Recycling: Rest assured, plastics are indeed being recycled in Centre County

Every so often a national news piece is released detailing that plastics are not being recycled. Just recently an article from Greenpeace was penned and featured on NPR. This article stated that only 5% of plastics are actually recycled, leaving many residents with questions and concerns about recycling in Centre County. In fact, I just attended a conference sponsored by the National Recycling Congress where one of the speakers said the same thing, “Only 5% of all plastics are recycled.”

How could a speaker at the National Recycling Congress tell me that only 5% of plastics are being recycled? I see the amount of plastics we receive at our facility each day. I see the plastics being collected, sorted, baled and sent to manufacturers to be made into new products. I know that we collect recycling from 28,000 households, 800 businesses and countless drop off containers. The plastic we collect is not going to landfills — it is being recycled.

To be fair, there is a lot of plastic that cannot be recycled. A lot. Maybe that is where this number comes from. In the Centre County recycling program we do not accept plastics that we know we cannot find a market. We do not accept plastic cups, plastic straws, polystyrene, plastic toys, black plastic (the list goes on). Instead we only accept plastic that we know can be recycled. We know that plastic bottles, jugs and jars can be recycled. There is a market for this material. Companies want plastic to recycle. They buy it from us and turn it into products that we can all use again. It is a business that works very well and has worked well for a very long time.

It is hard on us to read these national stories about plastic not being recycled. Myself, along with 70 of my co-workers go to work every day to make sure that recycling works in Centre County. The Centre County Recycling and Refuse Authority has a goal of zero waste in 40 years and a Long Range Strategic Plan to guide us to this goal.

I can promise you that the plastic you recycle with us is not being thrown out, if it is an acceptable product in our program. Acceptable plastic includes plastic bottles, jugs and jars. We also accept items like yogurt containers, sour cream containers, blueberry/strawberry containers but only in our Miscellaneous Plastics Drop Off Program. Please be assured that we do have end-use markets for all of the plastics we collect.

While national stories can be powerful, the stories about plastic not being recycled do not apply to our county recycling program. I do hope that this column helps to alleviate any fears that plastics are not being recycled where we live. I am available to give tours of our facility to show off the operation we are so proud of. Just send me an email at aschirf@centrecountyrecycles.org and we will get it on the books.

Thanks for hearing me out and thanks for recycling!