Earth Week Garbage Sort

During Earth Week, I had the opportunity to participate on a campus Garbage Sort. After learning about what specific materials go in compost, recycling, or landfill, I was shocked to see the amount of contamination in each bag. Recycling and composting is an important step to becoming more sustainable in our practices. However, many people don’t know how to recycle or compost. Personally, I was unaware of where to put what specific items and the myths of recycling. For example, an item containing plastic has an indicator of what plastic type it is (exemplified by a number inside an arrow triangle). Many people assume this means the plastic is recyclable when it indicates what type of plastic it is, and based on the local recycling plant, whether you can or cannot recycle it.

Another issue we found while doing the garbage sort is a large amount of liquids or food in the recycling bin. Unfortunately, when recyclable materials are contaminated with food and liquids many recycling centers will refuse to recycle them. Contamination in paper recycling has become a major issue because food and beverages decompose the paper and it can no longer be recycled and instead must be composted. The contamination of one beverage thrown into the recycling makes the whole bin un-recyclable which is why it is important to dump liquids into a liquids bin, or if the liquids bin is unavailable, flush the liquid in the toilet or down a drain.

 It’s also important to know that many receipts including the University of Washington Bothell parking receipts contain BPA (Disphenol A). This organic syntmanyhetic compound has been known to have many harmful effects on people and the environment. So where do these receipts belong then? Unfortunately, the receipts cannot be recycled nor composted so they must go to landfill where they will be buried in many layers of trash and dirt. Although sorting through peoples’ trash isn’t the most fun Earth Week Event to attend, I feel like I learned very important sustainability skills which have helped myself and the environment.

After the event when Professor Rebecca Rivera weighed and totaled the percent of contamination in each bag I was shocked by the large percent of material that is in the wrong bag. There are many different types of packaging and compound material items it is hard to keep track of what is recycle, compost, or landfill. Therefore, participating in the event really helped me have hands on knowledge about the importance and complexity in recycling and composting. Luckily before the Garbage Sort my class had a quiz on sorting garbage so I was prepared. Even with learning many students including myself still weren’t sure on certain items like straws and dirty napkins. Thanks to the help of Cassie and Alexa in the Sustainability Office explaining why what goes where myself and many students have a deeper understanding of the process in recycling and composting. Do you know how to properly sort waste? Chances are, you are sorting some things wrong.