Dirty Recyclables and Confused Compostables? for Questionland Seattle

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Dirty Recyclables and Confused Compostables?

I was at a large event this weekend where the aim was to have zero waste. A great aim, of course, but I was very concerned about the material being placed into recycling bins. I worked in the back, sorting compostables, trash and recyclables, and most of the recyclables were dirty. Yogurt containers lined with residue, smoothie bottles with spirulina, plastic containers with food residue. Nothing was being cleaned, and when I asked, I was told it was okay. But this is not the information I received from SPU, and it’s not what’s listed on our recycling containers at home. I clean everything, and make sure people in my office do the same. Yet at this event, recycling bins were rimmed with wet paper and heavily soiled plastic and glass. It seemed to me that if we’re really to place clean items in the bin, all of these thousands of pounds of recyclables would be useless and tossed out at the plant. Is this so? In that same vein, everything was being tossed in the Cedar Grove compost bin willy nilly, without even verifying if it’s an accepted item on Cedar Grove’s list. I was told directly by Cedar Grove that Starbuck’s cups, among others, weren’t compostable due to the plastic film. It’s a very grey area, and it’s one I don’t think most people understand. We’re all trying to do the right thing, but yes, we are confused. And if Cedar Grove has a list and no one looks at that list, all sorts of things are being tossed in the bin (like Edy’s ice cream containers, lined paper plates or coffee cups) which will sully our compost with plastic, no?

Ellie asked in Recycle/Re-Use about 1 year ago | Report

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Brett Stav

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You are right on all points. First, yes, if it’s dirty it’s not recyclable; unless it’s compostable, it’s garbage. So the dirty yogurt containers you mentioned should have gone in the trash.

As you noted, Starbucks hot cups – in fact, paper hot beverage cups from any shop – are lined with a thin layer of polyethylene. That means that when empty they should go in recycling. Some hot cups are labeled compostable, but that just means the liner is a corn-based bioplastic. They’re still mostly paper and so they, too, should go in recycling. That keeps it simple. All hot cups go in recycling.

We’re disappointed to hear that the event organizers you worked with apparently did a pretty poor job of planning and managing the recycling and composting of the food service products being used. Event recycling is much harder to manage than residential recycling. The residential recycling guidelines allow a wide range of materials and require cleaning of all materials because it is likely that there is convenient access to sinks and wipes to clean food residue from the recyclable containers.

Seattle Public Utilities is working with as many event organizers as possible to help with signage and bins for recycling and compostables so folks can properly discard food service products when they’re done with them.

We understand that the transition to new compostable and recyclable food service products is a big change for a lot of people, so it’s important this year for event sponsors to clearly mark bins and in most cases have volunteers out there monitoring them and helping people discard things properly.

With regard to compostable serviceware, the same challenges exist regarding communicating the guidelines and increasing the understanding of what is compostable and what is garbage. You are correct, the system is being inundated with non-compostable food and beverage packaging that is plastic coated. There is a website that lists all the “approved” compostable packaging, but there are also a number of packaging items that do not fully compost, therefore are not approved, but they appear to be compostable by their appearance.

It is very important that food service businesses select the appropriate packaging for their food and beverages.

Brett Stav answered in Recycle/Re-Use about 1 year ago | Report

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Tom Gannon

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Excellent question!
Seattle's waste streams can be divided into seperate categories: Residential, Commercial, Industrial, and Construction and Demolition (C&D, also referred to as CDL or Construction, Demolition, and Land clearing). That can be even further divided but this is sufficient for this scenerio.

The vast majority of our messaging is for the residential sector. We have hundreds of thousands of residential customers and only several thousand commercial. We regulate virtually all of the residential waste stream including recycling. We do not regulate or directly control commercial recycling.

Residential recycling is very cheap to our customers. Free, actually. To control costs we need to control the material as best we can. This includes being able to guarantee to the processor (Allied/Republic Industries) that the material we are sending them is very clean. Allied's process for Seattle's residential stream is predicated on getting clean material. It's one of best ways to control cost.

Commercial recycling (which is what the event you describe would be) is a different ball of wax entirely. The cost for commercial recycling is much more than residential for most materials. Single stream aluminum you may actually get some money for and the cardboard market is pretty good as well. Everything else is going to cost you money to haul away. The commercial recyclers are able to generate revenue through pickup fees, container rental fees, etc and are less dependent on revenue from the material itself. As a result they may be more inclined to take material that is less than clean (though I do not want to speak for them; there are other factors in play as well). They don't like it, though. In addition, commercial customers can shop around for a hauler that best fits their needs and some may more willing than others to take a chance on potential material condition issues. All of our commercial recycling haulers can and do reject loads for pickup if they are too contaminated. What, exactly, that threshold is varies but I supect that special events are given a bit more latitude than other accounts would be.

The Cedar Grove issue is very much on our radar (as well as Cedar Groves!) and we are working on getting the messaging correct. It is true that there should be no plastic of any kind (short of approved PLA products) going into the food waste bins. Cedar Grove will reject loads that are contaminated if it is a recurring problem. As this is an event I will make some assumptions including that Cedar Grove (or whatever hauler was used) was expecting a less than perfect load and made arrangements to deal with it. Those folks are usually right on top of it and know what they are doing. Part of their process for composting is removing contaminants like coffee cups. It is expensive and less than perfect, however, so we must take this type of contamination seriously.

This may be a good time to bring up another feature of our composting program that is pretty awesome. That is that the food waste we collect here is actually used to create commercially available products (top soil, compost, etc). Other cities that collect food waste use their material for what we call "ADC" or alternative daily cover in a landfill. It is composted and then dumped in the landfill to cap it. Here in SPU we don't even consider that recycling at all. As a result, however, it becomes even more important to ensure a clean stream of material being processed so we need to be vigilant both in our messaging and in our actions as we expand the composting effort.

Tom Gannon answered in Recycle/Re-Use about 1 year ago | Report

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