The short answer is “yes”, but the longer answer is “it’s complicated”. Impressively, the CU Anschutz campus sends over 1.6 million pounds of waste to be recycled by Republic Services. However, whether your plastic bottle is sorted, shredded, melted, and reformed back into another bottle is a complicated question to answer. To understand, we need to take a step back and look at the life cycle of a package from cradle to grave. This means that we must observe the different stages of the package’s supply chain from when it was created to all the way past the time of disposal. There are decisions that are made along the way that impact a package’s recyclability.  Let’s use plastic bottles as an example.

A Brief Overview of the Supply Chain

Upstream

“Upstream” refers to the processes in the supply chain that occur before a complete product is created, such as sourcing materials, transportation, product planning and design, and manufacturing. When a manufacturer creates a new bottle, the plastic resin is refined from oil, or the plastic is sourced from a recycler. A brand’s packaging engineers and marketing team plans and designs how the plastic bottle should look and function. Then, the manufacturer takes the plastic materials and converts them into the brand’s bottle design. For example, the Heinz brand’s team partners with a manufacturer to create a ketchup bottle that has an opaque red PET plastic body. Aquafina will design a water bottle to have a clear PET plastic body. While both bottles are made of the same PET plastic, only one of these will get recycled. The decision by Heinz to dye the plastic an opaque red renders the bottle unrecyclable. Why? Recyclers sort all the plastic material they receive by color, resin type, weight and other characteristics. Certain colors and resins are highly sought after by bottle manufacturers, thus making those high-demand materials very valuable. In the case of the Heinz ketchup bottle, the opaque red color is undesirable by manufacturers, thus it has no value to the recycler. Low value material is not worth the time, effort and money to clean and prepare for sale, so this red opaque plastic goes to the landfill. In other words, there is not a large market for the purchase of red opaque PET plastic, thereby resulting in the recyclers being unable to sell this material to be turned into a new bottle. This is an example of a decision that was made upstream, before the product even reaches your hands, that deems the package unrecyclable.

If you’re interested in diving deeper into sustainable packaging design and its influence on recyclability, check out this article that’s full of great examples where brands choose materials to reduce environmental impact.

Pictured: The bottle on the left is opaque red PET plastic whereas

the bottle on the right is clear PET plastic.

Downstream

“Downstream” refers to the operations and movement of finished products to the end consumer; In the recycling supply chain, the end consumer is the recycler. Two common downstream operations that affect recyclability: 1) Behavior at the point of material collection and 2) the infrastructure and machinery involved in the sortation of materials. Sometimes recycling requires more than just getting your plastic bottle into the correct bin. The bottle may need to be cleaned, emptied, or even altered for the recycler’s machinery at the Material Recovery Facility (MRF) to properly capture the material.

In the example of a plastic bottle, the way the bottle is prepared before being placed in the recycling bin is a common point where recyclability is affected. For example, if your water bottle is half full or if you forgot to remove a sleeve-like label, then the bottle will not be recycled. These two examples change how the plastic gets sorted by a recycler’s machinery at their MRF. In the first example, the unfinished water affects the weight of the plastic bottle, thus causing the package to be improperly sorted. Similarly, in the second example, the sleeve-like label could be made of PP plastic resin while the bottle underneath is made of PET resin. The recycling machinery will recognize the package by the outer label, thus sorting the bottle into the incorrect material pile. However, if you make sure the bottle is completely empty and the sleeve-like label is removed, then the plastic bottle will be properly recycled. You may see custodial staff throwing seemingly recyclable materials into the garbage; however, this is likely stuff that is not prepared properly for recycling. Overall, recycling works, but it would be more effective if there was increased synergy throughout the supply chain.

If you’d like to better understand how a Materials Recovery Facility operates, check out this video.

Pictured: Example of on-pack recycling education where

the consumer is instructed to remove the sleeve label.

CU Anschutz’s Role in Recycling

The challenges to recycling exist up and down the supply chain. Decisions made in packaging design or how someone interacts with a package could affect its recyclability. While CU Anschutz cannot control many upstream and downstream choices, there is still an important and impactful role to play in this supply chain.

CU Anschutz offers single stream recycling, which means that students, faculty, staff and visitors on campus have access to recycle plastic, paper, cans and glass via any bin labeled for recycling. However, we recognize the large unmet opportunity to provide better signage and education on how to properly prepare your waste to be recycled. The Sustainability Team has plans to address this over the next year – Stay tuned!

When it comes to the question “Is my recycling actually getting recycled at CU Anschutz?”, the answer is “Yes”. We play an important part in the supply chain by offering access to recycling services and we are also working to expand educational signage on how to recycle.

Got questions? Email me! Julianna.nienart@cuanschutz.edu