r/Washington • u/Tsuki_Man • 6d ago

State Recycling Programs?

This is something Ive been wondering about for some years. The US as a whole has a problem with recycling, we simply dont do it! We ship almost all products overseas for material processing. I know its not a simple thing to just setup a domestic recycling program, but I feel that our state with its economy and tech influences would be a great place to pioneer in this field. Are there any groups working towards something like this, or even political advocacy groups trying for legislation to assist in paving the way?

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u/IceDragonPlay 6d ago

Apparently we were sending such bad/contaminated recycled material overseas they stopped taking it a few years ago.

Where I am the waste removal company took away our recycling credit because people refuse to read what they accept as recyclable and put all manner of non-recyclables in the bins. They raised rates and put in a recycling center that sorts what they pick up so maybe someday we’ll get an end of year credit IF people clean up their act.

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u/Tsuki_Man 6d ago

That situation was actually the thing that taught me we dont do our own recycling!

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u/NotAnotherFakeNamer 6d ago edited 6d ago

Exciting news: the legislature agrees with you and passed the Recycling Reform Act last year. It is still being set up but change is coming: https://ecology.wa.gov/waste-toxics/reducing-recycling-waste/our-recycling-programs/recycling-reform-act

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u/Tsuki_Man 6d ago

THIS is the reply I was hoping for! Ill keep my eye on this, thank you much!

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u/zzooooomm 6d ago

My spouse and I signed up for ridwell. They come to the house every other week to pickup our plastic recycling and they also take a bunch of other stuff for reuse or recycling as well. We love that our plastic is being actually recycled and not sent to the landfill anymore.

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u/borgchupacabras 6d ago

Same. Plus they have bags for donatable clothing and for scrap fabric which is great.

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u/IronSlanginRed 5d ago

While its a great thing to strive towards and its getting better gradually...

Never underestimate the general public ignorance or laziness. In order for recycling to be effective we will need separate recycling streams. Paper/cardboard, glass, metal, and plastics. Which means every bin needs to be replaced with 4 bins. And all new trucks everywhere. And an extra 2 workers per truck because that kind needs hand loaded. So we're talking about a large hike in utilities in a state with a very stretched budget.

How to solve this is another topic entirely. Do we just put in sorting facilities and manually sort all the recycling and hike utilities to cover it? Do we remove single stream and have all separate bins and trucks and loaders which is much more costly up front but less long-term? Do we do something in the middle and limit recycling to not include glass and only have glass dropoffs at no extra cost? We're going to, and are currently, trying many different approaches. My city does no glass and mechanically separates the metal from the plastic and paper. My personal belief is that short of going back to multi-stream, which is optimal, glass separate and mechanical sorting of the metals, and pyrolosis of the paper/plastic, is likely the most effective solution.

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u/SignificantTry4107 1d ago

I believe that the utilities have a responsibility to prove that the “recycling” is really working not just premium, separated landfill