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The Recycling Symbol does NOT mean "curbside recyclable".

We've all seen the famous recycling symbol on products, like these:

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The Weird "Recycling Symbol" Surprise

The "Recycling" symbol you see on packaging and products are NOT designed to have anything to do with curbside recycling.  Instead, the symbol is merely an indicator of what kind of material it is made out of.

Industry plasters this symbol on many products that are to be thrown in the trash.  Industry over-applies this symbol as a "greenwashing" strategy, tricking consumers into believing that a product is recyclable when in reality it is not.  And Consumers are tricked: people WANT stuff to be recyclable, and so they throw it into the recycle bin.  Then the bad item gets blended into a bunch of other otherwise good stuff, and diminishes the entire lot.

So what is recyclable?  The answer is: read your local recycling rules, and be a pessimist. If in doubt, it is better to throw it into the trash than to ruin an entire lot of recyclables.

Before you worry about not recycling enough, remember that some trash IS processed for recyclables.  Metals, particularly aluminum and iron-based metals, are easily picked out of trash, and in some places decades-old landfills are mined to get at the metals, using the principle of "its better to look for stuff in a landfill than to spend the money to scrape off the top of a mountain".  So it isn't all bad.

For my other recycling tips, see my prior recycling post on my blog.

 

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