About Recycle This Pittsburgh
The Problem
After working hard to set aside items for recycling, you may be surprised at the news stories that indicate recycling processors are having trouble selling some of these items on the reusable materials market, or that they are getting stuck in the sorting equipment. Articles and exposés, both local and national, discussing the general failure of recycling status-quo in America seem to be appearing constantly:
- The Journey of the Blue Bag
- It’s Time to Rethink How Recycling is Done
- Mt. Lebanon struggling with recycling changes
- China’s recycling ban has sent America’s plastic to Malaysia. Now they don’t want it — so what next?
- Piling Up: How China’s Ban on Importing Waste Has Stalled Global Recycling
- As Costs Skyrocket, More U.S. Cities Stop Recycling
- Plastic Wars
Just because your recycling bags or bins are collected on trash day doesn’t mean your waste is actually being recycled. And sometimes efforts to make recycling more convenient for us and “simpler” to understand, actually means what we put into the recycling stream causes problems for the entire process.
Our Goals
There are many resources for Pittsburghers to find out general information about recycling. Our goal is to provide very specific information to help you understand if a particular item you have is recyclable or not, and how to give it the best chance of not ending up in a landfill.
We also hope that the details we provide here give you some insight into the issues happening behind-the-scenes with recycling. Once you know a few items that are likely to be problematic, you can begin to make informed choices about the products you buy. And as our community discusses policy possibilities like Ban the Bag, No Plastic Please, or Zero Waste PA, you’ll have a better sense of the potential impact these initiatives might have.
Who We Are
Recycle This Pittsburgh was initiated Pittsburgher’s Against Single-Use Plastic (facebook group) as part of the spring 2019 three-month What’s SUP challenge.
It is operated by volunteer effort as a free resource and supported by patrons.
It is not affiliated with the City of Pittsburgh though we have gathered the information reflected here by reaching out to city departments and talking to local organizations in-the-know.
We have done our best to ensure our information is accurate and up-to-date.
See something amiss?
Want to partner with us to support this effort? Let us know.