ALISSA’S ECO-ADVICE

Eco-investigator and New Jersey native, Alissa MacMillan, seeks to find answers to your everyday questions about tough decisions we all face, when acting in the best interests for the environment. A freelance writer and philosophy lecturer, Alissa is a former features reporter for the New York Daily News and has been living in County Limerick for eight years. Your queries on all matters environmental, are welcome. This week, she focuses on ‘RECYCLING DEBATES’

Q: I am in constant battle with my young son who monitors what goes into the recycling bin with fervour. I’m reprimanded if I put one dirty plastic container in there, but I tell him it’s no big deal, it will get cleaned somehow. Who’s right on this?

A: Recycling wars can get heated, I know, but it turns out your son is right this time: putting dirty containers into the recycling bin is a big deal. Everything we do at home makes a difference down the line.

There are three cardinal rules for home recycling, explains Tad Kirakowski, project manager for VOICE Ireland. What goes into the recycling bin should be clean, dry and loose. You might have images in your mind of people chatting away at the recycling centre, happily sorting out your bins for you, but in reality it’s a combination of automation and people, and it’s “go, go, go,” Kirakowski explains.

“They are not sitting there picking up each item, they can’t do all of it.” The speed at which your stuff gets sorted by only a handful of people means that if they’re unsure or don’t have time, it comes off the line and goes into general waste.

Items need to be clean and dry because if, for example, you leave a bit of milk or oil in a bottle and it dribbles onto some paper or cardboard, that paper or cardboard is no longer recyclable. Even worse, your bins are typically being mixed in with the bins of everyone on your route, so when milk or oil from your batch drips onto their cardboard, it means their stuff becomes unrecyclable too.

As for its being loose, if you put a plastic bottle in a tin can in a cardboard box, like a little Russian doll set, that has to be separated by hand and there’s often no time for that either.

After making it to the centre (the MRF - or material recovery facility) and getting sorted and separated, it gets baled and shipped out – pallets of types of plastic or paper or cardboard or tin will be sold to another processing facility, often in Europe, wood and glass tending to stay in Ireland, and the materials will take on their next role in life, Kirakowski explains.

In Ireland, recycling has actually gone down in recent years, mostly because of how bins are used, he says. People are creating more waste per person per year, but are “unsure about what can and can’t go in, so the proportion of stuff we’re presenting for recycling is decreasing.” Only about 28% of plastics are currently recycled, but he notes that rules are changing in Europe and what needs to be shipped out “has to be of higher quality which is forcing us to have a better handle on the waste that we have here.”

It’s a process helped at the first stage of its journey, the trip out of your house. “A good rule of thumb is you should be able to tip your recycling bin on your kitchen floor,” Kirakowski says. It’s not ready if it has you “feeling a bit icky.”

You and your son might want to check out mywaste.ie, which gives a detailed, somewhat addictive A-Z list of what is and isn’t recyclable. The bête noir of recycling centres are VHS tapes and old Christmas lights which get tangled in and clog the machinery. Aerosols, old spectacles and most cosmetics can’t go in, while clothes hangers, clear freezer bags and jar lids can. People are surprised, Kirakowski says, that the black plastic trays you get with fruit and veg are recyclable, as is aluminium foil, but it must be sparkling clean (so you could just use it again). A bit of trivia: plastics degrade with each recycling cycle while tin is infinitely recyclable, so it’s important to get it in there, clean, dry and loose.

In all cases, think first about whether something can be repaired, reused or donated, with any electronics taken to a civic amenity site or WEEE collection point. Worries about recycling would decrease if we shopped with an eye to over-packaging and if manufacturers met us halfway.

“We have a long way to go,” Kirakowski adds, “but people are asking and interested and engaged and that’s a positive.”.

Direct your eco related queries for Alissa to info@avondhupress.ie (with ‘Alissa’s Eco-advice’ in the subject line)