Why Doesn't Our Plastic Get Recycled? It Actually Has Nothing to Do with Our Behavior, The Consumer Product Companies, or Even Plastics

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The following post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga.

You dutifully put your recyclable materials in the specified containers while putting the rest of your trash down the chute.The truck driver comes and picks up those separate containers of paper goods and plastics and takes it off to be recycled, right?

Well…maybe. 

Big waste management companies are reportedly making an important piece of their revenue from tipping fees at landfills. Correspondingly, if there isn’t much of an economically viable market for recyclable material, there can end up being little incentive for the owners of landfills to actually separate and then recycle such material.

Instead, all that dutifully separated plastic and paper could simply end up getting discarded into a landfill according to some consumer reports. Waste Management Inc. WM and Republic Services Inc. RSG, the 2 largest waste-management companies in the United States, together own nearly 20% of American landfills.

But as our society is demanding more progress towards a circular economy with large consumer product companies like Unilever UL, Procter and Gamble PG and The Coca-Cola Company KO establishing plastics recycling goals, this traditional collection system of landfill-owners collecting our recyclables may be about to change.

An Erie, PA-based start-up called newBin is seeking to make the system more aligned with goals of sustainability and less reliant on behavior like asking consumers to figure out good plastic from bad and having recycling markets compete with landfill for the highest profit.

newBin wants to use a crowdsourcing model to recycle every piece of plastic we generate and keep the material out of landfills. The new company is currently raising development capital via a crowdfunding campaign.

Engaged Communities

newBin is expecting its new alternative will benefit from the support of local communities.

Most Americans want to recycle, so newBin thinks people will be open to its approach.

One such individual is Linda Shannon who became curious about the local collection system she was asked to use for her recyclables when she moved to a new town.

"The trash was picked up twice a week at our home. There was a separate container for paper products and recyclables. I decided to see how the pickup process worked and discovered that although there were separate containers for recyclables when the garbage truck came they put all of the trash in the same truck!”

“When I questioned the driver, he assured me that it was all separated at the dump. I didn't believe him and went to the dump to check it out myself. There was no process at the facility for separating the regular rubbish from paper, plastic, metal or glass refuse.”

Shannon and her fellow residents were reportedly paying hundreds of dollars a month for such “recycling” services. She threatened legal action and was able not only to reverse the process but also recoup some of the thousands of dollars that had been paid for such services.

Disrupting the Model?

newBin wants to upend the established models and is aiming to work with contractors who are focused exclusively on recycling to pick up recyclable waste from residents in Erie and elsewhere and drop off the material in dedicated newBin receptacles. newBin's sister company International Recycling Group is currently developing a mega-scale plastics recycling facility on the shores of Lake Erie to take all that waste and ensure one hundred percent of it is recycled.

Perhaps most compelling of all is that newBin's service will be absolutely free to households. newBin expects to cover its cost to provide the service by support from local companies looking to underwrite recycling in the community and drive new customer traffic to their goods and services with coupons and discounts.

Such an approach could be attractive to environmentally conscious local residents like Shannon.

“I feel that we each must take responsibility for reusing and recycling our natural resources,” she said. “That is the most important thing for me."

You can learn more about newBin at startengine.com/newbin.

The preceding post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga. Although the piece is not and should not be construed as editorial content, the sponsored content team works to ensure that any and all information contained within is true and accurate to the best of their knowledge and research. This content is for informational purposes only and not intended to be investing advice.