Not really very clear

Over the years, I’ve talked a lot about my efforts at sustainability. Whether those efforts were big things, like installing photovoltaic panels to generate my own electricity, or smaller things, like the choices I make when buying products, it's all been about trying to tread as lightly on the planet as I can reasonably accomplish. Despite all the attention on climate change, though, attempting to live more sustainably is becoming more complicated all the time.

Last month, in a probably little-noticed post on its website, Hamilton City Council (HCC) urged residents of the city to “‘keep it clear’ when buying plastic bottles”. The post bluntly explains the reason is that “coloured plastic bottles… go to landfill,” then they elaborated:

Clear plastic bottles can be recycled up to nine times, which puts less stress on our environment to create more new plastic. Coloured plastic can be recycled, but dyes added to colour it, when its processed, it turns grey.

Terrible syntax aside, the stress on the environment isn’t mainly from creating new plastic: Making things from recycled plastic uses most of the same resources, like water and energy, for example. Instead, the main stress comes from disposing of plastic, especially in landfills—the very thing HCC is telling people it’s doing with some plastic.

As if that didn’t confuse things enough, they said:

Coloured plastic with the recycling label 2 (HDPE or janitorial plastic) is generally household cleaning, hygiene product and milk bottles. This plastic is mainly white and has a market to be recycled for wheelie bins and plant pots. However, coloured plastic 1 (PET or food grade plastic), in particular soft drink and sports drink bottles, is harder to recycle and doesn’t have a market. Without a market, it’s worthless.

So: Coloured plastic “can’t” be recycled, and so, it goes to landfill. Except for the coloured plastic that can be recycled and doesn’t go landfill. So glad they cleared that up!

The problem with creating such confusion is that it could easily encourage people to throw their hands up and stop their efforts to recycle at all. If that happens, it’ll be extremely difficult and expensive to get them to start again. HCC’s “Rubbish and Recycling Transitional Manager” said that they hope that there will be markets for the “1.2 tonnes of coloured plastic” Hamilton sends to landfill every year, but, in the meantime, “people can continue to put coloured plastic into their [recycling] bin.”

The issue here isn’t the plastic as such, it’s the economics: Companies have little incentive to increase use of recycled plastics, or to reduce the use of plastic, so they don’t. The two biggest drivers of change in this area are consumer demand and government regulation. The former is already high (but could be light years better—which is what HCC was ham-fistedly advocating), but regulation is sparse or missing altogether. New Zealand Governments led by both parties have resisted using regulations or taxes to force manufactures to change their ways, and the NZ Government is the only one with the power here, since governmental action like taxes and regulations aren't things that a NZ city council can impose, even if they wanted to. All of which means that fickle consumer demand is the only force available.

This isn't really about HCC itself—though you would think someone there could write a coherent message. The fact is, HCC's basic message, mangled though it was, had a laudable intent: Get people to act. If central Government fails to act—and it always has—and if corporations won’t do anything to fix the problem unless it’s in their own financial interest—and they won’t—then consumers are the ONLY thing that could force change.

This relates directly to my own efforts at sustainability, and in future posts I’ll have more to say about some new and very specific things I’m trying in the hope that it will reduce the amount of plastic packaging I have to get rid of (among other goals). In the meantime, I reuse what plastic packaging I can, but sooner or later everything has to go to be recycled or buried.

So, I’ll continue to place coloured plastics in the recycle bin until/unless they tell me I can’t, even if it goes to landfill. If I don’t, the only real alternative is to put it into the rubbish bin—and everything in that ends up in landfill, too, of course. Maybe one day there’ll be a market for the plastics no manufacturer seems to want, or maybe we’ll just dispose of less of it, but to make that happen, consumer demand cannot remain the only thing pushing for change. Government at all levels needs to play a part, too, and it’s way past time it did so.