When Salt Lake City resident Wilma Odell watches people at City Creek Center toss plates of food into the recycling bins, she cringes.
Odell, 81, has always been passionate about knowing what you can and can’t recycle. But even she has questions. From knowing what to do with greasy takeout containers to worrying about how much water she uses to rinse off plastic, it can be tricky to navigate.
The Wasatch Front Waste and Recycling District services 86,000 homes across the Salt Lake Valley and beyond, while the Salt Lake City sustainability department handles its urban area. Most recycling trucks haul items to the Material Recovery Facility in the city. There, plastic, metal and paper are sold to North American processing facilities that break down the used materials into units that can be recreated into various products.
But when the facility receives objects that aren’t meant to be recycled, it can stall the process. Odell often wonders what she can do to keep that from happening, she said.
“Obviously, we are always in a state of concern about water,” Odell said. “How do the recyclers feel about washing?”
She has friends who tell her the recycling gets sent to China, and that workers there will wash it. But she doesn’t know if she believes that, she said.
McKenna Tupa’i, the Wasatch Front sustainability coordinator, confirmed that the majority of Utah’s recyclable waste has been fed into North American facilities since 2018. And those workers do wash it, she said. Greasy pizza boxes, for example, can be restored, as long as they aren’t too cheesy.
However, large food quantities can contaminate the container they are in when they are put through processing, alongside the recycling items they are processed with, Tupa’i said. Anything with pieces of food still inside should not be recycled.
What can be recycled in Salt Lake City?
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Aluminum, aerosol cans, cardboard, most plastics and anything made out of paper are fine to recycle in Salt Lake City.
The basics — aluminum, aerosol cans, cardboard, most plastics and anything made out of paper — are fine to recycle at the Salt Lake facility, she said. However, the most common mistake she sees is plastic film going in the blue bins.
“If it’s plastic and you can crumple it in your hand, then it’ll go in the garbage can, unfortunately,” Tupa’i said.
That includes grocery bags and flimsy plastic labels, as well as plastic wrap. The thin material can easily get caught in sorting machines, she said. When that happens, workers must go in and untangle it, and the remains of the film get sent to landfills.
Objects with two or more materials also cause sorting issues. For example, almond milk containers that are made out of paper but include plastic lining can’t be recycled, Tupa’i said. The facility doesn’t have the technology to properly split fused plastic from paper.
When it comes to specifics, paper with glitter or waxy materials can’t be recycled either.
How to recycle glass in Salt Lake City
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) When glass collected through standard recycling shatters, it can be abrasive to the trucks, machines and on-site workers. That's one reason why glass is recycled separately in Salt Lake City.
The one major recyclable material that Salt Lake area facilities don’t regularly pick up from homes is glass. Residents can drop off glass at seven sites, or they can pay for a specialized truck to come pick up their glass — a service that costs about $8 a month. The latter option is less popular, Tupa’i said, but the drop-off sites frequently fill up.
Although states such as California have adopted technology to accommodate glass, Utah hasn’t funded it, said Chris Bell, Salt Lake City’s Waste and Recycling Division director. When glass collected through standard recycling shatters, it can be abrasive to the trucks, machines and on-site workers.
“It’s in our best interest to keep it separate,” Bell said. “It’s one of the few materials that’s infinitely recyclable.”
Keeping it apart from the rest makes the whole haul of recyclable objects easier to sort through, he said. It gets sent to the three private glass recycling plants in Utah: American Speciality Glass, Heritage Glass and Momentum Recycling. It can also be sent to other states if the market allows.
The recycling market also defines which plastics are recyclable from month to month, Bell said. To keep things simple, the city allows collection of plastic types 1 through 7. (The number can be found within the triangular recycling symbol on the bottom of most containers.)
However, typically only types 1, 2, 4 and 5 are consistently melted down and recycled by the city, he said.
That’s because plastic production markets don’t always consistently call for types 3, 6 and 7. Formulas to create products can change on a quarterly basis, Bell said. When the division can’t find facilities willing to buy those three types, they typically get sorted out and sent to landfills.
“There’s always hope that the markets evolve,” Bell said. “Maybe different blends or combinations of plastic will be desirable.”
That’s why the division continues to accept all types of plastic, he said. By keeping the rules consistent, less residents end up confused and the facility can recycle as much as possible.
