BY MARISSA GARCIA CAL Matters
At least 85% of single-use plastic items don’t get recycled, even if they carry the familiar triangular symbol. A California bill would restrict which plastics can bear the mark.
Every morning, when state Sen. Ben Allen would grab the newspaper from outside his Santa Monica home, he’d pull off the plastic sleeve bearing the triangular recycling symbol and throw it where he thought it belonged: in a blue recycling bin.
But Allen soon learned that he was “wishcycling”— carefully sorting items with the recycling symbol, only to discover they weren’t getting recycled.
“It is technically recyclable under the best of conditions at 1,000 degrees in some lab in San Marino. But… they’re not recycled in the real world,” the Democrat said at an Assembly Natural Resources Committee hearing in June.
This scenario isn’t unique. Despite the best intentions of Californians who diligently try to recycle yogurt cups, berry containers and other packaging, it turns out that at least 85% of single-use plastics in the state do not actually get recycled. Instead, they wind up in the landfill.
“Americans find recycling… more confusing than building IKEA furniture, doing their taxes, playing the stock market, or understanding their spouse,” Allen said, citing a study by the Consumer Brands Association.
This confusion inspired Allen to pen a bill that buckles down on what kinds of plastic packaging can tout the triangular symbol known as “chasing arrows.”
“If you’re not allowed to call an item recyclable because of our truth in environmental advertising laws, then you shouldn’t be able to put the ‘chasing arrows’ symbol on your product,” Allen said in an interview.
Should New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York follow California State Senator Ben Allen’s lead and change their laws to require that recycling symbols be imprinted only on containers that truly are being recycled? Do you find the current multitude of symbols confusing? Would you feel more confident about using your recycling can if you knew that all of its content was likely to be recycled? Add your comment below the headling at the top of the post.
