Single-Stream Recycling Up in U.S.
The following is an op-ed piece by Wes Muir, director of communications for Waste Management. It does not describe the views or opinions of Earth911.
As the world continues to push forward in efforts to secure a sustainable future, it’s often important to step back and reflect on the progress we’ve made to date. From a waste solutions perspective, we have continued to make strides in the way we consume and dispose of materials.
Let’s look at a milk carton, for example. For centuries now, convenience and cost-cutting measures have determined how our culture has consumed, which explains why the milkman’s iconic glass bottle in the early 1900s was replaced by paper and plastic cartons.
Interestingly, 20 years ago, only one curbside recycling program existed in the U.S. Not until our environment became a top priority did consumers proactively collect their plastic milk cartons – among other recyclables – and deliver them to their local recycling facilities. This awareness and sense of urgency is what sparked the widespread implementation of recycling across the nation, and prompted the offering of services such as curbside collection.
SEE: Inside a Recycling Facility
And the evolution continues: Today’s waste industry continues to advance technology, in order to simplify the process for residential, commercial and municipal recycling. And in turn, we’ve seen much progress. While Americans recycled only 6.4 percent of municipal waste in 1960, we now recycle more than 34 percent of municipal waste.
One technology that continues to improve the recycling rate in America is single-stream recycling. In a single-stream system, consumers place recyclables in a single container for pickup, no longer needing to separate paper, plastic, glass and metal.
These comingled materials are separated at the single-stream Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) through the use of magnets, screens, optical scanners and manual sorting. As a result of waste processors handling the separation of these materials, consumers and municipalities alike are seeing the value of this technology, enabling it to become a more widespread recycling solution in the U.S.
WATCH: How a Recycling Center Works
Last month, Mayor Michael Nutter officially opened Waste Management’s new single-stream MRF to the City of Philadelphia, following the lead of other major cities like Boston, Chicago and Phoenix, which have also recently adopted single-stream recycling systems.
As more municipalities welcome single-stream recycling facilities, this technology is becoming a widely accepted tactic to help us in our collective goal to achieve zero waste. In time, as customers, businesses and municipalities learn more about the process, we expect to one day look back and recognize a time without single-stream recycling to be as outdated as the glass milk bottle.
