trash and plastic that sits in the gutters on sidewalks and overflowing cans. There have been many new strides for recycling in the city, but without addressing these prominent flaws, that nine percent of goods recycled globally will stay firm and fixed.
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