Understanding the Basics

Know The Numbers

Numbers tell a story and it’s not a happy one. The ending is up to us. Numbers in California are on the wrong trajectory. The amount of waste generated per person today has risen while our recycling rates have dropped. The amount of waste generated per person in California has increased from 5.3 pounds per person in 2012 to 6.3 pounds per person in 2022. At the same time, California’s recycling rate has dropped. It went from a high of 50% in 2012 to 44% in 2018. This means more materials deposited into landfills – which has consequences: In the U.S., landfills are considered the third-largest source of human-related methane emissions. Methane is one of the most potent and harmful of greenhouse gases.

Here are more numbers. Why Aren't they all 100%?

Paper and Cardboard

These categories achieve a respectable 66% recycling rate. But why not 100%? Fun fact: Paper can be recycled about 5-7 times before it’s too degraded (because the paper fibers become shorter) to be used to make “new” (recycled-content) paper. That’s when it usually becomes a pulped product – think egg cartons. Quick suggestion: Buy toilet paper with high levels of recycled-content; several offer 100%

Glass

Only 27% of glass is recycled. Glass used to be the go-to packaging for food items- which was great. But glass is heavier than plastic, which means that items packaged in glass are more expensive to ship (heavier loads consume more fuel). This is a shame, because glass is impermeable and (virtually) inert- it can’t leach harmful chemicals like plastic can, and glass can be recycled indefinitely.

Plastics

Only a pitiful 8-9% of plastics ever made has ever been recycled. And recycling has its limits: Even a plastic bottle made of high-grade #1 PET can be recycled 1-3 times. Most plastic items really aren’t designed to be recycled.

More On Plastics

Plastic production is off the charts, from 1.5 metric tons in 1950s (for those of us old enough, who remembers anything plastic in our homes back then?) to 309.7 million tons in 2021. That’s a shock given plastic’s relative youth of 100 years.

Plastic is everywhere – at the bottom of our oceans, in unborn babies, and in our brains. The full range of health impacts are not yet known, but there are reports that more plastic is found in the brains of those with dementia.

We now know that the fossil fuel industry has been lying to us for decades -promoting plastic as guilt-free due to its recyclability. Plastics became widespread in the US after World War II, and ubiquitous in the 1960s and 1970s.

Get the Connection

Think back to your math or logic classes: If a=b and b=c, then a=c. Now you know this: Plastics = climate change because (about 99%) of all plastic is made from fossil fuels.

Organics

Our food management systems are not working: Per the US EPA, up to 40% of all food produced in the US is wasted! In 2019 alone, EPA estimates that about 66 million tons of wasted food were generated in the food retail, food service, and residential sectors, and most of this waste (about 60%) was sent to landfills.

So what’s the big deal: When disposed in landfills, organic material generates methane, a greenhouse gas, that is much more powerful and harmful than CO2, the best-known of the climate-change gases.

This is a global problem: Food loss and waste generates 8-10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Each year, the emissions caused by wasted food in the U.S. are greater than the emissions from all domestic flights within the U.S. plus all international flights run by U.S. airlines.

When you consider that 13.5 percent (18.0 million!) of U.S. households were food insecure at some time during 2023, the amount of waste food is shameful. Someone is considered food insecure when they don’t know where their next meal is coming from- or their food supply is insufficient. Food insecurity can be chronic, seasonal or transient and can affect anyone.

Why the Increase in Trash?

So why is this happening? There are multiple causes, including industrialization and urbanization, and rising consumption rates for energy, food and goods (with exceptions in the poorest areas of the world). According to some sources, the world generates over 2 billion tons of municipal solid waste annually (MSW), and this is expected to increase 70 percent by 2050! Our urge to consume apparently has no limits.

Technology has a huge impact: The amount of electronic and electrical devices (e-waste) that we discard continues to grow, exacerbated by planned obsolescence, meaning consumer products that become obsolete rapidly, and manufacturer policies that discourage or actively limit our ability to have products repairs. I will never forget the disdain with which a phone sales person said that my phone was really old. While e-waste is surging, food is still the most common form of waste, totaling about 50 percent of global MSW generation. This is disgraceful (there are hungry people everywhere; Los Angeles County is the most food-insecure county in the US) and harmful: Food is an organic material that generates methane when landfilled.

Food packaging contributes to waste generation because it’s often made from materials that cannot be recycled in curbside programs. This packaging ends up in landfills and contributes to climate degradation.