Last month, California’s attorney general began the uphill battle of suing multinational oil and gas conglomerate ExxonMobil. A descendant of Rockefeller’s Standard Oil, the corporation has been accused of misleading the public about the efficacy of recycling.
According to a late September press release, ExxonMobil is the world’s largest producer of polymers, materials which are generated using fossil fuels and then molded by other companies into single-use plastics. For decades, ExxonMobil has advertised the resulting plastic products as completely recyclable, when in reality, roughly 5 percent of U.S. plastic waste is actually recycled. Nevertheless, the company has tethered its brand to eco-friendly practices by creating editorial-style advertisements on the urgency of recycling efforts, indiscriminately administering chasing arrows symbol on their products, and boasting the power of ‘advanced’ recycling or chemical recycling (a system in which 92% of recycled products are repurposed as primary fuels).
Advertising the efficacy of recycling is problematic in part due to the fact that recycling is an imperfect system as is. Effective recycling can be more particular than it seems, even at the local level.
Science teacher Lisa Ball has worked closely with local recycling systems and makes sure to introduce the basic rules of thumb for recycling to her AP Environmental Science students at the start of the course.
“We should know in our community that we have a pretty unique recycling system. It was engineered by a German woman and when they first put it in here in Lawrence, it was the best in the whole area, maybe in the US, top of the line,” Ball said. “It is great, but it’s also very specific. So there are some definite do’s and don’ts.”
The system uses an optical scanner, so papers are easier to process when flat, and should not be wadded up. The machine also struggles with stringy items; ropes, strings, and fibers should be removed from recyclable items. Anything smaller than a Rubik’s Cube should not be recycled. Recyclables should also be clean. A laundry detergent bottle, for example, should be emptied and thoroughly rinsed before it undergoes the recycling process.
“They have a word for people who try to recycle everything even if they can’t, and they call it ‘wish-cycling,’” Ball said.
The list of don’ts can seem daunting, but Ball emphasized that local recycling is still very productive for the Lawrence community.
“I know our local recycling company. They do great things for our schools and our community. And they have a good track record,” Ball said. “If you bring clean recyclables and you follow their rules, they can do a lot with what we provide for them.”
Ball mentioned a few other local alleys of reuse. For example, Cans4Community accepts cans and donates proceeds to charitable causes, such as LHS’ own environmental club. Hazardous waste drop offs also take public scraps and leftover chemicals, then provide paint and cleaning supplies for free.
Senior environmental club officer Giulia Ventello stressed the importance of getting to know the local recycling system, along with the ability to avoid being misled by corporations like ExxonMobil.
“I wish more people had an understanding of the reality of recycling, and that it’s not as simple as throwing all of your recyclables into a bin…it’s a lot more complex, and it turns out that even if things are marked as recyclable, they aren’t often actually being used,” Ventello said. “It’s just the nature of society now, it’s getting a lot harder to weed out the truth from all of the media that we’re all constantly consuming.”
Senior Trent Blettner highlighted the significance of legislative action in environmental efforts, as well as individual responsibility to understand what one is consuming.
“A lot of companies love to tout that they’re environmentally friendly… but you always got to do your research to see how they’re fudging the numbers, and see how much they’re actually admitting,” Blettner said. “We can talk about how important it is for the consumer to try to do that, but it’s actually going to be the legislators who make these laws, to stop these corporations from polluting our environment and making sure that they tell the consumers what they’re actually doing.”
Having experience in environmental club’s advocacy efforts at the county level, Ventello expressed that getting involved in green legislation is simpler than it may seem.
“You can email, you can call, you can write a letter, you can have a conversation with them,” Ventello said. “For me, it’s been really exciting to start to have those conversations with my legislators and understand that it isn’t as difficult as I thought it was to be able to start to create the change that I’ve wanted to see.”
