PBS NewsHour Weekend

Your Recycling Is Not Always Being Recycled — Here’s Why

Recycling rules seem to differ in every municipality, with exceptions and caveats at every turn, leaving the average American scratching their head at the simple act of throwing something away. Jennie Romer, author of “Can I Recycle This?” joins PBS NewsHour Weekend’s Christopher Booker as he delves into the nebulous, confusing world of American recycling.

TRANSCRIPT:

Hari Sreenivasan:

There is little doubt that recycling can help to improve the environment. But depending on where you live, the rules can vary greatly. And when it comes to plastics, millions of tons still wind up in landfills, threatening our health and the environment.

NewsHour Weekend’s Christopher Booker has more.

Christopher Booker:

My weekly recycling routine is an anxious one.

Cardboard boxes, kids artwork, junk mail go in the paper bin and I feel reasonably assured I am doing it right.

But it’s the plastics that set my heart racing. The yogurt cups, the coffee lids, the condiment containers. Every week the same question, ‘I can recycle this….right?’

Jennifer Romer:

Most people really have no idea, we just kind of put your recycling in your bin and hope for the best.

Christopher Booker:

Jennie Romer is author of “Can I Recycle This?” a guide to better recycling. A conversation with her about recycling is both comforting and unsettling.

Jennifer Romer:

When we think about recycling, for the most part, we think about something just getting turned into another item and that’s not what’s happening with a lot of our plastics. Recycling is a commodities market and it’s all about whether there’s someone that wants to buy that item, to turn it into something else.

Christopher Booker:

And who buys what is usually determined by the quality of the plastic.

Sitting in the middle of the chasing arrow symbol is a number. If it is 1 or 2, it’s high value and most likely will be sold on the commodities market. A 3 through 7, the mixed plastic, is low value.

Jennifer Romer:

Number 1 and number 2 bottles and jugs are really the most recyclable. So HTPE natural plastic milk jugs get sold for about $1000 a ton, but whereas a lot of mixed plastics, like 3 – 7’s, are sold for negative $17 a ton, that means that you have to pay someone to take it away.

Christopher Booker:

It wasn’t always this way. For years our mixed plastics would be bundled with the high-value plastics and still find a market, but that changed in 2018.

Jennifer Romer:

For a long time we were sending stuff to China. For a long time we were sending a lot of our low-value plastic waste to China, but China closed its doors to a lot of the low-value plastic waste. They just said, you can’t send us your contaminated plastic anymore.

Christopher Booker:

This meant that municipal recycling facilities had to spend more time sorting between plastics, pulling out the 1 and 2’s and paying for the removal of 3 through 7’s.

But even if it is a 1 or 2, that doesn’t ensure a future sale.

Jennifer Romer:

So if something is so small that it’ll fall through and it’ll fall through the machinery, then it’s not going to end up being recycled things like your little plastic cups of salsa or fork or straw. They’re not going to make it through.

Christopher Booker:

What’s the what’s the broader, bigger cost of all of this?

Jennifer Romer:

There are a lot of costs. So there’s a huge cost in the environment. If you’re not recycling, if you’re not source reducing, every time that you’re manufacturing something, you’re extracting minerals. You’re extracting fossil fuels from the earth. Another big cost is the end of– the end of life for these products. So if they’re incinerated, if they go to landfill, if they know a lot of what happens with our low-value plastic waste is that we ship it abroad and then it ends up polluting the environment and hurting human health in other parts of the world.

Christopher Booker:

Things may be changing. After the Chinese market dried up an unexpected coalition has formed to champion what’s known as ‘extended producer liability.” Laws and regulations that would require plastics producers to pay for the recycling and disposal of their products.

Jennifer Romer:

For a long time it was really the environmental groups that were pushing a lot of a lot of the recycling policy. Now we’re seeing a lot more municipal recyclers coming to the table, going to the legislature and saying ‘we want extended producer responsibility laws. We want the producers, the manufacturers to pay for the recycling and disposal of these products, because it’s not fair, it’s not fair that they that the cities and municipalities are ending up with all this low-value waste that they have to pay someone to haul away.’

Christopher Booker:

How has this work changed you as a consumer?

Jennifer Romer:

I try whenever I can to buy in bulk to use refill systems if they’re available. I try to avoid certain things. I always bring my own utensils and straws when I go places. I bring my own water bottle, I bring my own bag, but when you get to a lot of the packaged goods that are in the grocery store shelves, a lot of the time you don’t have a real alternative. I will go out of my way more than most people, but I want to see a system where it isn’t difficult, where you can make choices that are good for the environment, that reduce packaging without having to go really far out of your way and be the outlier.

TRANSCRIPT

>> Sreenivasan: THERE'S ANOTHER

CLIMATE-RELATED ISSUE THAT IS

LIKELY TO CROSS PRESIDENT

BIDEN'S DESK: CONTROLLING

EMISSIONS OF METHANE.

THE UNITED NATIONS ESTIMATES

THAT ABOUT 25% OF CLIMATE

WARMING COMES FROM THE HUMAN-

CAUSED RELEASE OF METHANE,

MAINLY THROUGH LIVESTOCK AND OIL

AND GAS INDUSTRIES.

NOW THERE'S A GROWING EFFORT TO

FIGURE OUT JUST HOW MUCH METHANE

WE'RE PUTTING INTO THE

ATMOSPHERE AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT

IT.

THIS REPORT IS PART OF OUR

ONGOING SERIES ON CLIMATE

CHANGE, "PERIL & PROMISE."

THE UNITED STATES IS THE WORLD'S

LARGEST OIL AND NATURAL GAS

PRODUCER.

BURNING FOSSIL FUELS EMITS

CARBON DIOXIDE, OF COURSE, CO2,

BUT DRILLING ALSO RELEASES

ANOTHER POTENT GREENHOUSE GAS:

METHANE.

BOTH CO2 AND METHANE WARM THE

PLANET, BUT AT DIFFERENT RATES.

>> CARBON DIOXIDE IS A MAJOR

PROBLEM BECAUSE IT CAN LAST FOR

SO LONG IN THE ATMOSPHERE.

>> Sreenivasan: ILISSA OCKO IS A

CLIMATE SCIENTIST WITH THE

NONPROFIT ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE

FUND, E.D.F.

>> THE CARBON DIOXIDE THAT WE

EMIT INTO THE ATMOSPHERE TODAY,

AROUND 40% OF IT COULD STILL BE

THERE IN 100 YEARS FROM NOW.

AND SO, THAT'S WHY CARBON

DIOXIDE IS SUCH A BIG PROBLEM,

BECAUSE IT BUILDS UP OVER TIME

AND COMMITS OUR PLANET TO

WARMING FOR CENTURIES AND FOR

GENERATIONS TO COME.

METHANE IS MUCH MORE POWERFUL AT

TRAPPING HEAT THAN CARBON

DIOXIDE, BUT IT ONLY LASTS IN

THE ATMOSPHERE FOR AROUND A

DECADE.

SO, IF YOU WERE TO EMIT EQUAL

AMOUNTS OF EMISSIONS OF CO2 AND

METHANE TODAY, YOU'RE GOING TO

HAVE A LOT MORE WARMING FROM

METHANE OVER THE NEXT FEW YEARS

THAN YOU WILL FROM CO2.

>> Sreenivasan: THAT MEANS

REDUCING METHANE EMISSIONS CAN

HAVE A RELATIVELY RAPID EFFECT

ON CLIMATE CHANGE, WHICH BRINGS

US TO THE PERMIAN BASIN.

SPANNING MORE THAN 85,000 SQUARE

MILES, IT INCLUDES A VAST

STRETCH OF WEST TEXAS AND

SOUTHEASTERN NEW MEXICO.

OIL COMPANIES PULL MORE THAN

FOUR MILLION BARRELS A DAY

FROM IT.

>> THE PERMIAN BASIN IS THE

LARGEST OIL AND GAS BASIN IN THE

UNITED STATES, IT'S ONE OF THE

LARGEST IN THE WORLD.

BUT WE DIDN'T HAVE AN IDEA-- A

GOOD IDEA OF HOW MUCH METHANE

WAS BEING EMITTED BY THE

OPERATIONS THERE.

>> Sreenivasan: COLIN LEYDEN IS

E.D.F.'S DIRECTOR OF REGULATORY

AND LEGISLATIVE AFFAIRS.

>> SO, WE PUT TOGETHER A

COMPREHENSIVE SCIENCE

MEASUREMENT PROGRAM TO, YOU

KNOW, LOCATE THESE METHANE

EMISSIONS, AS WELL AS GET AN

IDEA OF HOW MUCH OF THIS IS

ESCAPING INTO THE ATMOSPHERE.

>> Sreenivasan: FOR MORE THAN A

YEAR, USING EVERYTHING FROM

MOBILE LABS AND CELL PHONE

TOWERS TO AIRCRAFT AND

SATELLITES, E.D.F. HAS BEEN

WORKING WITH COLLEAGUES FROM THE

UNIVERSITY OF WYOMING, PENN

STATE UNIVERSITY, SCIENTIFIC

AVIATION, AND OTHERS TO DOCUMENT

METHANE RELEASE IN THE PERMIAN

BASIN.

HOW DO YOU ACTUALLY SEE IT, SO

TO SPEAK?

I MEAN, NATURAL GAS DOESN'T--

IT'S LIKE IOCANE POWDER FROM

"THE PRINCESS BRIDE," ODORLESS,

COLORLESS, WHATEVER.

AND SO HOW DO YOU-- HOW DO YOU

ACTUALLY SEE THE EMISSIONS THAT

ARE ESCAPING?

>> FORTUNATELY, THERE ARE

INFRARED CAMERAS THAT CAN PICK

UP AND DETECT THE EMISSIONS SO

THAT YOU CAN SEE THEM.

>> Sreenivasan: THIS TOWER IS

CALLED A FLARE STACK.

AND IT LOOKS TO THE NAKED EYE

LIKE NOTHING'S COMING OUT OF IT,

BUT HERE'S WHAT THE INFRARED

CAMERA SEES: METHANE IS GOING

STRAIGHT INTO THE ATMOSPHERE.

IT'S A PRACTICE CALLED"

VENTING."

E.D.F. HAS DOCUMENTED SCENES

LIKE THIS ACROSS THE PERMIAN

BASIN.

SOMETIMES VENTING HAPPENS

LEGALLY, WITH A PERMIT.

OTHER TIMES IT'S ILLEGAL, EVEN

ACCIDENTAL, WHEN A FLARE STACK

IS SIMPLY OPERATING IMPROPERLY.

WHEN A STACK IS WORKING LIKE IT

IS SUPPOSED TO, IT BURNS THE

METHANE IN A PROCESS KNOWN AS

FLARING, WHICH CAN ALSO BE DONE

WITH A PERMIT.

SOMETIMES THE CAMERA CATCHES

VENTING AND FLARING SIDE BY

SIDE.

>> THAT'S BURNING OFF EXCESS

GAS, THAT COULD BE HAPPENING FOR

VARIOUS REASONS.

THERE COULD BE A TRUE HEALTH AND

SAFETY REASON, MAYBE AN OVER-

PRESSURIZED SYSTEM, YOU KNOW,

WHERE THEY NEED TO FLARE.

BUT OFTENTIMES WHAT WE'VE BEEN

SEEING IN THE PERMIAN BASIN OVER

THE YEARS HAS BEEN JUST SIMPLY

FLARING FOR CONVENIENCE.

>> Sreenivasan: E.D.F. PUBLISHES

ITS RESULTS AT A SITE CALLED

"PERMIAN MAP."

THEY SAY THEIR SURVEYS HAVE

FOUND 5% OF THE BASIN'S FLARE

STACKS GOING COMPLETELY UNLIT,

AND VENTING GAS, AND AN

ADDITIONAL 6% MALFUNCTIONING TO

SOME EXTENT.

THE E.D.F. GROUP ESTIMATES THAT

METHANE IS LEAKING FROM PERMIAN

OIL AND GAS FACILITIES AT THREE

TIMES WHAT THE ENVIRONMENTAL

PROTECTION AGENCY ESTIMATES.

THAT COMES TO ABOUT 2.7 MILLION

TONS OF GAS A YEAR.

IT'S NOT SURPRISING THEN, THAT A

CALL HAS GONE OUT FOR SERIOUS

REDUCTIONS IN METHANE EMISSIONS.

AND IT'S NOT JUST FROM

ENVIRONMENTALISTS AND

SCIENTISTS.

PRIVATE AND INSTITUTIONAL

INVESTORS MANAGING SOME

$2-TRILLION IN ASSETS, EVEN THE

WORLD BANK, HAVE CALLED FOR AN

END TO ROUTINE FLARING OF

METHANE.

>> I MEAN, THERE ARE THINGS THAT

THE INVESTMENT COMMUNITY CAN DO.

>> Sreenivasan: ERIN BLANTON IS

A SENIOR RESEARCH SCHOLAR AT THE

CENTER ON GLOBAL ENERGY POLICY

AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY'S SCHOOL

OF INTERNATIONAL AND PUBLIC

AFFAIRS.

>> SOMETHING VERY SIMPLE WOULD

BE JUST A COMMITMENT TO STOP

ROUTINE FLARING BY, FOR EXAMPLE,

2025.

THAT'S A FAIR AMOUNT OF TIME.

IT'S A PRACTICE THAT IS

WASTEFUL.

IT WASTES MONEY.

IT-- THERE'S NO REVENUES THAT

COME FROM FLARING THE GAS.

AND THE INVESTMENT COMMUNITY

COULD SAY WE WON'T INVEST IN

COMPANIES THAT PRACTICE ROUTINE

FLARING.

YOU KNOW, WE WILL NOT LEND TO

THEM.

>> Sreenivasan: IF THAT SOUNDS

PIE-IN-THE-SKY, CONSIDER THIS:

RECENTLY A FRENCH INVESTMENT

CONCERN CANCELLED A $7-BILLION

DEAL TO BUY LIQUID NATURAL GAS,

L.N.G., COMING FROM THE PERMIAN.

"POLITICO" REPORTED THERE WAS

PRESSURE FROM THE FRENCH

GOVERNMENT TO NOT SOURCE THEIR

GAS FROM A PLACE THAT DOES NOT

HAVE METHANE POLLUTION UNDER

CONTROL.

BUT IF THERE SEEMS TO BE A

GROWING CONSENSUS FAVORING

TOUGHER REGULATION, THERE ARE

OBSTACLES AS WELL.

LAST SUMMER, PRESIDENT TRUMP

ROLLED BACK OBAMA-ERA

REGULATIONS AND MADE IT EASIER

FOR OIL PRODUCERS TO KEEP

FLARING AND VENTING METHANE.

THEN THERE'S THE TEXAS RAILROAD

COMMISSION.

IT HAS THE OIL AND GAS INDUSTRY

UNDER ITS AUTHORITY.

ITS CHARGE, IT SAYS, IS TO

PROTECT CITIZENS, THE

ENVIRONMENT AND THE ECONOMY.

BUT IN TEXAS, IT HAS LONG BEEN A

FRIEND TO THE FOSSIL FUEL

INDUSTRY, AND GONE EASY ON GAS

FLARING.

IN NOVEMBER, THE THREE-MEMBER

COMMISSION DID RELEASE NEW RULES

STRENGTHENING REQUIREMENTS TO

OBTAIN METHANE FLARING PERMITS,

BUT FELL FAR SHORT OF WHAT ITS

CRITICS SAY IS NECESSARY.

THAT SAME MONTH, A NEW

COMMISSIONER WAS ELECTED,

REPUBLICAN JIM WRIGHT.

ON A PODCAST DURING THE CAMPAIGN

HE APPEARED UNAWARE OF THE

SCIENCE AROUND METHANE

EMISSIONS.

>> CAN YOU TELL ME OF ANY EXACT

RESEARCH THAT REALLY SAYS THAT

FLARING IS ACTUALLY HARMING OUR

ATMOSPHERE ANY WORSE THAN

EMISSIONS FROM A CAR OR ANYTHING

ELSE THAT THEY'RE CLAIMING IS

MAKING CHANGES TO OUR CLIMATE

THAT WE SEE TODAY?

>> Sreenivasan: THE BIDEN

ADMINISTRATION IS TAKING THE

OPPOSITE TACK.

THE PRESIDENT HAS PLANS TO,"

TAKE ACTIONS INCLUDING

REQUIRING AGGRESSIVE METHANE

POLLUTION LIMITS FOR NEW AND

EXISTING OIL AND GAS

OPERATIONS."

AND IT SOUNDS LIKE HE MIGHT HAVE

WHAT ONCE WOULD HAVE BEEN SOME

UNLIKELY ALLIES.

WHEN PRESIDENT TRUMP ROLLED BACK

THOSE METHANE REGULATIONS LAST

YEAR, EVEN SOME ENERGY GIANTS

PUSHED BACK, INCLUDING B.P. AND

SHELL.

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