From Bin to Bale:
Recyclables at
Recology Pier 96 MRF
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PART 2: Recology and the Blue Bin
The Recology approach to resource recovery is unique and is perhaps best told through the company’s integrated waste systems in San Francisco, California. The three-cart collection system, pioneered by Recology beginning in the 1990s, developed into a comprehensive curbside program that made recycling and organic waste collection available to residents and businesses citywide.
When San Francisco companies and residents place recyclables like single-use plastic in their blue bins, the contents are collected by 180 Recology trucks and deposited at Pier 96’s Recycle Central, the largest material recovery facility (MRF) on the West Coast.
From Bin to Bale:
Recyclables at
Recology Pier 96 MRF
MRFs sort these mixed recyclables into distinct commodities and prepare them for sale. This preparation includes sorting plastics by resin type, and paper, metals, and glass by different grades, colors, and quality. By the time these materials work their way through the facility’s sorting systems, close to 90% of the materials that arrive will be recovered and sold for recycling.
All plastics are not created equal. While proven and often domestic recycling solutions exist for high-grade resins, manufacturers continue to engineer newer, cheaper, and disposable products with distinct chemical properties that enhance flexibility, appearance, and convenience. For much of this new generation of plastics, the economics of recovery and thus scalable recycling solutions do not yet exist.
MATERIAL RECOVERY FACILITY (MRF). After a customer puts their recyclables in a bin, they are collected and brought to a MRF, where they are sorted and baled by material type. To maximize the recovery of plastics, a MRF usually ships different materials to specialized processing facilities where they are cleaned, shredded, and pelletized to become “raw” materials that can be re-incorporated into the manufacturing of new products. While metals, paper, and glass have clearly defined recycling streams, plastics are made from a variety of resins, which are often combined, making their recovery a costly and complex process. Most higher-grade (#1-2) plastics are sold to domestic recyclers, while #3-7 mixed are shipped to Asia. While plastics manufacturers constantly make cheaper, lighter resins with distinct qualities (rigidity, flexibility, durability, etc.) and therefore different chemical properties, these new plastics will, in turn, require new recycling methods. These evolving plastics require new and different processing methods, and in many cases, they are designed for disposability instead of recovery.
It is important to consider that while recycling plastics is a better alternative to incineration or landfilling, it’s a misconception to think that plastic, even when recycled, has no environmental impact. Collecting, processing, transporting, and recycling plastics uses energy, fuel, and water. Most plastics that are recycled are actually downcycled, meaning their transformation into products like plastic lumber, fiberglass, or clothing breaks the closed-loop system. While these products are manufactured from recycled plastics, they have little to no likelihood of being recycled again once their utility has expired. In these cases, recycling is only a partial solution. Plastic producers, consumers, and resource recovery providers must continue working together to create a true closed-loop system that does not result in landfilled or downcycled products.
California’s state-funded deposit program, known as the California Redemption Value (CRV), might not be broken – but it is becoming obsolete.
In 1986, in an effort to spark recycling participation, the California legislature enacted the Bottle Bill or AB 2020, formally known as the Beverage Container Recycling and Litter Reduction Act. Through this program, beverage manufacturers and distributors are charged a deposit that is passed on to retailers and ultimately to individual consumers. This deposit, typically 5 or 10 cents per container, can be redeemed when the consumer returns the CRV-eligible container to a certified recycling center. Program fees, when combined with statewide unredeemed funds, help fund city and county recycling programs, recycling market development, grants to nonprofits and conservation agencies, and consumer education campaigns.
CALIFORNIA REDEMPTION VALUE (CRV). The California CRV program might not be broken – but it is becoming obsolete. In the past four years, more than 40% of statewide redemption centers have closed. The emergence of curbside recycling programs has become a tenet of California’s progressive waste recovery infrastructure, bringing convenient recycling services to the doorstep of virtually every household, apartment, and business in the state. As such, the need for a deposit-based redemption program has dwindled. Revenues generated from manufacturers may be better spent on market development, education programs, and further support for curbside programs.
While the Bottle Bill was an important catalyst to initiate consumer-level recycling in California, the program is becoming obsolete. The Bill predated the emergence of curbside recycling programs – like those offered by Recology – in California. Today, the widespread availability of recycling programs has become a core tenet of California’s progressive waste recovery infrastructure, as Recology and other service providers deliver convenient recycling services to the doorstep of virtually every household, apartment, and business in the state. As such, the need for a deposit-based redemption program has dwindled.
Limitations of the bill’s scope and flexibility have created additional barriers to its widespread success. As it is limited to only certain qualifying single-use beverage containers, the program covers less than 4% of the waste stream. What’s more, the redemption value paid back to recycling centers (to cover the cost of what they pay consumers who redeem their CRV recyclables) does not cover increasing processing costs nor make up for sharply lower commodity prices. As a result, between 2015 and 2019, more than 1,000 CRV redemption centers, about 40% of locations statewide, closed.
Recycling centers that participate in the California CRV program, like the Recology-operated facility above in San Francisco, are in increasingly short supply. Since 2015, some 40% of statewide centers have closed amid elevated operating costs, dwindling commodity prices, and public pressure.
Most recently, in August 2019, RePlanet, the largest remaining independent provider of CRV-redemption centers, shuttered its remaining 280 locations and laid off its entire 750-person workforce. Clearly, the CRV program – while an important step to initiate consumer-level recycling in California – is becoming a relic of a bygone era.
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The Single-Use Plastics Platform is produced by The Lexicon, an international NGO that brings together food companies, government agencies, financial institutions, scientists, entrepreneurs, and food producers from across the globe to tackle some of the most complex challenges facing our food systems.
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The Single-Use Plastics Platform was developed by Green Brown Blue, an invitation-only food systems solutions activator produced by The Lexicon with support from Food at Google. The activator model fosters unprecedented collaborations between leading food service companies, environmental NGOs, government agencies, and technical experts from across the globe.
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