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[Free Report] Wishcycling - Once Upon a Wishing Star, Please Recycle this Pizza Box? |
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by Geumbee Ahn | 29-03-2021 19:49
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Wishcycling - it's something you, me, all of us have done before with the noblest of intentions at heart. You don't want to be responsible for generating more waste on top of the unbelievable amount of trash that are already ending up in the seas and in landfills right now (trash islands! Turtles wearing beer rings! What has the world come to?), so you throw your finished coffee cups or dubiously clean pizza boxes into the recycling bin, hoping that somehow, this will be a better alternative to chucking them in the waste. Within many green living communities and throughout the recycling industry, this act is referred to as the phenomenon of 'wishcycling' - non-recyclable items ending up in recycling facilities because we are misguided into believing that they can be treated and re-processed. Even though it may seem like the right thing to do, wishcycling is one of the biggest challenges that the recycling industry faces as of now.
Also known as aspirational recycling, wishcycling comes with a laundry list of financial and environmental problems. Ranging from used pizza boxes to plastic silverware and jarringly, many types of single-use plastic bags, items that may seem recyclable at first glance can actually end up contaminating whole loads of valuable recycling materials, making them impossible to be processed and sold. Single-use plastic bags are particularly harmful, as they "rely on automated materials recovery facilities (MRFs) to sort recyclables by category and type 2 Bags gunk up the works of the machines, force shutdowns, and get pulled out and diverted towards landfills anyway" (Altman, 2021). Like the unmasked spread of the bubonic plague, it only takes one non-recyclable item muddying up the entire cache to contaminate the rest of the horde and force the recyclers to then send them to landfill, culminating in the creation of massive recycling problems for the companies and factories in question.  (Image Credits - Discard Studies, Max Liboiron. A sign warns workers at a recycling facility to separate plastic bags from the recyclables before undergoing procession.) Wishcycling also complicates the sorting process for recycling centers, as the contamination of other materials and problematic material in the batch end up resulting in higher sorting costs and delays in processing schedules. Items like plastic bags and pizza boxes deep-soaked in grease can easily clog up the sorting machines, eliminating the monetary value that existed for the selling of the treated recyclables in the first place. When these wishcycling problems occur over and over and the cost deficiencies accumulate, some communities simply end up shutting down their recycling centers because they just aren't worth the budget hassle and send all their recyclable materials to landfills and into the oceans instead. Learning which items to catalog in the 'can' column and the 'can't' column can help put an end to wishcycling as we know it. Of course, as it always is with recycling issues, it's important to check in with your local authorities or recycling center to confirm which items your program cater to, but some items are considered universally blacklisted and knowing them can help cut back on your wishcycling quota. If you're interested in doing some further reading, go to Shelby Mell's article in the blog roadrunnerwm.com to access their pdf guide on wishcycling materials. For the possessor of the Windows 1 desktop that takes 100 years to download a pdf and/or for the mobile reader, however, here is a series of yeses and nos to get you started on your wishcycling abstention. Do recycle plastics 1-2 as noted on the container (PETE #1 and HDPE #2), clean cardboard (milk cartons always washed, remember?) and mixed paper products, and rinsed and dried aluminum, glass, and plastic containers. Do not recycle paper and foam coffee cups, plastic shopping bags, greasy pizza boxes, plastic utensils, straws, coffee pods, coffee cups, Styrofoam, thin plastics, and any containers with food and drink residue. Place all non-recyclable or questionable items into the trash to prevent contamination.  (Image Credit - OurWorldinData.org, secondarily accessed from Discard Studies.) Writer and sociologist Dr. Rebecca Altman guesses that wishcycling "evolved ... because of growing public concern over disposable plastics. And so what began as a term meant to 'fix the recycler,' over time, has come to indicate a broader critique of a materials system premised on disposability". Our concern for the environment is touching - however, it must be applied correctly and to the right venues in order for the sentiment to be translated into effective action. - Works Cited 1. https://discardstudies.com/2021/02/15/on-wishcycling/ 2. https://www.roadrunnerwm.com/blog/wishcycling
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3 Comments
Greetings Geumbee
I hope you are doing well
Your writing style and the information in the report is really an awesome.
Thank you so much for this report
Keep writing
Kind regards
Asmita Gaire
Green cheers from Nepal
Posted 02-08-2021 02:14
Hi Geumbee,
this is your mentor Yuseon:D
What a interesting point of information! I actually believe I am one of the many people who ' throw your finished coffee cups or dubiously clean pizza boxes into the recycling bin, hoping that somehow, this will be a better alternative to chucking them in the waste' like you have mentioned.
I didn't even know this could be a 'thing' and also had an official name of 'wishcycling' Thanks for raising awareness in just throwing everything away, and making the 'recycling' process some responsibilities of others. I should try my best to seperate the two, and follow your guidelines.
Thanks for the information!
Posted 06-04-2021 23:43
Hi Geumbee,
This is your mentor Debbie. :)
This is a new terminology for me - you??re spot on. I won??t lie; I feel that I??ve ‘wishcycled?? before as well. Shame on me.
This means that we must know what can be recycled and what cannot. Otherwise, as you??ve mentioned, one wrongdoing might influence the entire bag of potentially recyclable material! Yikes! For example, I??ve always thought paper coffee cups were recyclable.. I was so wrong!

Hopefully with your article, more people would be aware of this situation and stop ‘wishcycling??! Thanks for sharing, Geumbee. :)
Green Cheers,
Debbie
Posted 31-03-2021 01:37