The Trap of Wishcycling
By: Leyla Acaroglu
Tags: Recycling, Sustainability, Wishcycling, Environment, Waste

Plastics are particularly problematic as they are not easily recycled. Whilst the industry invested 50 million dollars a year to convince us that a number inside a triangle stamped on the base of a piece of plastic will mean that the product will be recycled, the likelihood of it being turned into something new will depend on many different factors, such as: if it’s even technically possible to recycle it (often not); how contaminated with food or product it is; if the local council will collect it; if the local municipal waste processing facility will take it; and if there is a market for that type of plastic to be sold into. Oh, and if there is a market for that plastic to be made into new plastic products. The oil and plastics industry has long known that it’s cheaper and easier to just turn virgin oil into new plastic than it is to collect, clean and resell it. They have profited off us believing that recycling is the solution when they have long known it is not.

This all leads to much confusion about what can and can’t be recycled, which unfortunately leads to people’s wishcycling, which then goes on to contaminate recycling streams all over the world, and then we get blamed for it! Education alone will not fix an inherently broken system.

Mainstream curbside recycling has been around for just over thirty years, and it’s in the last fifteen years that half of all the plastic that has ever been produced has been made and sold. To add to this, more than 90% of plastic ever produced hasn’t been recycled. Not because we consumers do the wrong thing, but because most of it is not easily recyclable!

The Recycling Industry

The margins on recycling are already very thin, with the collections and sorting often being more expensive than the value of the products being recycled. Some recycling processors still use human line sorters, and others are entirely mechanical. The machines that sort waste are often engineered for the main types of recyclables, such as glass, metal and hard plastics, not the plethora of other stuff that ends up in the sorting lines.

Then, even after the products are all sorted out and bailed up, the waste processing company has to find a buyer for that specific waste stream. Metals usually have a healthy demand, and thanks to the rise in online shopping, the paper board industry is doing ok. But plastics have always struggled to find a place to go (all the more reason to focus on post disposable design).

We wishcycle in part because we have been told that recycling is great and it will solve the issue of waste (this the plastics industry did a great job of convincing us of in the 90s, by creating the numbers up to 7 inside triangles that get stuck on certain types of hard plastics to supposedly help everyone identify and recycle them — side note, the history of the design of the original recycling symbol, the triangle made out of arrows, the Mobius Symbol, is fascinating and well worth the read here in this article.).

I have explained in the past that the global recycling system is broken, and that recycling is part of driving the generation of waste. It legitimizes the production of waste and creates a false solution to a manufactured problem. But here in this article, I want to explore the phenomenon that results from confused, good-intentioned, or perhaps lazy people that don’t know what to do with certain types of waste.

I will be the first to admit that even I am one of them at times. Intrigued by how others experienced this, I asked the UnSchool team to do a quick snapshot assessment of food items in their houses. As can be seen from the image below, it’s all very confusing about what the symbols mean. The cross through the recycling symbol means it can’t be recycled, but should we be happy that these ones even have any instructions at all? Because many of the other items they found had no information stating whether it was or wasn’t recyclable. This begs the question, whose responsibility is this? Ours, the supermarkets’, the local council, the recycling companies’, the packaging designers’, the product owners’? The federal government’s?

With such a confusing mess, it’s no wonder people wishcycle!

North American packaging: single-serve applesauce, coffee, frozen berries and crisp tube.

As I explored these issues, I come to feel very sorry for the recycling sector; they are beholden to the decisions made by the producers of products and packaging, and to the lack of regulation or guidance from the government. Then they’re burdened with the responsibility of finding new homes for an ever-growing stream of disposable stuff made with little care for what its end-of-life destination or impact will be.

How big is the wishcycling issue?

The less sexy name for the issue of wishcycling is recycling contamination, and in wealthy countries like the UK, Australia and the US, it’s a massive issue.

According to the UK Department for the Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), in 2018, contamination meant councils in the UK sent 500,000 tonnes of recycling to landfill. Research conducted by WRAP revealed that 82% of households in the UK add at least one item to their recycling that is not accepted. The amount of plastic packaging used in supermarkets in the UK is staggering. In 2017, the 10 biggest UK retailers produced 900,000 tonnes of packaging and 2bn plastic bags.

“More than two-thirds of consumers (69%) believe supermarkets and retailers are responsible for reducing the amount of plastic used, and many want to see more progress.” — Packaging News, 2021

In the US, the recycling system is increasingly under pressure. The EPA explains the conundrum of recycling: “​​Most Americans want to recycle, as they believe recycling provides an opportunity for them to be responsible caretakers of the Earth. However, it can be difficult for consumers to understand what materials can be recycled, how materials can be recycled, and where to recycle different materials. This confusion often leads to placing recyclables in the trash or throwing trash in the recycling bin.”

All over the US, recycling with no market to sell to, or place to store it is being burnt or sent to landfill. Increasing costs of processing have meant that some councils have just stopped collecting recycling altogether. This analysis shows how different states are working to address the issues with recycling in the US.

“Since 1960 the amount of municipal waste being collected in America has nearly tripled, reaching 245m tonnes in 2005. According to European Union statistics, the amount of municipal waste produced in western Europe increased by 23% between 1995 and 2003, to reach 577kg per person.” — The Economist

In Australia, a country where over 60% of people recycle, it was reported recently that 58% of plastic and 23% of glass packaging were put in the wrong bin. This is contributing to ongoing issues with contaminated exports to neighboring countries, where over 50% of recycling is sent to be processed.

To add insult to injury, Reuters reported last year that the oil industry plans on investing 400 billion dollars on plants to make new plastics and just 2 billion on reducing plastic waste. Wishcycling is only going to get worse.

Addicted to Disposability

The issues of wishcycling go deeper than just misunderstanding what is and isn’t actually recyclable. It speaks to a wider issue of waste and our relationship to it — specifically, how planned obsolescence and enforced disposability feed our addiction. To justify consumption, we need to believe that there is a better destination for our waste than just landfills, incineration or escaping into nature. We want it to be ok to create it, and as our material lives have become more disposable, more complex, there is a higher desire for the idea of recycling to work.

All over the world, the amount of municipal solid waste being generating is growing at unprecedented rates. In India, in 2001 it was 36.5 million metric tonnes, twenty years later in 2021, it’s now 110 million metric tons. This is estimated to grow to 200 million metric tons by 2041 (source, statistia).