What is Wishcycling?
We all know what recycling is, but what is wishcycling? If you’ve ever put something in your recycling bin and wondered if it’s actually going to be recycled, you may have accidentally wishcycled it. So why does this matter? Let’s start by answering the essential question here.
What is wishcycling?
Simply put, wishcycling is anytime you put something in a recycling bin because you hope it will get recycled, despite not having a reason to believe it actually will be recycled. This could happen at home, at a park, or at a baseball game. Realistically, we’ve all done it at some point, so the real question is: how can all of us do less of it?
How does wishcycling cause problems?
To be clear there’s certainly nothing wrong about wishing that more things could be recycled. The issue is that when any of us wishcycle something, we are just forcing a recycler to throw it away for us, which actually makes the hard work of recycling materials even harder.
It’s important to remember that recycling isn’t just about keeping stuff out of the landfill. Recycling is only truly successful if the item you keep out the garbage is actually turned into something new. What this means is that our recycling system has to work as a manufacturing process, where companies can create new things out of existing materials, rather than new or “virgin” materials being extracted from the environment. So when stuff gets put in recycling bins that can’t be recycled at all or requires dramatically different processes to recycle it effectively contaminates the materials that the facility is designed to recycle.
Our VP of Operations, Kevin Kelly puts nicely this way: “If you’re building a bridge out of steel, you want to get quality steel, not some steel, some popsicle sticks, and some other stuff that your neighbors had lying around.” For a recycler receiving materials that they can’t actually turn into a new material isn’t a recipe for sustainability, it’s basically a supply chain headache. Imagine if you asked your friends to bring over apples to bake a pie. Would getting their apples along with their crumpled up receipts, grocery bags, and mismatched socks help you bake the pie any faster or make the pie any better?
Put bluntly, materials ending up in a recycling bin that don’t belong there isn’t helping the environment or helping reduce waste, it’s just making it harder to recycle the items that are supposed to be there. At best, wishcycled items get sorted out by a recycling facility and diverted elsewhere or thrown away. At worst they tangle up the machinery before going to the landfill or result in a contaminated or lower quality end product.
Why is wishcycling so common?
We all buy and use a wide range of materials every week. Anytime you go to the store to buy anything, it’s likely you’re going to bring home half a dozen different types of material at a bare minimum. These range from easy to recycle (and infinitely recyclable) staples like glass and aluminum to a variety of harder to recycle plastics like film and clamshells, and materials that are actually a mix of multiple types of material. It’s understandable that a lot of us try to recycle all these different things, even though we’re not sure which ones we actually should put in the bin.
Lack of knowledge. Few of us receive formal education in recycling, the system of numbers used to label plastics is overwhelming and confusing, and even people that work in the field get confused because…
Recycling practices vary dramatically across the country. Recycling isn’t consistent geographically, meaning what can be recycled in Austin is different from Denver, which is different from Seattle. More confusingly, still, different parts of different cities can accept different materials, so what’s possible in South Puget Sound may not be possible in downtown Seattle and what’s easy to recycle in Denver may not be accepted at all in Aurora. So it’s not just you that feels that this is all confusing and tricky to work around.
How is Ridwell helping prevent wishcycling?
We pick up commonly wishcycled items. We help our members reuse and recycle things they might otherwise wishcycle or just throw away. By picking up things like plastic film, which is often thrown in with easy to recycle plastics like bottles, we ensure that it gets truly recycled. This also keeps these materials out of recycling sorting facilities, saving them the time and labor of having to sort this stuff out (and usually toss it in the landfill).
We take the guesswork out of recycling for our members. As we’ve all realized by now, recycling properly takes a lot of time, research, and energy. Ridwell makes it easier and more seamless to be a good recycler. We provide helpful information to our members on what they can send us based on where you live, transparency about where their stuff actually goes, and a handy bin that makes it easy to recycle things that you might otherwise end up wishcycling.
We help prevent the worst downstream outcomes of wishcycling. By picking up hard-to-recycle items like clothing, plastic film, and batteries, we’re not just keeping them out of landfills, we’re just as importantly keeping them out of recycling facilities so recycling can be more efficient and safer.
How can I avoid wishcycling in the future?
Knowledge is power when it comes to a better participant in any type of cycling, so to break out of this vicious cycle, getting smart is a great start.
Learn about what the different plastic numbers actually mean. Plastic is one of the most common materials that gets wishcycled. Given the wide variety of products that use different types of plastics, there is often significant confusion about what plastic items can and cannot go into your curbside bin. Getting smart about plastics is an essential first step to knowing what your options are for recycling them properly.
Find out who your local curbside recycling service is and look into what they do and don’t accept. Head to their website, shoot them an email, give them a call, and get clear about what they accept and what they don’t. Getting to know what is actually recycled in your area will enable you to recycle more confidently.
Avoid contaminating your recycling. Recycling contamination is anytime you accidentally degrade one type of recycled material by getting it wet, dirty, or mixed up with another material. Putting dirty items in the recycling bin is a common way to accidentally wishcycle it, so as a rule of thumb, start by making sure anything you’re putting in your bin is clean and dry. To give a few examples:
Make sure your paper recycling isn’t getting wet or dirty from any used glass bottles or aluminum cans. Wet and dirty paper cannot be recycled into new papers since the fibers get damaged by the water and dirt.
Make sure glass and aluminum containers aren’t covered in food. A little bit of food or beverage residue is fine, but to make it easier on whoever is recycling your glass or aluminum, a quick rinse to remove food scraps can go a long way. When in doubt, talk to your local recycling service to see what their preferences are for how clean your stuff should be.
Greasy pizza boxes cannot be recycled since the grease and food matter contaminates the paper fibers. These pizza boxes should be composted or thrown away instead.