Extreme Recycling

On the surface, at least, recycling at home is a simple process. Separate bottles, cans and paper from the trash so they can be hauled away to be processed and reused.  It sounds easy. But as WNPR’s Nancy Cohen reports even some of the most dedicated recyclers say they have a lot to learn.

Katherine Baker and Peter Titelman pay close attention to their impact on the earth. They moved from a rural home, where a car was necessary, to Northampton, Massachusetts just so they could walk more and drive less. And they’re vigilant recyclers.

“There’s a couple of fruit juices, natural peach, low fat apricot yogurt.”

Titelman is picking through a bin of containers he’s recycling.

I ask him if he or his wife ever slip a container into the garbage when they don’t feel like washing it out.

“Infrequently,” said Titelman.

But Katherine Baker points at her husband, with a laugh.

“I guess I do occasionally,” admitted Titelman.

“I think we both do,” said Baker. “I try, but I’m definitely lazy some of the time.”

So today a group of garbage gurus are about to instruct them on how to throw out less and recycle more.

“Good to meet you.”

That’s David Starr who along with Ruthy Woodring and Molly Hale volunteer with the group Green Northampton. They do “garbage audits” for residents who request them.

Peter and Katherines’s trash is unceremoniously dumped onto a blue tarp on their kitchen floor. Used Kleenexes and dental floss topple out.

Katherine Baker laughs.  “I’m embarrassed.”

“This is not very disgusting compared to some other ones,” said Molly Hale.

David Starr picks up a plastic bag .

“This is clean. There’s no reason this can’t go in the supermarket in the recycling area.”

Starr says many recycled items should be clean. For example, containers shouldn’t have food or liquid in them. And he has a simple rule about paper. He rips a piece of cardboard in two.

“If you can rip paper it’s recyclable. The only exception is if there’s foil in it.”

“What about Kleenex?” Peter Titelman asked.

“As you can see we’re making a pile of Kleenex and paper napkins for compost,” said Starr.

“Dirty Kleenex can go (in the compost)?”   Baker asked.

Maybe not if you’re going to eat vegetables grown in the compost. But David Starr said a lot of paper can be recycled.

“Frozen food packaging, like a pack of peas in a cardboard box. That’s recyclable.  Pizza boxes, assuming no part is drenched with grease, is recyclable. If a part is drenched in grease, rip it off and recycle the rest.”

But hold on pizza-eaters. These rules may be true in Northampton, but it might not be the case where you live.

“Part of the problem is people just don’t know the rules of recycling and one of the reasons for that the messages the municipalities put out is very confusing. The fact that different towns have different rules doesn’t help either.”

What’s recyclable does differ from town to town and from state to state.  Some places can recycle yogurt containers. Some can’t. But there are lots of people, even outside of progressive enclaves like Northampton, who want to throw out less.

 “This is disgusting.”

At the Common Ground High School in New Haven students hunker over several tarps spread on the ground that contain a week’s worth of the school’s garbage and recyclables. The students are sorting things into categories: things that can be recycled or reused.

“What about yogurt containers and stuff like that?” asks one student.

“Yogurt containers go over there,” answered Lakesha Sessions. 

“Look what I found!”

Dominick Garcia and a couple of his classmates are waist deep in a dumpster that’s mostly filled with recycled paper, but Garcia finds a little surprise.

“Chocolate! I found Chocolate in the recycling bin.”

These students are wearing white tyvec suits, rubber gloves and boots, hairnets and face masks to protect them.  Other students are weighing everything.

“So this is 5 and one and a half.”

“One and a half five gallon buckets!”

Common Ground is a charter school focused on the urban environment. Unlike the Northampton audit, there’s no one showing these students what they can do better. They’re trying to show themselves.

“We just might want to leave all those there so people can see ‘oh these are all the coffee cups we throw in the garbage every week’.”

That’s Santiago Achinelli, a sophomore. He says there’s a purpose to this accounting.

“To show our student body exactly how much we waste in a single week. To show them what they do does matter and that when they throw it away, it doesn’t just go away.”

Nearly 900 pounds of trash and recyclables were weighed that day. Now students are starting to bring their own mugs to school to eliminate paper cups. In June, they’ll audit their garbage again to see what’s changed.

Back in Northampton, Katherine Baker and Peter Titelman are recycling more since their garbage audit.

“Look at the size of this bag now!”

The couple is now throwing out only half a bag of trash every week.

For WNPR, I’m Nancy Cohen.