Newsletter

We're flocking to social impact job applications like millennial moms are flocking to the Target dollar section for plastic pumpkins this week.

Read Time:

3 min 12 sec

Here's what we got on tap for you today:

• Meme of the Week
• The Secret Language of Plastic Recycling
• New Job Opportunities
• Win of the Week: Brazil to Build the World's Largest Urban Farm
• Bummer of the Week: Bezos' Test Space Rocket Crashes

Meme of the Week:

Article of the Week:

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The Secret Language of Plastic Recycling

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Can we admit something to you guys? Recycling is hard. Like…way harder than it should be, right? It turns out we aren’t the only people who think that because the New York Times did a whole piece on the mysterious secret language of plastic recycling.

Plastic might not break down, but we’re going to breakdown the mess that is plastic recycling:

1. Just because a piece of plastic has a recycling symbol on it doesn’t actually mean it’s recyclable.
2. Even if it IS recyclable, it may be not accepted in your local recycling program.
3. If the recycling symbol has a 3 in the middle of it, the plastic is PVC, which is rarely accepted in curb side recycling programs.
4. Soft plastics, which have a number 4 in the middle of the recycling symbol, are also rarely accepted by curb side recycling programs. That means your granola bar wrappers, chip bags, and that pointless plastic that Trader Joe’s wraps their cucumbers in is not accepted.
5. If you put your recycling in an opaque bag, it will likely be thrown out because the recycling center can’t see through the bag to know if recyclable materials are inside.

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These terrifying fun facts are just the tip of the recycling iceberg (but do NOT do a google image search for "recycling iceberg" unless you want to be really depressed).

The moral of the story is that recycling in the U.S. is a broken system, and too much responsibility is put on consumers to figure it out. Instead of, you know, the corporations that produce all this plastic. Like whichever genius invented the “gift of nothing for the person who has everything.”  

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But since the responsibility is all on us for now, learning what materials are and are not accepted in your local recycling program is a baller move. And for the love of sea turtles, please wash and dry your plastic containers.

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