Trash to Treasure: 10 Amazing Household Waste Recycling Stories

Here is how our household waste is recycled

The harmful effects of human activities on the environment are increasingly felt. To limit pollution and the collapse of biodiversity, sorting our waste is one of the easy daily actions that we can carry out and that many have already adopted. It allows downstream to recycle an increasing number of materials and packaging, even if Massachusetts could do even better. If 53% of the aluminum used in the state comes from recycling, this is the case for only 26% of plastic.

However, plastic packaging represents 74% of the waste collected for recycling, according to the latest data. Among them, the collection of plastic bottles reached 55% in 2018, with nevertheless very strong territorial disparities. Each material collected is supposed to be sorted and recycled separately. The idea, from waste, is to operate a reconditioning of the material so that it returns to a virgin state and can be used by an industrialist.

Metals, such as steel, come out, for example, in the form of ingots. The glass is washed, crushed and then remelted to be given to glassmakers. While recycling is now carried out by a constellation of small businesses such as SMEs, a few major players, sometimes listed on the stock exchange, share collection and sorting centres.

To reduce waste, but also encourage good sorting and improve collection, municipalities have set up incentive pricing, which is already widespread in Boston. This tax, which concerns milliona of people, must apply even more residents in 2025.

Here is how our waste is recycled, through a series of 10 examples:

Aluminum from electrical and electronic devices contributes to the manufacture of many water bottles

The eco-organization Ecologic, approved for recycling, recovers aluminum from electrical and electronic equipment for the manufacture of water bottles. The aluminum from some 200,000 tons per year of devices processed each year by Ecologic contributes to the design of 160 million gourdes in this material.

Electrical and electronic equipment waste concerns all objects or devices that plug into a mains socket or that operate on batteries or on batteries. The list is long, here are some examples: razor, hair dryer, camera, video camera, television, laptop, tablet, smartphone, lawn mower, dishwasher, washing machine, refrigerator, toaster, fan.

It is essential to deposit them in a dedicated collection point (terminals for electrical appliances, recycling center, recovery during a purchase, etc.), so that they are decontaminated in good and due form to avoid any risk for the environment or health, and that their materials are recovered in recycled raw materials or in energy.

Iron from electrical and electronic devices can be used to make a lot of nails

The 200,00 tons of electrical and electronic equipment processed each year yield large quantities of iron, enough to make 1 billion standard nails.

Household WEEE, which contains iron, aluminum or even plastic, is 85.8% recycled, reused or recovered. Alloys and increasingly miniaturized objects make recycling more complex. Smartphones contain more and more different metals (gold, silver, platinum, palladium, nickel, tungsten, etc.) that are very intertwined and difficult to separate, and could contain hazardous materials. Only about ten are recovered in an electronic card out of the fifty used.

Recycled clothes can be used as a support for plant walls

From 8.4 kilograms of recycled textiles, a landscape company manages to create a square meter of green wall. Once collected and sorted, the non-reusable clothes are shredded and then transformed by her into a growing medium. These recycled textiles replace sphagnum, a natural moss. Green walls must in particular promote the thermal performance of buildings and bring biodiversity to the urban environment.

Other projects exist to give new life to our clothes, such as the initiative of a startup to collect polyester sportswear and transform them into plastic composite. A material then used for the manufacture of educational sports equipment, in particular cups (studs and cones to create courses, delimit a field, etc.).

Polyamide fabric, very common in textiles, is also recycled in the plastics industry, to find technical applications in automobile engine parts or ski bindings, for example.

The rubber from the outer soles of shoes is used in the construction of children’s playgrounds

With 2,500 pairs of rubber outsoles, it is possible to manufacture 300 m2 of playgrounds for children. With foam insoles, you can also design floor coverings like a tennis court.

Aluminum from packaging, such as that extracted from cans, is used to make bicycle frames

With one ton of aluminum packaging, it is possible to manufacture 293 racing bike frames or 586 scooter frames, according to a company which specializes in the recycling of household packaging.

Plastic soda bottles used to stuff pillows once recycled

Soda bottles can be recycled to fill a pillow. From a soda bottle, you can get a polyethylene terephthalate (PET) textile fiber, which is used, among other things, for stuffing pillows. These polyester fibers are obtained by first transforming the bottles into plastic flakes. They can also be used in down jackets and teddy bears. With a ton of recycled PET packaging, up to 520 duvets can be stuffed.

Hard plastic packaging, such as milk bottles, mayonnaise and ketchup jars, are recycled into watering cans

Plastic milk bottles can become watering cans after a recycling process. A ton of rigid plastic packaging, of the polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP) and polystyrene (PS) type, allows the manufacture of 146 watering cans or 4,965 cans of lubricants, according to the Boston Dumpster Rental Services company, approved by the State.

Steel packaging, like tin cans, can be made into train tracks

Tin cans can be used to craft rails. According to recycling and waste management experts, one ton of steel packaging can build 14 meters of train tracks or provide the material needed to manufacture 13 dishwashers.

Cardboard packaging

Cardboard packaging, such as cake packages, can be recycled into shoe boxes. Recycled cardboard is used in particular to make shoe boxes. One ton of recycled cardboard packaging makes 3,753 shoe boxes or 1,984 corrugated cardboard boxes that can hold six bottles, says Citeo.

Food bricks, soup or milk for example, are recycled in the form of toilet paper. The material extracted from one ton of food bricks allows the manufacture of 7,692 rolls of toilet paper or 1,748 rolls of paper towels.