To Recycle or Not to Recycle?

Confession: I'm addicted to Chobani Greek yogurt.

And as a person trying to reduce her impact on the environment, I always recycle the plastic containers that my yogurt comes in. However, I came across something recently that shocked me; sometimes recycling certain things can be more harmful than just throwing them away. How is this possible? Isn't it better to reuse things than to put them in a landfill where they won't decompose for thousands of years? Rachel Cernansky explains this seemingly absurd statement in her article, "When Recycling is Bad for the Environment."

Does this mean that even recycling is a lost cause? Of course not, it just means that it is crucial to be educated about the process so that what gets recycled is actually helpful, not harmful, to the planet.

In fact, Cernansky points out that our current level of recycling is as helpful as removing 39.6 million cars from the road. But that number can easily be much higher if more information about recycling plastics is offered to people. What makes the recycling of plastic much more challenging than recycling glass, metal, and paper is the inconsistency of its make-up. Different types of plastic contain different additives, so they cannot all be melted down together to make new material. Companies put a number on the plastic container, usually inside the 3-arrow recycle symbol, depending on which type of plastic it is. For example, water and soda bottles are plastic #1, whereas milk jugs are plastic #2.

 I had never realized there was so much more to it than just throwing all plastics in the recycling bin in order to help the environment; learning about the different types and whether or not they can be recycled in my area is crucial, or else I may have kept causing more harm than good.