Rethinking Curbside Recycling in Lafayette
Like many communities, we recycle here in Lafayette. We sort our trash and put recyclable items to the curb for separate collection – either in the recycling bin if the items are paper, metal or plastic and meet the requirements or in a separate container if the items are yard waste. Yard waste is typically processed locally and given free to the public for gardening and landscaping projects. Paper, metal, and plastic recyclables travel to the only materials recovery facility (MRF) in the state located in Baton Rouge where they are sorted, bailed, and sold to be recycled. There are many factors that affect the chances of these items being successfully recycled, three important factors being quality of the items collected, available infrastructure, and demand for recycled materials. When these are compromised, items do not get recycled. It is time to rethink recycling.
To be clear, we all need to continue to sort our trash, but the goal should be to lessen all of what we put out curbside – less trash, less yard waste, less recycling. We can look to a zero-waste philosophy to put recycling in proper perspective. Zero Waste is defined by Zero Waste International Alliance as, “The conservation of all resources by means of responsible production, consumption, reuse, and recovery of products, packaging, and materials without burning and with no discharges to land, water, or air that threaten the environment or human health.” We do not need to recycle more, we need to recycle better and as a last resort before the trash cart.
Plan to lessen your recycling – ofte recycling can be avoided. For example, if you know your kid’s soccer team will repeatedly need water at each practice for the next 5 years – invest in a refillable water cooler and get those kids in the habit of bringing a durable, refillable water bottle. You could easily save $2,000 by avoiding bottled water over 5 years and the hassle of getting all those plastic bottles to a recycling cart. Even if they do not end up blown across the soccer field into a nearby ditch and they make it to a recycler, they will be downcycled once into a lesser quality product which cannot be further recycled.
In your day-to-day habits, choose reusable items when you can and avoid over-packaged products and hard to recycle products. When recycling cannot be avoided, make sure your items are recyclable curbside in Lafayette and prepared properly. If you do not have time to check with current guidelines as to whether your #6 foam take-out container is recyclable or not (it is not) -throw it away. If you do not have time to rinse a container, throw it away. Do not feel guilty. Throw it. Recycling is not some enviro-spiritually pure act that will redeem your bottled water drinking soul. You are not a better or worse person for digging and rinsing peanut butter out of the bottom of a jar, so that it may or may not make it to a recycler. Do not waste your precious life obsessing over recycling. It is only a small, flawed part of conserving resources and ensuring a better future for the soils and waters that feed us all.
Yard waste is the only curbside collected material that stays within Lafayette – it is produced here, collected here, composted locally, and returned to local lands – creating an ideal recycling loop. But this loop can sometimes be disrupted when there is equipment failure or material overload due to weather. Keeping as much yard waste in your yard as possible is a way to reduce the strain on this system while enriching the soils you live on and limiting the energy use associated with hauling and processing. Healthy soils not only grow delicious food, but they also prevent erosion, and they have a greater capacity to absorb stormwater than do nutrient-deprived compacted soils. Grass-cycling is likely the easiest way to keep yard waste at home – when you mow, simply leave the grass clippings behind – they will quickly degrade and enrich the lawn. If you rake, use those leaves to mulch the tree from which they fell. It is inefficient and unnecessary to rake leaves and then purchase mulch to surround the tree. Nature does not waste – those leaves drop under the oak for a reason – rake them into a neat configuration if you must but leave them under the tree. Small quantities of branches and trees, especially those of pecan and oak can be saved for barbecuing. What cannot be realistically left in your yard, place it curbside and know that you can get free compost from the Dean Domingues Compost Facility at 400 Dugas Road in Lafayette to use in your landscape.
Our paper, metal and plastic recyclables do not stay local – if they pass standards at the transfer station, they make their way to Baton Rouge for sorting at the only MRF in the state. Sorting facilities all over the US must make hard decisions about whether to sort incoming material or not. They may choose to divert the material to a landfill or incinerator for a variety of reasons: the quality is poor, the market prices are low, there might be equipment issues or due to capacity constraints. Prior to 2016, China was a huge market for low quality recyclables but due to improvements in their environmental standards, that market is mostly closed at this time – and rightfully so. No country should have to deal with dirty recyclables that we here in the US were not willing to process ourselves until we were forced to do so. Since 2016 there have been efforts to improve our recycling habits and infrastructure but even with improvements, recycling will always be limited in its ability to manage our current consumption habits.
So, if our recyclables are not always getting recycled, why recycle? Because recycling along with other measures like reduction, redesign and reuse ideally conserves resources and reduces environmental destruction related to extraction of resources. We are only one part of the process of recycling, and we need to maintain our part while we demand improvements in recyclability of products and in recycling infrastructure in the United States. But we also need to rethink recycling and know that it is not the best solution for our resources. We need to consider how zero waste habits could become part of our lifestyle by consuming less, repairing what is broken, replacing disposable items with durable items, sharing, borrowing, donating, buying used, buying items made with recycled content, keeping yard waste in place, composting food scraps if possible – these are all ways to conserve resources that can have a more direct impact on conserving resources.