A Fresh Squeeze

The Recycling Afterlife Beyond the Bin

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Sure you recycle, but what actually happens to your recyclables? We caught up with Mike McNamee, director of recycling collections at the Resource Center, to demystify the post-drop-off process.

The Resource Center, the city’s only non-profit recycler, uses more than 99 percent of the materials they pick up to make new products. But that journey from the bin to retail store shelves is a long one.

Like many recyclers, the first stop is the sorting facility. At the center’s main yard, four employees separate clear bottles from green ones, aluminum cans from steel and so on—all by hand. It’s a task so intimate that, when a customer dropped her engagement ring into a recycling bag, the team sifted through a pile of newspapers the size of a small house to find it.

A few days to a few weeks later, McNamee says the sorted recyclables are taken by truck to various local facilities he calls intermediaries. They sort the materials further and then sell and ship them to companies throughout the world.

Eventually, that glass is smelted and made into more bottles. And plastic is usually compressed into bales and turned into anything from carpet and clothing to landscaping material. “It’s like mining in reverse,” McNamee says. “You’re taking materials that could’ve been thrown out and using them to manufacture something.”

But the journey doesn’t have to end there. To incorporate recyclables back into your home, look for products with recycled content. Take the handcrafted, eco-friendly home products from Chicago’s Bean Products for example. Their furniture made of recycled soda bottles brings the process full circle—from the bin back into your home.

To find a Resource Center drop-off site near you, click here. Or learn how you can become a part of the city’s Blue Bag recycling program at the Department of the Environment website.