Avoid Wish-Cycling

Have you ever been standing by your recycling bin with an item in hand debating if it's recyclable? At the end of this situation did you throw it in the recycling bin anyways not knowing the answer? This is called wish-cycling. Many people do this in hopes that it will somehow magically get recycled. While the intentions are good, it’s actually hurting the recycling process. Wish-cycling can cost time, money and even create more waste.

Time and Money If there is to many wish-cycled items in a batch it can cause some problems or cause a jam in machinery. A good example of this is plastic bags. Most recycling facilities do not accept plastic bags, but many plastic bags find their way into recycling bins. Plastic bags get caught in the machinery and in result of this they have to stop and take the time to remove the plastic film. The time that is being used to fix the machinery results into costing money. Have you ever heard the term time is money?

Create More Waste If the recycling facility gets to many non-recyclable items in at one time it could contaminate that batch of materials. When there is a high contamination rate it could end up in the landfill. One example of this is pizza boxes. The grease from the pizza has contaminated the cardboard and shouldn’t be recycled. If the pizza box is recycled, it is contaminating other paper.

How to avoid Wish-cycling There are easy solutions to this issue. If you find yourself questioning if something is recyclable find out by calling your recycling facility. Most places list what items they are accepting on their websites. If you are just overall in doubt, when in doubt throw it out. I know that’s not preferred, but it would overall help out the recycling process.