TRASHY DETAILS
It’s the kind of decision that Lisa Fink makes dozens of times a day. In her hand is the lid to a plastic juice bottle, and in front of her are two waste cans: One will eventually be emptied into a black trash can in the backyard of her Yorba Linda house, and the other gets dumped into a green recycling bin.
As decisions go, this one is relatively low on the scale of importance for the mother of four, but Fink is anything but cavalier about the fate of her trash. Figuring that small plastic lids can quickly add up to a lot of trash, Fink tosses it into the recycling can in her kitchen.
As Fink debates what to do with the juice lid, workers standing alongside conveyor belts at Taormina Industries in Anaheim, where both of Fink’s waste containers will end up, make similar decisions as they sort through the waste of thousands of households. (Taormina is one of the largest waste haulers in the county.)
In theory, all Fink has to do is decide correctly if the lid is made of recyclable material, and its future as landfill-bound trash or recycled goods is determined. But in reality, the final decision rests with the conveyor-belt crew, men and women in orange coveralls and hard hats who peer through the steady stream of waste passing by to pluck out designated items.
Each worker is responsible for spotting and pulling items made from a different type of recyclable material. But they consider more than just an item’s composition before dropping it into giant bins of paper, glass or plastic.
Although Fink and others who diligently recycle might be disheartened by this fact, the juice lid’s future is determined more by paper mills and toy manufacturers in China, Japan and other Far East countries than the careful consideration of a Yorba Linda mother.
The program that Lisa Fink participates in works the way state officials imagined when AB 939 was passed in 1990. That year, Orange County residents sent more than 4 million tons of waste to county landfills.
The law requires a 25% reduction of waste by 1995 and 50% by 2000.
The amount of waste dumped countywide in landfills in 1996 dropped to a little less than 2 1/2 million tons, with individual cities achieving decreases ranging from 19% in Lake Forest to 84% in Cypress, according to a grand jury report released in March.
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Although residents sometimes miss by a mile, trying to recycle sleeping bags and tennis shoes, most have mastered the paper, plastic and glass rule of thumb.
If anything, many residents are overzealous, placing every scrap of paper and every soda bottle cap in with the newspapers and beverage containers. Such habits may allow residents to feel good about their efforts to reduce landfill, but not all recyclables are equal.
About 20% of all material collected by Taormina from recycling bins winds up in county landfills, says company vice president Ric Collett. Some of it was mistakenly placed in recycling bins, but the rest is recyclable material that is considered either unmarketable or unrecoverable because of size.
“It’s not feasible to pick up every little scrap and sort through every stuffed bag or box,” Collett says.
Since the idea of recycling on a national scale was introduced with the first Earth Day in 1970, consumers have been cooperating. But diverting recyclables from landfills is only half the story. A market must be found for the estimated 2 million tons of used plastic, paper and glass that is collected in the county every year.
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Selling recyclables is a global business, and like any other commodity, the market is influenced by supply and demand.
State legislation requiring cities and counties to reduce the amount of trash sent to landfills means the supply continues to rise. But demand for recyclable materials has not kept pace with supply, says Barry Love, director of sales and brokerage for Taormina Industries’ recycling division.
“The Pacific Rim is pretty much depleted of natural resources, so they started the market for recyclables and still drive it,” Love says. “That market primarily needs used paper and plastic food and beverage containers, which are used to manufacture paper products and toys.”
Without a huge consumer push for more products made from recycled goods--which would raise the demand for used paper, plastic and glass--trash companies have little economic incentive to handle items that are small or hard to gather or classify.
In Yorba Linda, where recycling efforts have produced a 57% reduction in landfill waste, city officials aren’t concerned about the amount of recyclable items that end up in landfills.
But other cities have been far less successful in reducing their trash, and as the deadline for reaching a 50% reduction grows closer, officials in those cities may have to sweat the small stuff to avoid fines of up to $10,000 a day if they fail to meet the state-mandated goal.
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Many believe that besides diverting waste from the landfill, requiring residents to separate their trash offers an object lesson about materials that can’t be recycled. Some environmentalists believe this could lead to lower consumer tolerance for products that come packaged in nonrecyclable materials.
It’s made Lisa Fink think a little harder about her purchases.
With a busy life that revolves in large part around her children--Matthew, 9, Cody, 7, Nicholas, 5, and Deanna, 3--Fink’s pantry and two refrigerators are filled with the kinds of food that make it easy to prepare quick kid-pleasers: plastic juice bottles, individual containers of gelatin, single-serving packages of cookies and crackers, and small bags of fruit-flavored snacks.
This emphasis on convenience extends to other areas of the house. Plastic bags make packing--and unpacking--lunch boxes simple, and paper towels and napkins make for quick cleanups. More than half a dozen kinds of cleaners are on hand to tackle every kind of mess, and plastic garbage bags make toting that mess to the trash bin simple.
Fink is not about to give up these modern conveniences, but she admits her habits have a downside: “I have a big incentive to do something. I have four kids, and I worry about their future, about where my kids and their kids are going to dump all their trash, so I am a big recycler.”
The day before trash day, the Finks’ green recycling bin is nearly full. While acknowledging that this was a good sign, Fink admits that she has doubts about her accuracy as a recycler.
“I’m not sure about a lot of the stuff I put in, and sometimes I wonder if I’m putting stuff in the wrong can,” she says.
Taormina’s Collett says that the kitchen can make or break a family’s recycling accuracy. Most of the trash is created here, it holds the majority of the recyclable items, and it’s where most decisions about waste are made.
“A lot of people put all their waste in one basket in the kitchen and say they will sort it when they take it outside,” Collett says. “But then they send Junior to empty the basket, and it all gets thrown in the trash can.”
Fink gets high marks for having trash cans in her kitchen: one for recyclables and one for trash. (Some cities have different bins for glass, paper and plastic.) But she is marked down for running recyclables through the trash compactor.
“That’s the worst thing you can do. It crushes the stuff into a nice little cube, and we can’t pull it apart,” Collett says. “The whole thing ends up at the landfill.”
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The Finks’ recycling bin was full of cardboard boxes and plastic bags stuffed with aluminum cans, plastic bottles and small boxes.
“That’s another no-no,” Collett says. “When [trash sorters] see a big bag or box with different items, they can’t take the time to separate it, and it [all] ends up in the landfill.”
Holding an instant drink mix container, Collett acknowledges that consumers get confused because the container’s sides are plastic but the bottom is paper. “Technically, it’s recyclable, but we can’t take the time to cut it apart,” he says.
This is true for potato chip cans as well as frozen juice cans.
A newspaper and its protective plastic bag can be recycled if they have been separated. If the newspaper is left inside the bag, both are sent to a landfill.
“People put pool covers, tarps and shrink wrap in to be recycled because it’s plastic,” Collett says. “Problem is, we have no way of knowing what kind of plastic it is.”
Fink says she throws away some empty plastic containers because they’re too hard to clean out. Soup cans also get tossed because they’re not paper, plastic or glass.
“You don’t have to rinse out food jars,” Collett says. “Just make sure there is no product left inside. And metal cans are definitely recyclable.”
At lunchtime, Fink faces another recycling decision, but this time she’s armed with new information. Nine-year-old Matthew holds up an empty tin can and asks what he should do with it.
“We’re going to be recycling those from now on, so it goes in the green bin,” Fink says.
