Shall we discuss?

This is a huge topic, a contentious one, and is by no means cut and dry. I figured I might as well start the year with a challenge.

There are those in the sustainability community who are in favour of recycling because it is better than the alternatives, and those who are not because recycling isn’t as effective as you might think it is. It would appear however, that there are two larger issues that both sides seem to be fighting against, which is apathy towards creating waste, and of course, the plastic industry.

If you are not versed in the issues surrounding recycling and waste disposal, not to worry, I’ll do my best to explain. I am by no means a materials and waste expert, but I do hope to get there eventually.

Recycling is part of a process where a material is discarded, collected, processed, and finally returned to industry for use to create new products. Ideally, recycling allows materials to re-enter the consumer cycle. This seemingly simple cyclical process begins to unravel when considerations such as material composition, municipal policy, facility limitations, and resource use in material production and process are considered. John Oliver actually explains plastics recycling exceptionally well in this video.

Recycling has evolved to be a last resort, as we all have learned in recent
decades that “reduce” and “reuse” are necessary considerations beforehand. There have since been several “r” steps added that place recycling in the absolute last resort position such as “refuse” and “repurpose”. These steps have been added ahead of recycling because frequently, materials don’t re-enter the consumer cycle like they’re meant to. There is too much to be sorted through, it’s often contaminated, and it is exported to places that can’t handle the sheer amount of waste it has been given the responsibility to dispose of.

Recycling as a concept is heavily relied upon because those involved in the plastics industry have promised that plastics everywhere can be recycled. Statements such as these allow commercial products (like Coca-Cola bottles for example) to continue their profitability with minor adjustments in production (i.e. “made with 10% recycled material”), and in doing so this allows end-users to feel better about a purchase simply by merit of the fact that it is recyclable, or made from recycled material. Did you know that once a plastic is recycled, it often cannot be recycled again? Herein lie the entangled issues. This of course is not to say that the onus is entirely on the consumer to change habits, rather it is the responsibility of plastic manufacturers to be accountable for their waste. But what do we do when entire industries are reliant upon plastics? Where would conservation be without BEVA 371? BEVA film?! Polyethylene?!! Oh god, not the B72!

In the conservation field, it is unfortunate that the majority of the materials a studio might use in treatments cannot be municipally recycled. They can only be reused for a short time, often cannot be repurposed and cannot be refused at the outset for lack of viable alternatives. Thus, they are destined for landfill or incineration in any case. There are specialized efforts being made by private companies to accept the commonly unrecyclable such as Terracycle, For Days and Re Told, the latter two of which are unfortunately only available in the United States. These companies are collecting specialized materials that are otherwise unacceptable for curb-side recycling, and processing them in their own facilities to combat growing landfill sites. These types of programs and facilities are exceptionally useful to include in conservation studios, allowing many of the industries products to be diverted from landfill, especially commonly used items like the aforementioned BEVA film and polyethylene sheets.

Those who are against recycling hold this position because now we know that recycling, at least plastic recycling, appears to effectively be a smokescreen for unending and unadjusted consumer practices to continue as normal, and arguably does little to meaningfully reduce human impact on climate change. Recycling still requires huge amounts of energy and water to return materials to the product stream, if it is returned to the product stream at all.

The long-standing alternative to recycling is incineration, though this of course has negative outcomes such as emitting millions of tonnes of greenhouse gases (GHGs) into the atmosphere each year, not to mention causing great harm to human health. Incineration is a method through which landfill and complex materials are sent to be burned, reducing at least the physical presence of waste. It is possible that eventually some incineration facilities may be able to harness the energy emitted by their processes and instead recycle the energy rather than the incoming materials  themselves.

Suggesting that plastics can be turned to energy however, does little to change public opinion on waste and reducing plastic use and production. In a perfect world, if the energy from incineration is being used to power a portion of a city (or if the packaging and things I use are being recycled), why should I use less? It’ll just be incinerated (or recycled) and I can feel good about that. Right…? Whether incinerated or recycled, it is evident that neither of these methods of waste reduction and disposal are foolproof.

Now that we know where the materials are going once they have served their purpose, there is still an issue of waste production that must be tackled, but how does the art conservation field fit into the solution? Well, conservators are natural fixers, and conservators are quite possibly the unsung heroes of resourcefulness in society. We can find a use for anything, and we can give the most cracked, broken, and singed object a new life. Let me just check one of my bins of tiny materials for that thing that fits this exact circumstance… aha! I knew we’d think of something. Conservators treat plastics to make them last longer whether as plastic objects or acrylic paintings, or are at least able to prolong their lives before they inevitably crumble into microplastics. It is not a huge leap to consider that conservators are fully capable of creating materials that serve the same purpose that don’t involve plastics.  

Waste and recycling is a massive topic, and it seems pretty bleak because well… sometimes it really is. I would encourage you however, to take away from this post that you are now at least slightly more informed to make changes in your studio practices, in your personal life, and to consider your materials like you might consider the lemming (iykyk). I also encourage you to work your way through all the other ‘r’s before landing on recycling, and to not give up on meaningful recycling efforts! Cardboard and paper, aluminum, steel, glass, and even some types of plastics if done responsibly, are still constantly and properly recycled somewhat globally. At least way back in 2004, it was shown that recycling these “consumes less energy and imposes lower environmental burdens than disposal of solid waste materials via landfilling or incineration, even after accounting for energy that may be recovered from waste materials at either type disposal facility” (please see this article from the International Journal for Life Cycle Assessment for source).

I will eventually be posting as many municipal resources as I can to help you be better informed on which materials go where, and what you might be able to replace plastics with.

Thanks for reading, and I’m looking forward to diving much deeper into this topic with you!

In the meantime, here are a couple additional resources to mull over:

This Scientific American article: “More Recycling Won’t Solve Plastic Pollution”

This National Geographic article: “Is burning plastic waste a good idea?“

The AIC Wiki for Sustainable Material Use and Disposal which offers a very thorough guide for conservators.