Plastic bags, coffee cups, meal kit packaging: What to do with hard-to-recycle items

When it comes to recycling, most folks know to sort their plastic and paper thanks to the blue and green plastic sorting bins given out by their municipal sanitation departments. But beyond the basics of cardboard boxes and plastic water bottles, there can be quite a lot of confusion about what goes where — and whether certain items are even recyclable at all.

For instance, despite its cardboard-like appearance, biodegradable paper food packaging can’t go into the paper recycling stream. And things like plastic bags and plastic wrap shouldn’t be tossed into the curbside plastic bin; when they are put into the recycling system, they junk up machinery and contaminate waste streams. Unfortunately, this is pretty common: One in four items tossed into the recycling bin isn’t actually recyclable.

Paper coffee cups

Paper coffee cups fall into that “qualified” recycling area: “They’re kind of in that ‘check locally’ category … between 20 and 60 percent acceptance in communities nationwide,” Dreizen explains. Before you throw them out, check with your local municipality.

Paper coffee cups have a plastic liner that, if the system isn’t set up for them, will gum up the recycling process, slowing things down and possibly reducing the quality of the recycled paper. “If you run a pulper, do you want [plastic lined] paper cups? No,” says Dr. Martin Mulvihill, a chemist, green packaging expert and advisor on the “Foodprint of Food Packaging” report. And if too many paper coffee cups or other plastic-lined items end up in the recyclable paper goods stream, says Mulvihill, the sorter or processer may even send the whole batch — including what can be recycled — to the landfill.

That being said, there has been improvement in this area: Some facilities can now process a variety of paper materials with one side coated with polyethylene, says Dreizen. “Paper coffee cups … [they are] good quality fiber. Totally recyclable in lots of places, not recyclable in all,” she says.

Plastic wrap and bags

Most everyone knows you can recycle a plastic water bottle. But what about plastic bags or cling wrap? While we prefer to avoid using those things when possible (here are some tips for doing that), they aren’t always avoidable, and a lot of plastic that ends up in our kitchens is actually recyclable — you just may not know it.

Things like bread bags, produce bags, Ziploc and other food storage bags and other plastics (specifically those labeled no. 2 or no. 4) — things that often end up in the trash — can generally be taken to drop-off collection bins, found at many supermarkets, pharmacies and convenience stores. This plastic is recycled and used for items like composite lumber for outdoor lawn furniture and landscaping items. “These plastics definitely make up a huge portion of the total plastic we produce,” Dreizen says, “so if someone isn’t recycling their plastic film at a store drop-off, I don’t think … one could consider themselves to be managing their own plastic waste responsibly.”

Compostable plastic

So-called compostable plastic — often made of corn or sugar cane — is now offered in many places in the form of takeout cutlery, iced-coffee cups and more. It sounds so promising! But here’s the problem: “Compostable” plastic items will not compost in a backyard composter (they need to be broken down under high temperatures) and therefore must be brought to municipal or commercial facilities. Otherwise, they are essentially just trash. Many of the restaurants and other businesses where you might be given these items don’t even have compost bins for you to throw them away. When these products are sent to landfills — as is usually the case — they can take over a hundred years to biodegrade and will release methane, a potent greenhouse gas, in the process. And when we mistakenly put them in the recycling bin, compostable plastics will contaminate the end product because plastic recycling systems are not built for them.

Compostable bowls and containers

Compostable bowls, plates and other dining containers, usually made of “molded fiber” (recycled paper that’s lined or coated for food use), are also a no-no for recycling bins. If you buy something that comes in a compostable molded fiber salad bowl, and the restaurant has onsite compost collection, that’s great. But you take your food to go (often the case for this kind of packaging), you can only compost it if your neighborhood has curbside compost collection. Otherwise, says Dreizen, you “need to take it to a composting facility that can handle it.”

If you don’t have curbside compost pick-up, or the municipal compost doesn’t accept these containers, they should be processed at a commercial composting facility. When compostable food packaging winds up in landfills, it emits methane as it breaks down — contributing to climate change. “I would never recommend that a restaurant buy and distribute compostable packaging if they didn’t provide collection for it on-site,” says Dreizen. “We see a ton of people doing that, and I think it’s crazy. I think there’s no environmental benefit to it. I would rather have a recyclable item.”

As a consumer, choosing to dine-in, when possible, is the greenest choice. You can also let restaurants and other outlets know it’s important to you that they offer a proper collection for their compostable materials.

Paper napkins, plates and more

Clean paper goods, like napkins, paper plates, paper bags and pizza boxes, can all be recycled. But once they are soiled with food, oils or grease, it’s another story. Tossing soiled materials into the paper waste stream is a major source of contamination — and a big no-no. But if you are a die-hard recycler, cut off the soiled part of a pizza box or lunch bag and recycle the remaining materials. You can place the soiled parts into the compost, where the food and paper will break down.

Cartons

How can Tetra Paks hold oat milk, chicken stock or coconut water without leaking? Layers of different types of materials — 75 percent paper, 20 percent plastic and 5 percent aluminum foil — keep the liquids inside safe and shelf-stable, but also make the packaging hard to process post-use.

“This is a really good example of a package [for which the] recyclability has changed dramatically in recent years,” says Dreizen. When these items first debuted, no infrastructure existed to recycle them. “Something like an aluminum can, we’ve … always been able to recycle from the get-go, when recycling programs were first started. But something like a carton was not considered recyclable. In fact, you could really recycle it nowhere.”

Fortunately, this is changing. Infrastructure for collecting, sorting and processing Tetra Paks and “gable tops” (aka milk cartons, which also have layers of different materials) has been established in many cities. “It’s not everywhere that you can recycle a Tetra Pak or a carton today, but the majority of places you can,” Dreizen says. Research whether your municipality recycles them and, if not, try to find carton recycling locations near you.

Still, if you have a choice between plastic, aluminum or Tetra Pak, Dreizen suggests choosing the plastic or aluminum. “The circularity is better [guaranteed] than a carton. There’s less loss in that [recycling] process.”

Meal kit and grocery delivery packaging

In an effort to be more environmentally friendly, meal kit companies are using all sorts of non-plastic packing materials to cushion their boxes. Sunbasket, a San Francisco-based company that’s working to use 100 percent recyclable or compostable packaging, uses denim insulation, which they suggest using around the house after you’ve unpacked your box. (They suggest using it for yoga bolsters, dog beds or sound-absorbing acoustic panels. In truth, there are only so many of those items you can have in your house.) Otherwise, the insulation must be recycled through a fabric recycling program.

A common item in food delivery boxes is the freezer pack. Saving a few to reuse is a good idea, but when your freezer is already full of them, they can usually be thawed and the gel and plastic container disposed of — make sure to read the instructions properly, as each company uses different materials. (Some gels may be compostable, for example, but others must go in the trash.)

Black plastic and colorful labels

Plastic that’s been placed in the recycling stream is usually sorted using infrared sensors, which determine plastic type and eject what is deemed “not recyclable.” Products with labels, black plastics (like take-out containers) and other colored products are often mislabeled and rejected. “They can’t tell what kind of plastic it is from another when they go to sort PET versus HDPE versus polypropylene, that kind of thing,” Derizen explains.

Recycling enthusiast Moana Mai Sato teamed up with Westside Compost, an environmental initiative educating younger generations on the benefits of composting, to produce this informative post on the topic. Sato suggests removing wrappers and labels before recycling and trying to reuse (or avoid) take-out containers instead of recycling them.

Top photo by MegWallacePhoto/ Adobe Stock.