Guess what mango?
What's that? Will?
So are you familiar with tots magoats?
Oh? Please don't tell me you're going to start using that phrase.
No, I'm not talking about the term though, though now I'm tots magoat's going to start using it. But I'm talking about this weird man goat mascot that they used in the Niagara Falls area, and you know, it's to help people start recycling more.
I can't say I've heard of that, and it sounds like a horrible idea. Did you say, mangat?
I did, and it is super weird looking. You should totally look up tots mgoats. But you know, supposedly since introducing this really bizarre mascot a few years ago, recycling is actually up fifty percent in this area and the amount of trash going to landfills has dropped by twenty percent.
Okay, so I just pulled them up, and honestly, if I thought this scary looking mascot with a tiny goat heead was going to come after me, I'd start recycling too. Maybe it's just a scare tactic they're using.
I don't know. But on the topic of how much we recycle. We've had several questions we've been meaning to get to and things like, you know, what's the state of recycling in the US, and is it a good business to be in? Is it even worth it to recycle? And what are the weirdest things people can recycle? Now it's Toat's Magot's time to find out. Please all right, but let's dive in. Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to
Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend mangeshat Ticketter And on the other side of the soundproof glass separating his number one and number two plastics from the rest of the bunch, that's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil.
Yeah, and good for Tristan for doing that. Most folks don't even know the numbers inside the recycling system on plastic containers and that they're actually a way to tell which kinds can and can't be recycled. But Tristan has the whole resin identification hode down and that's just the kind of guy he is.
Well, and we love him for it, and especially today because we're going to be taking a hard look at the current state of recycling in the world and asking a tough question, you know, is recycling worth it? Because when you think about it, the practice is a pretty unique blend of environmentalism and business, and it's one that the majority of developed nations agree is a pretty sensible thing to do. And I mean, of course, recycling makes environmental sense.
It reduces the trash we send to the landfills and conserves natural resources that you know would otherwise go into making new products. But it also makes economic sense. For example, I was looking at a study by the EPA, this report they released back in twenty sixteen, and it found that within a single year, recycling and reuse activities in the US account for seven hundred and fifty seven thousand jobs and almost seven billion in tax revenue and over
thirty six billion in wages. So recycling clearly leads to some very real and valuable benefits. But of course those benefits always come with a.
Cost, right, So today we'll try to balance the books and get a sense of whether recycling is actually paying off both environmentally and economically. But before we get into that, I want to take a minute to talk about how recycling became a thing that people do in the first place.
You're always going back to the origins and things, but with recycling, like, I didn't even know there was an origin of recycling.
Yeah, I mean, wide scale recycling programs are a fairly new phenomenon in history. They kind of arose during the industrial and post industrial ages as manufacturing was kicking into overdrive. So humans started using more and more natural resources to produce more new things than ever before. And meanwhile, you know, the thrifty people started looking for ways to just reuse
what was already out there instead. So, for example, in the late eighteen hundreds, these European cities like London and Paris, they were rife with what you'd call rag and bone men. And these were pebblers who just wandered around and collected and carted around sacks of reusable items, and then they'd sell those back to general stores.
All right, so rag and bone, I'm guessing from the name that these reusable items you're talking about were rags and for some reason bones.
Yeah, So these guys would scour the city for like old rags, bones, bits of metal, any other discarded items that could be scavenged and of course recycled.
I love how you just say this like it's no big deal. I still need to know it. Actually, maybe I don't why and how people were reusing bones and why were so many random bones just all over the streets of London.
Well, I don't have specifics on where the bones were actually coming from, but I imagine there were mostly animal bones left over from you know, meals that've been tossed in the garbage. But you know, as for how the bones were recycled, a lot of them were used to make geladin for processed foods or glue, kind of the way
we still do today. And also I've forgotten this, but prior to the rise of plastics in the twentieth century, many of the buttons for clothing were made from polished bones, so that was another use as well.
All right, So what exactly happened to these pioneers of recycling. Was it, you know, plastics that kind of kill the bone market? I guess.
Yeah. Plastic and a few other advancements sort of put an end to those kinds of local level recycling schemes for a while. After the Industrial Revolution, fewer people were making their own goods, so there was just less need for reusable materials. Like the ones rag and bone men were collecting, and instead all that stuff kind of became garden variety garbage. But I should mention that that entrepreneurial
spirit still lives on today in today's scrap recyclers. So, according to the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, scrappers processed more than one hundred and thirty million tons of material in twenty thirteen, and all that helped us save energy, reduce screenhouse gas emissions, It helped preserve natural resources and actually limited the amount of material that would otherwise go to landfills.
Well, I know, the scrap industry is nothing like Sanford and Sun these days, and I mean it has its own institute now apparently, which I wasn't aware of. But I still can't help thinking of that show whenever somebody mentions scrap dealers, which is more often than you think, actually, But you look at the numbers that you mentioned, and it really highlights just how much of an impact industrialization has had on the amount of trash that we produce.
So I was flipping through this book by Tom Zaki called out Smart Waste, the Modern Idea of garbage and how to think our way out of it, and according to his research, the amount of waste that humans produce has gone up by more than ten thousand percent over the past century. That's ten thousand percent.
That's insane. But you know, if there is a silver lining to that insanely large cloud of trash, it's that the world's recycling rate has also risen by leaps and bounds over that same period. So, for instance, by the EPA's last count Americans now recycle nearly thirty five percent of the trash we produce, which is up from just
six point two percent in the nineteen sixties. And you know a few other countries like Taiwan, Austria, Germany, they now boast recycling rates as high as sixty three percent.
Well, that is a promising uptick, but I still can't help but feel a little disappointed with our current numbers. I mean, not even a full thirty five percent of our trash gets recycled. Americans produce about two hundred and fifty million tons of trash every single year, so recycling just a third of that means we're still sending close to one hundred and seventy million tons of waste, you know,
off to landfills and incinerators every single year. I mean, there's got to be a better way to get our numbers up.
Well, there are definitely a few things we could improve on, and we should talk about them in a bit, But first I want to throw out another silver lining that we shouldn't overlook.
They're always looking on the positive side. Then, all right, so what's this upside to a thirty four percent recycling rate.
Well, even at that current rate, our recycling efforts, coupled with composting, prevent the release of a lot of carbon dioxide, so about one hundred and eighty million metric tons of it in twenty thirteen alone, And according to the EPA, that's comparable to taking more than thirty nine million cars off the road for a whole year. So yeah, so even though we have like a long way to go, we're really making some headway.
Well I'm glad you mention that, because it is important to keep progress in perspective, and in fact, that might be one way we can improve our recycling game here in the States.
How's that?
Actually? I saw this survey conducted by IPSOS back in twenty eleven that found that only half of American adults recycled daily. About a third of the respondent said that they recycle less frequently than that, and about thirteen percent admitted that they never recycle at all. And some researchers have since suggested that there's a psychological reason for our
spotty track records with recycling. I mean, namely, we have trouble connecting our daily habits with their consequences, and so if you think about it, it actually kind of makes a lot of sense. You know, the reward for recycling isn't immediate, and then the fallout from recycling also doesn't feel real either, so we don't see the benefits or
the harms that we're contributing to. So there's less of an appeal to make recycling a daily behavior, and it just is kind of all lessened in our minds because of this.
That's pretty interesting and it actually makes me think of this study I read about in Scientific American. That's just an other psychological hang up that people have with recycling. So I don't know if you've heard this before, but there have been a number of studies that show that women typically have greener habits and are more environmentally minded
than men. So, for instance, women recycle more, they litteralless, then they leave a smaller carbon footprint than their average male counterparts.
So do we know why this might be?
Well, Weirdly, the research report on by Scientific Americans suggests that men might shun this eco friendly behavior like recycling, because it makes them feel less macho.
Really.
Yeah, So two of the researchers describe the findings of their study this way. So quote, we showed that there is a psychological link between eco friendliness and perceptions of femininity. And due to this green feminine stereotype, both men and women judged eco friendly products, behaviors, and consumers as more feminine than their non green counterparts.
That is such a strange thing. But actually, from what you're saying, so even women thought going green was a feminine thing.
Yeah, it's weird, right. So one of the experiments had the participants recall a time when they did something good for the environment, and both the men and the women said they perceived themselves to be more feminine in those instances that they shared. Maybe it's just because they were like caring nicely for mother Earth. I'm not sure what it was.
Wow, So is there any way to counter this thinking so that guys will be more inclined to you know, pitch in with recycling or these other green efforts.
Yeah, so, since this is like a psychological hurdle, the best way to solve is for men to grow more secure with their own masculinity. That's good advice, and I
guess marketing can help. Like, for instance, the researchers and Scientific American described this experiment where men were found to be more likely to donate to a green nonprofit if it had a masculine logo, so like if it had black and dark blue colors and like featured a howling wolf, and also if the name was something more masculine like
Wilderness Rangers. Yeah, I had a bold fond apparently, so and men contributed more to that than something with like a traditional logo with light and green tan colors, if it featured a tree, if it had like a frilly font and a name like Friends with Nature.
So it's crazy if it makes me wish that mancho man Randy Savage was still around so that we could.
Have Wilderness Rangers exactly. We need a bad boy of recycling. The show is our way.
So it's clearly still all in our heads though.
Yeah, so our psyches are our worst natural enemies when it comes to recycling. Like, according to a survey from the National Waste and Recycling Association, one in five Americans say that they'll put something in a recycling bin even if they aren't totally certain that it's recyclable. And this is a phenomenon that's called wishful recycling, where people in doubt, we'll just go for it and the off chance that whatever they want to get rid of can hopefully be recycled.
And of course a lot of the time we're completely wrong with those kinds of judgments.
Yeah, and if I'm being honest, I mean I have definitely been guilty of that as well. You've got a product and you're just again you're hoping that it can be recycled, so you just go ahead and toss it in there. But you know, it does lead to all these kinds of headaches for people who have to sort and then process this random assortment of stuff that people are just chucking in the recycling bins.
Yeah. So some years ago, Lizzie and I house sat for some friends in Portland and they gave us like this twenty minute tour of just their recycling system and the fifteen bins they had for various types of things. It was dizzying. I know, it really felt like a Portland episode. But and I mean that's coming from Delaware,
where we had recycling really early. But you had to make such an effort to do it, Like I actually remember on weekends, like I'd collect stuff around the house with my dad, all the newspapers and cardboard, and turned his hatchback and we'd drive off to recycling center a few miles away. And that's because the city didn't pick it up yet. But I'm a little off topic. I definitely want to talk about the problems that come from the so called single stream approach to recycling that we
go by in the US. But before we do that, let's take a quick break.
You're listening to Part Time Genius, and we're breaking down the pros and cons of recycling. I mean, a minute ago you mentioned single stream recycling, which of course was intended to make recycling more approachable for the average citizen, but really in practice the system has proven to be both bad for the environment and bad for business.
Yeah. So basically, the idea behind single stream was to put all of your different recyclables, whether that's glass or paper or plastic all into one bin. And this was an idea that first cropped up in California back in nineteen ninety five and was later rolled out nationwide as almost the best, most user friendly shot for getting people
on board with recycling. And really though this approach just kind of kicked the can a little further down the road because you know, all those materials still need to be sort of so instead of placing that added responsibility on individuals, we just invested in processing plants to do all that sorting for us.
Right. And you know, in the opposite end of the spectrum, you have somewhere like Germany and it adopted this system in the early nineties that actually required households to use a total of five different bins. They're all color coded and they help indicate where you should dispose of different kinds of waste and a little bit like the Portland
example you gave earlier. And you know, while it sounds complicated, that approach has led to a recycling rate that's nearly double what we see here in the States.
Yeah, I mean that's incredible, But the drawbacks of this single like single stream system go far beyond making us look bad in front of the Germans. So one of the biggest issues the system poses is cross contamination. So that's when like little pieces of plastic get mixed in with paper, or worse, when they're like food particles from containers that weren't cleaned well enough. And all of this slows down the sorting process, it comes up the machines.
It leads to this inordinate amount of would be recyclables being thrown out instead of being recycled. Then, according to City Lab, as much as twenty five percent of the recyclable waste that passes through the single stream system winds up in landfill, and if you ask Tom Zakey, that number is closer to fifty percent. Either way. It really calls it a question whether our already not soo stellar thirty four percent national recycling rate is even accurate.
There's a good chance it's way lower. Yeah, you know, And I was reading that an even bigger problem for materials recovery facilities or mirphs. I guess they're called MRF so that that's what they call them in the industry, That this all these unrecyclables that end up in the plants thanks to the wishful recycling that you were talking
about earlier. According to Susan Robinson, she's the director of public affairs for Waste Management, but we also get a surprising number of garden hoses, Christmas lights and shower curtain.
And I can just imagine how much time is lost by like trying to shut down the equipmen and fish out all that junk.
Yeah, and that loss and productivity has started to take its toll on recycling's profitability. I mean, all cross the country, recycling companies are reporting drastic decreases in profit and that's partly because of the higher processing costs associated with contamination and faulty user sorting practices. You know, for example, in the District of Columbia, they replaced those thirty two gallon
bins with ones that were fifty percent larger. This was back in twenty fourteen, and so these larger binds lead to a higher rate of wishful recycling among the residents, so much so that all that non recyclable material that wound up in DC's mirphs, it drove up the city's processing costs and it cut their profits from recyclable sales by more than fifty percent back in twenty fifteen.
Wow, So clearly there's room for improvement in this single stream system. And still, in the interest of balance, I do want to point out a few parts of the recycling industry that are still paying out despite our somewhat you know, flawed way of doing things. So one example is aluminum, which is actually the most recycled product in the world, with close to seventy percent of aluminum cans
being recycled around the world. And there the reason for that huge turnover rate is that aluminum nets recycling companies the most money of any recyclable material out there. It's about fifteen hundred dollars per ton in the US as of twenty fifteen. And another area where business is booming
is corrugated cardboard, and that's thanks to online shopping. You know, the recycling stream is just flush with cardboard boxes, which you know, can be valuable so long as they aren't contaminated by pizza grease or whatever other organic bits have mistakenly made their way into the recycling bin.
Yeah, and I do want to be careful not to harp too much on the business side of things, because there's still other areas where recycling definitely benefits the economy, like reducing the use and costs of landfills and reducing the energy expense of harvesting more natural resources for all the new products that we need to create.
Well, and another reason not to stress too much about the money saving benefits of environmentalism is that it can actually make people less likely to recycle.
Wait what, so, how does that work?
So this comes from a team of researchers at Cardiff University in the UK, and they found that appealing to somebody's self interest actually makes them less likely to behave in a helpful manner. So, in this experiment, one group of students was told about the environmental benefits of carpooling. Another group was told about the potential to save money by carpooling, and things get a little devious from there. And here's how Wired explained the next part of the experiment.
So the students then filled out paper questionnaires about unrelated topics, which they were told to dispose of at the session's end. Unbeknownst to them, this was the experiment's real purpose and a microcosm of environmental tensions. Would they use a recycling basket inconveniently located under another table or a general waste bin at arm's length. Among those students primed as psychologists say, with the message of carpooling self transcending benefits, eighty nine
percent recycled. Of the group that learned about the cost saving, just fifty percent recycled.
Wow, so the environmental impact turned out to be a bigger draw than saving their own cash, which I guess that's actually a little bit heartening.
Yeah, And the study also highlights the biggest risk of pushing recycling mainly as a way to save time or make money instead of as a way to preserve the beauty of the natural world, like people might forget that nature is in its own right reason enough to care about conservation efforts.
That's a really good point, you know. One of my favorite examples of just how effective that naturalist mentality can be is this tiny town. It's in southwestern Japan and it's called Kamakatsu. So there's about seventeen hundred people who live there, and since two thousand and three, the town residents have been engaged in this long running quest that
becomes zero waste by twenty twenty. And so in order to get there, citizens are responsible for separating their trash into thirty four distinct categories and then getting it all delivered to the nearest recycling center thirty fours.
Ever beens and no trash trucks. Like right, I thought the Germans had it wrong.
Yeah, I mean, this is more Portland than Portland. It's pretty impressive. But that's actually not all either. So to sidestep the contamination problem that we have here in the States, town residents are also required to thoroughly wash all thirty four kinds of recyclables and then separate out all their organic waste and compost that at home.
That's crazy, It sounds like such an imposition. But are the residents really okay with putting in all that extra effort or is everyone just miserable and exhausted by the end of the week.
Well, that's the thing. I mean, most people in comic coots who say that despite the hard work, they appreciate this push to be more thoughtful about how and what they consume. And in an interview that was on the BBC, there was one local woman who summed up the feeling this way. She said, I have to do it every day and it's certainly a bit of work. But it's a good idea to send things back to the earth, so I support it.
That's awesome, and in fact, what do you say we keep these positive vibes going and take a look at some other unique recycling programs as well as the weirdest things they figured out how to reuse.
Sounds good to me. But first let's take a quick break. Okay, mango, So it's quiz time now. Before we jump into the quiz, we had a couple other questions that we wanted to ask about recycling since that's our topic today, and we're joined by one of the brilliant researchers here at How Stuff Works, Christopher Haciotis Christopher, Welcome to Part Time Genius.
Thanks for having me.
All right, so we gave you the heads up we were talking about recycling and we had a couple of questions. Now now Tristan, we've informed our listeners, is an expert on all the numbers that you see on the plastics and what they mean and which ones you can recycle and which ones you can't. I know you're not surprised because Tristan's pretty much good at everything. But for those of us that don't know everything, about recycling and the
numbers that are on the plastics. Can can you just give us like the cheat sheet to that what those one through seven numbers mean and why some can be recycled and others can't be sure.
Yeah, it's this really labyrinthing convoluted system of coding known as the r I see, it's the Resin Identification coding system and it was put in place in nineteen eighty eight. So you've got these seven different types of plastic and basically what it comes down to is what the plastics are made out of and what you can do with them. Some will be recyclable immediately, Some are reusable but not recyclable. Some should not be reused or recycled.
And what you've.
Got to do is flip your jug of water, you're a jug of milk, your plastic cup upside down, take a gander at what's underneath it, and then get on the internet. Because honestly, nobody knows this system.
And Tristin does what he won't say anything about that.
Tristan Okay, So I think what we need is everyone needs a system to just give Tristan.
A call right away.
So, yeah, you've got these seven types of plastic number one polyethylene telephylate also known as PET number two high density polyethylene. So these are the kinds that are generally recyclable and most commonly accepted in your neighborhood or community recycling centers. And then there are a bunch of others that are technically recyclable but just basically just a hassle for the people to do it. So, you know those plastic bags you get at the grocery store, right, everyone's
got opinions about them. Should I ge paper, should I get pastics? Should I bring my own? If you're getting the plastic bag, it's the same substance that makes up milk jugs and toys and other kinds of bottles that are recyclable, but it's so thin and it's so spread up that it's not worth it to recycle them. And those plastic bags can also jam up the gears and get caught in the machines that do the recycling. And those numbers, you know, you generally see one through seven,
but they go up way beyond there. There's a plastic that's number nine. That's the kind of plastic your cell phones are made out of. Your TVs, but then the numbers go all the way up into the hundreds. Yeah.
I feel like you need a field guide to plastics where people are like bird spotting, but for rare plastics and the chondreds. So I used to see glass recycling all over the place, and that used to be pickups neighborhoods and stuff, and now I don't really see that as much. Do you know anything about that? I do.
Yeah, So, recycling aluminum, you are spending about ninety six percent less energy than if you were just making it from raw materials. Glass is all the way at the other end of that spectrum, so you're only saving about twenty six percent of the energy to recycle glass. Petroleum, which makes up plastic, is a generally expensive item. It's dropped in price recently, but it's cost more for companies who make plastic to get the virgin materials out of
the ground, and it does reuse it. It's not necessarily the case for glass. Glass, as anyone who's I don't spend a lot of time with kids, cartoons is made out of sand. I think it might have been an episode of He man or Man rubs his hands really fast on the desert floor and creates some sort of I think but yeah, basically, so you can either take glass, go through the whole process recycle it, or you can just go get some new sand.
Well that's super helpful, Christopher. Now we can't let you go though, before playing a super important quiz, Na Mango, What what quiz are we playing today?
It's called recycled Sesame Street shows, and so according to Muppet Wiki, Sesame Street has to produce something like one hundred and thirty shows a season, and they often recycle their main storylines. So we're going to tell you a recycled plot and you just have to tell us which Sesame Street character starred in it.
They do one hundred and thirty shows a season.
I mean this is wikipedias. I assume Muppet Wig, Muppet, Muppet.
Muppet Wiki. All right, that is a lot, Okay, I mean I guess that's every year that that That is a.
Tonic speaker behind the screen. Con that's where he shines.
All right, We've got five questions for you, Christopher. Question number one on episode three eight hundred and twelve and episode three nine hundred and thirty three. Wow, this friendly vampire wanders around Sesame Street, enumerting all the mistakes on Sesame Street. Who are we talking about?
So that is none other than Count vomb Count I would assume.
Yeah, that's right. And according to his origin story on Sesame Street, he's not the only member of his family that loves numbers. His uncle Uno also loves to count.
All right, all right? Question number two. On episodes five, eighteen and seven ninety two, this character conducts a philharmonic orchestra of similar grumps instead of musical instruments. The orchestra makes annoying sounds, like that of an airplane or a fire engine. Who are we talking about?
Oh? Wow?
Okay, so you said of similar grumps, which would point me in the direction of Oscar the Grouse or Statler and Waldorf. But then there's Rolf, who's the musically talented one. So I'm gonna go I'm just gonna say Rolf because he's the piano playing dog and I dig him.
Oh, You're were on the right track. It was Oscar the Grouse.
Oh okay, wow, that was really a really impressive rundown of all the possible answers. Okay, still have time to recover here. Question number three episodes eight ninety four and one and fourteen, this character orders a radio, but instead he gets a box containing its parts, but even worse, it doesn't contain any baked goods. What character are we talking about?
Hmmm, so you've got the okay. My initial thought was the sweetest chef, because he's the one who's going to be putting things together and making something and cooking, but then baked goods. Who would be upset about not getting baked goods? Unless it were in a health oriented episode, I would say cookie Monster.
Yeah, that's right, it is Cookie Monster. And you know what one of the producers on the show said earlier when they were starting the show, a typist used to correct all of Cookie Monster's grammar in the scripts and to stop avermappening.
Wow, that's pretty great, okay. Question number four. On episodes four to one, seven, four and four four one three, this character organizes a nest sale where all his old toys can be bought for five birds seeds. What character are we talking about?
I'm gonna go with one of the friendliest characters I can think of, and that's Big Bird.
Mm hmm, that's right, you got it, all right. Question number five for the big win. Here on episodes three, four, six, five and three seven two two, this once imaginary character is depressed because every time he tap dances, it causes an earthquake. What character are we talking about?
So, I'm pretty happy that a tap dancing earthquake is a more than one time occurrence, But I I don't know who that would be, although I'm gonna I'm just gonna guess that it's snuffle Up. I guess yes, I think he's sizable enough that he could do it.
That's right. And also, I didn't realize this until we did the research, but Snuffy's favorite foods are cabbage spaghetti and sassafras tea.
So wait, Mango, is that a tea made out of cabbage, spaghetti and sassafras?
No, those are separate items.
I'm glad you. I'm glad you added those little fun facts in there, Mango. That's that's really valuable. So, so, how did Chris do today?
Well, Christopher went an amazing four for five, which entitles them to our big prize, our total.
Admirationy congratulations Christopher, and thanks for joining us anytime.
Okay, Well, so I love Komakotsu's zero waste plan. But let's be honest, getting people on board to recycle is one thing in a town with fewer than two thousand residents, But it's a lot harder to get that tens of thousands or even millions of residents of the city to all commit to that extra effort of recycling. So, I know, cities like San Francisco and Portland are making huge strides and boosting the recycling rates, but some cities are taking
an even bolder approach to the challenge. For example, there are about twelve hundred cities across the US that have adopted a so called pay as you throw system.
You know, I'm pretty sure there's a lot of people that would not like the sound of that. So is this is this some kind of garbage tax or something?
Yeah, sort of. So the idea is that municipal garbage trucks won't pick up any trash unless it's been placed inside specially marked bags that residents buy from the city. So, for example, in Malden, Massachusetts, it's one dollar for each fifteen gallon bag, or two dollars for a thirty three gallon bag.
And so I'm a little confused by this. So how exactly does this encourage people to recycle?
Well, Cities with pays you throw programs still pick up recyclables and yard waste for freeze, so it's really just the landfill bound waste that costs you money. And the hope is that the added expense will encourage residents to, you know, take the initiative recycle and compost and just be more thoughtful about their garbage.
Well, it's definitely an interesting idea, But what about all that research you mentioned earlier about the whole recycling saves you money angle being kind of a dead end approach.
Yeah, it's not something that's going to be compelling to everyone, and in fact, some cities have experienced pushback in the form of residents who will buy regular trash bags and then just leave them ound the garbage or in public bins or in front of a neighbor's house. But there's evidence that the pay as you throw system is convincing
enough people to make it worthwhile. So according to this Atlantic article about this type of program, the city of Malden's trash tonnage was actually cut in half between twenty sixteen. In twenty thirteen, which was the year it adopted the paid throw model, and the same thing happened in Worcester and other Massachusetts city that cut its solid waste tonnage by forty seven percent in the first year of its program.
Well, I see your point, and those are some pretty solid results. And I guess since it is densely populated cities that churn out the most trash, this extra push from programs like this could could be worth it, you know, to get people on the same page. But so, how about we look at a few novel recycling programs that use a I don't know, let's say, like a less, less compulsory approach.
Sure. So one of my favorites is the clean Wave program that's run by this ecological nonprofit in San Francisco called Matter of Trust. They accept donations of human hair and petfur and then they turn it into these like oil absorbing mats and brooms that hazmat teams can use to soak up oil spills. It's amazing and it's actually a great way to make sure hair clippings that would otherwise wind up in landfills are recycled and put to
good use. So if you work in a barber shop or a pet groomers, or if you're just someone with a bunch of cats or a really shaggy dog, you should really check out the website to find out how to donate.
Well, that's a pretty cool and well another recycling program that's making a real difference in the world is called the Limbs for Life Foundation. Now I didn't know this before today's show, but it's actually illegal to reuse prosthetic limbs in the United States, and since they're often made from plastics and other materials that can't be recycled that easily, there's a lot of perfectly functional prosthetics that just wind
up in the trash, you know. But the organizations like Limbs for Life have found an amazing loophole here because it turns out it is legal to disassemble them and then ship those used prosthetics to other countries. So that's exactly what these programs do. They collect and they distribute these used prosthetics free of charge to land mine victims and other amputees and countries around.
The world love that. What a great work around. So this one's kind of in the same vein. It's called New Eyes for the Needy and it collects recycles and distributes old eyeglasses and hearing aids to impoverish children and adults, both in the US and abroad. And the group has been working to improve the world's vision since nineteen thirty two. So far they've distributed over eight million pairs of glasses to people all over the globe.
Oh wow, that's pretty neat. Well, speaking of glasses, I came across this really neat recycling program where people can donate their eclipse glasses that you know that they used to view last year's total eclipse.
Wait, aren't those only safe to look at like for a few years.
Well, that's true here in the US, but actually South America and Asia they're getting ready to experience their own total eclipse in twenty nineteen, and so of course, you know, that's well within that three year span where it's safe to use all those glasses that we had last year. So that's where a nonprofit called Astronomers Without Borders comes in.
That's that's such a great name.
I love how many of the fill in the blank without borders there are, but it is a great name. And you know, the group is currently collecting these used and certified eclipse glasses to distribute to people who might be unable to afford or otherwise get their hands on a pair in time for next year as a clip. So if you've held onto your glasses as memento or just haven't gotten around to tossing them yet, it's a great chance to help someone else have their own once in a lifetime experience.
Well, the last unusual recycling program I want to mention isn't as altruistic as some of the others we've talked about, but it does help take a bite out of the problem with plastics. So one thing I found out while researching is that most credit cards, as well as things like hotel keys and ID cards, are made from PVC, and as Tristan will tell you, that's one of the five out of seven main plastic types that usually can't
be recycled at all. Whenever people cut up their expired cards or turn in their old driver's licenses, all those strips of plastic typically heads straight to the dump.
But so if PVC is unrecyclable, then than how's a recycling program supposed to help?
Yeah, So there are actually some groups. A major one in Ohio is called Earthworks, for example, and they recycle old cards by chopping them up and melting them back into sheets of raw PVC and then the plastics able
to be turned into well new cards. It's kind of like with those plastic bags that everyone has a million of under their sink, Like, we can't actually get rid of them completely, so the best bet is to just keep reusing the ones we have, so we don't, you know, expend new resources to make more of them.
Well, that makes a lot of sense, you know. It actually kind of reminds me of this cool design project that came across It's a diy machine that can turn plastic trash into brand new housewares. The projects called Precious Plastics, and it's the brainchild of a Dutch designer named Dave Hawkins, and so he wanted to create a system that makes recycling plastic an easier and more accessible prospect for the public.
And so to that end, he's released these free to download blueprints for the Precious Plastics machine, and the hope is that communities will build their own and then use them to establish these small scale centers locals that can then drop off their unwanted plastic waste in exchange for that that get a little bit of cash, and then the senters can actually recycle these old plastic bottles and containers and then turn them into new goods that can be sold in this on site shop there.
I mean, that's a great idea, and it sounds like some kind of three D printer, but one that's designed to run on recyclables. Yeah.
The machines are these all in one units, and they house a plastic shredder and then three kinds of manufacturing devices. There's a rotational molder, an extruder, and an injection molder, and that kind of covers all your basics in terms of plastic making. And so unlike three D printers, though these precious plastic systems, they wouldn't cost towns an arm and a leg to get everything needed to construct one can be easily obtained from scrap yards.
So I think what I like most about this idea goes back to something we talked about at the top of the show, and that's the way that the invention of plastic kind of did away with the tradition of people making their own goods on a small scale, easier to just buy mass manufactured product, so entire skill sets were left by the wayside, and a lot of communities
suffered as a result. But something like this precious plastics machine that almost returns some of that self sufficiency to local communities.
That's a good point, and it's actually one that Hawkins touches on while he's speaking about his inspiration for the project. So he said, it sort of all started when I noticed we have a lot of plastic wastes, but for a lot of reasons, we can't do anything with it like we would with wood or with metal. So you have a carpenter or a metal worker, and now you can have a plastics person.
And with a little luck, every town on the map will have a plastics person to help boost the national recycling rate in the years ahead. But until then, there's still plenty of other interesting ways to help reduce reviews and recycle. So how about you say we feature a couple of those in our fact off before we go.
Sounds good to me, all right. So we've all read about roads built from her tires or other materials, but did you know that in the Netherlands there's actually a bike path made with recycled toilet paper. That toilet paper provides the cellulose that's helpful in maintaining traction when it's
really wet or slippery out. And while there are other sources of cellulose, this is a good use for recycled material that people really aren't that excited about being used in other ways, even though it does go through a serious sterilization process.
Yeah, so I could see there being a bit of a mental block with toilet paper being recycled into things. So I'd read about the repurposing of crayons, but I'd never actually seen a figure out how many new crayons coming into the world each day. Apparently the Crayola factory in eastern Pennsylvania produces about twelve million crayons every single day.
Wow, every day.
Yeah, it's insane, right, And that's because people often treat crayons as disposable, but crayons aren't actually biodegradable. So there's a nonprofit called the Crayon Initiative that collects old crayons from schools and restaurants and then it melts them down and gives brand new crowns to hospitals and other places that could use them. It's pretty neat.
That is pretty neat, all right. Well, I talked about the Netherlands before, and now I'm going to talk about Sweden. So did you know they've gotten so efficient with they're recycling that they actually now import waste from nearby countries to send through their recycling plants, just to keep them going. It's like overachieving, it is, they're definitely overachievers. Here's another
way that they overachieve. I saw this crazy statistic. So less than one percent of household waste than Sweden goes to the landfill each year. That's amazing.
So earlier this week I was looking at photos of the beach at Yusuri Bay in Russia, and it's really worth looking up because it's strange and beautiful. At one point it was a dumping ground for old glass bottles, and that obviously doesn't sound that great. But the crazy thing is over quite some time, the waves on these beaches have worn down all these beer and vodka bottles
into these beautiful, beautiful pebbles. There's a protected area there now called the glass Beach, and that's become this really popular tourist spot. Huh.
All right, Well, in doing our research this week, I was pleased to see that there are two items that I have lots and lots of that can also be recycled. Now, the first is old CDs. So there's a CD recycling center that grinds the CDs up into a fine powder, and then later on that powders melted down and that could be used in several ways, but the most common
uses in cars and building materials. So I can now feel better about, you know, doing something with that old toad the Wetsprocket CD from the early nineties, feel pretty good knowing it's in somebody's car. And then the other item is something I know you and I both had lots of old ones of, and that's tennis balls. And so there's this organization called Rebounces, and they actually repressurize the old tennis balls so that they can be used again.
Oh that's really cool. Well here's a quick fact for you. Did you know there's actually more gold and a ton of mobile phones than there is in a ton of gold ore. And so I read that from a ton of gold or you can actually get one gram of gold, but it only takes a little over four mobile phones to get that same amount.
Oh wow, Well, sing as, I probably have about forty old phones that might be an exaggeration, but I've got a lot of old phones that I didn't know what to do with, But now I know what to do with them. I'm gonna make some gold mango. But before I do that, I'm gonna give you today's fact Off trophy.
Thanks so much, Will, But I don't know if I want this recycled trophy? Is there a new one you can hand me instead?
All right, Well, thank you guys for listening. We'd love to hear from you. If we've forgotten any great facts about recycling, and I know you guys have a ton of them, feel free to send them our way. You can email us part Time Genius at houstuffworks dot com or call us on our twenty four to seven fact hotline. That's one eight four four pt Genius. You can also hit us up on Facebook or Twitter. Keep the messages coming, and thanks so much for listening. Thanks again for listening.
Part Time Genius is a production of house works and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people who do the important things we couldn't even begin to understand.
Tristan McNeil does the editing thing.
Noel Brown made the theme song and does the mixy mixy sound thing.
Jerry Roland does the exact producer thing.
Gabeluesier is our lead researcher, with support from the Research Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams.
And Eves Jeffcoat gets the show to your ears. Good job, Eves.
If you like what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe, And if you really really like what you've heard, maybe you could leave a good review for us. Could we forget jam Jason who