I am a child of the recycle/reduce/reuse movement. For 50 years, I’ve dutifully filled my recycle bins to save the planet. Imagine my surprise that much of what I believed about recycling is false and that recyclers make only modest planetary impacts. 

This topic came up when I learned that Jefferson County was re-starting glass recycling. A few months previous, local glass recycling markets collapsed and forced Jefferson County Public Works to stop recycling. When market conditions improved, JeffCo announced they’d restart glass recycling. I wondered: what’s going on with recycling? And why is Jefferson County Public Works likely to close all drop-off recycling centers by April 2026?

Fueled by growing awareness of waste management issues and the environmental impacts of human activity, recycling dates back to the 1970s. Plastic, a material known for durability and ability to be molded or extruded, dates back to 1855, but it took 125 years before we considered recycling it. In the 1940s-50s, when polypropylene and polystyrene were invented, plastic manufacturing took off. Producers quickly discovered they make more money with single-use, disposable plastics and plastic garbage began piling up. When the government became concerned, the plastics industry (which is the oil and gas industry because petroleum products are used in every step of plastic production) responded with the “Keep American Beautiful” campaign, admonishing us not to litter. (Remember the tearful Native American ad?) In the 1980s and 90s, they funded recycling programs, turning responsibility for their products back on consumers. Today, the plastics industry pushes the recycling triangle numbers even on non-recyclable plastics. Their latest slight-of-hand is Texas-based “advanced recycling” that claims to recycle any plastic, but, as yet, has recycled nothing. It’s like the cigarette industry insisting smoking isn’t really that bad for you or that vaping is a great alternative, even when studies show that’s not true. 

Recycling hasn’t delivered its planet-saving promise. While it saves resources and creates jobs, it’s often more expensive than creating new. And business is all about money. Plastic is the least successfully recycled commodity and the most harmful. Because plastics are durable and made of multiple chemicals, recycling plastic is incredibly costly and technically complex. It’s cheaper to make new plastic. Of the 8.3 billion tons of plastic manufactured since the 1950s, only about 9% has been recycled; 12% has been incinerated, an energy-consuming, polluting process. The rest ends up in landfills or in our oceans—and even in us. And the long term environmental and health effects are largely unknown. 

Even glass, which can be ground and remade into glass, has problems finding markets, a fact illustrated by our local glass recycling snafu. Virgin sand is so cheap, it’s more cost effective to make new glass. It’s even cheaper to forego glass and make plastic, which is largely non-recyclable. 

The sad fact is we are a throw-away society. Americans produce the most waste per capita in the world. 

America has no national recycling laws. There are few regulations about what companies can produce/overproduce. And the current administration, with its emphasis on striking down environmental laws and boosting the oil and gas industry, is unlikely to promote any. 

Even Washington, a state known for environmental consciousness, crumbles in the face of corporate opposition. Washington environmental activists have tried five times since 1970 to get a bottle bill passed similar to Oregon’s. Bottle bills reduce waste and support recycling. Consumers pay a small deposit, say 5-10 cents, per bottle (plastic or glass). The money is refunded when they return the bottle. In Oregon, the rate of return is a whopping 87%. Recently, the Washington legislature caved again to anti-bottle bill forces like the Washington Food Industry Association, retailers and liquor store owners, waste haulers, and the American Chemistry Council, among others. 

While industry is largely responsible for our trash crisis, consumers bear responsibility too. Some are conscientious how we recycle, many aren’t. Many “wishcycle,” putting in items they wish were recyclable, but aren’t. Tossing trash in recycling is problematic too. It only takes contaminating 0.5% of a recycle load for it to be worthless.

Jefferson County’s contamination rate at some sites is 30%, which is, in part, why we’re headed to curb-only recycling. Especially at isolated recycling depots, people dump trash instead of paying for disposal, which costs the County $300,000 per year. That’s not sustainable. 

People are less likely to contaminate curb recycling. In the city, residents get three 18-gallon recycling containers as part of their regular waste collection service. In the county, we’ll pay about $21 every two months to recycle curbside. 

We cannot recycle our way out of this trash mess. Recycling uses fewer resources, but we need to use less and reuse more. Do we really need tomatoes or apples in plastic containers? Buy in bulk and shop places like the Food Co-op and Farmer’s Market. Grow a garden. Carry your own refillable water container and shopping bags. If you use plastic, try using it two or more times. And insist your legislators pass laws like the bottle bill and regulations that stop manufacturers from overproducing highly-toxic, non-recyclable items like plastic everything.

Bobbie Hasselbring is a long-time journalist who lives in Cape George. She also leads the PT Strummers, a performance/jam ukulele group.