Until 2018, the United States and many other countries relied on China as an outlet for processing recycling. Before then, the United States sent 40% of its, largely contaminated, recyclables, to facilities in China that would sort and recycle it at very little cost. This system came to an abrupt halt in January of 2018, when the Chinese government banned the importation or purchase of any recycled plastic scrap that wasn’t 99.5 percent uncontaminated by non-recyclables.
This “National Sword” policy, commonly referred to in the United States as “the China ban,” has had devastating effects on American recycling practices, as most states and municipalities built their recycling programs on the expectation that at least some portion of the collected recyclable material would be sent to facilities overseas. Philadelphia is a disappointingly illustrative example of a city that is accumulating waste and waste-processing expenses.
Before the ban, recycling contractors such as Republic Services bought and processed recyclables from Philadelphia for a $67/ton. Now, as the market for recyclables disappears, the city has to pay $78/ton for the same services. Last year, the Philadelphia Streets Department scrambled to create a short-term plan for the city’s overwhelming recycling flow by sending “cleaner” recyclables from Northeast and Northwest Philly (about 40% of the city’s recyclables) to Waste Management, a recycling contractor with whom the city had been able to strike a cheaper deal. The rest of the city’s recycling (about 60%), which was deemed more likely to be contaminated, was sent to the Covanta Delaware Valley incinerator in Chester, Pennsylvania.
On April 8th, 2019, NowThis, a progressive, video-based news outlet posted a video article exposing the realities of Philaldelphia’s short term recycling system. The video, which focuses on how the incinerator and other local polluters impact residents of Chester, quickly went viral among Philadelphians. In one revealing moment, the journalist featured in the video speaks with Scott McGrath, the Streets Department’s Director of Environmental Planning, about the city’s decision to turn to incineration as a solution to the recycling crisis. Upon being asked if he understands why residents are upset that their recycling is being burned, McGrath replied: “We are sensitive to why people think that it is an issue.” McGrath went on to say that he did not think that incinerating the contaminated recyclables was a “mistake.”
In an article published by FRANCE 24, McGrath lays out the exact reasons why “the city had no choice” but to burn the excess recycling. “We wanted to find an economical way to manage things in the short term. We actually also spoke to the State Department of Environmental Protection and made sure they understood what our position was and that we had to do what we were doing because the city just didn’t have the resources to pay the additional cost.”
Despite the unfavorable decision city officials had to make, the Streets Department is not the villain of this story. Neither is Covanta, or the incineration industry. The waste crisis that Philadelphia and the rest of the United States now faces is the product of overproduction, overconsumption, overpackaging, and improper waste disposal by individuals and businesses on the municipal level.
How can the city safely manage our waste if we don’t throw it away correctly?
I live in West Philadelphia, and on one trash day, I looked in a few bins to see if anyone was recycling according to the regulations on the Streets Department website. I was primarily looking to see if people followed the rules.
What I found was pretty disappointing:
In light of what I saw on trash day, it is no surprise that so much contaminated recyclable material is being sent to Covanta incinerators. Philadelphia’s contamination aside, recycling has never really been an effective solution to any large-scale waste crisis: before the China ban, only nine percent of plastics were recycled globally.
Still, we know that the incineration services provided by Covanta, no matter how controlled, cannot be a truly acceptable waste and recycling management alternative. The “out of sight out of mind” strategy doesn't really work when moving trash or recyclables “out of sight” means burning them into the air we all breathe. Those concerned about the quality of the air in their city should acknowledge incineration facilities as public health threats. In order to stop feeding the fire, we must make an effort to understand our roles as consumers, neighbors, and advocates in a post-recycling age.
