combating recycling challenges

在过去的一年中无疑带来了挑战the recycling industry—with the closure of Chinese borders continuing to put pressure on domestic markets, ongoing concerns of contamination and the fluctuation in market pricing. The aftershocks of these issues are felt by everyone, including consumers, businesses, manufacturers, MRFs and entire countries. As much as the concerns can seem daunting, there are solutions in reach that can help to drive the industry forward.

当我们回顾几十年前，消费者理解的回收过程更简单。产品由更少的材料制造，使其更简单地排序日常人。易于分拣玻璃，报纸和纸板等普通物品的便利促成了市收集计划的成功。今天，我们面临着更大的挑战，既是消费者和回收专业人员则。纳入我们产品的新聚合物的开发，以及新的包装方法导致混淆并使用户挑战了解如何正确回收这些产品。此外，MRFS发现难以跟上这些材料的处理，因为需要采用新技术来正确处理这些变化。虽然正在增加努力来增加回收利率并减少浪费，但许多战略和举措被忽视，因为企业继续用过多的包装和消费者继续购买产品。

Busch Systems Spectrum containers incorporating color coordination and signage to encourage and communicate proper sorting behavior.

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Lack of Standardization

In order to develop effective solutions, we must first understand the problem. By far, one of the most complex and complicated issues with recycling is one that affects everyone, one that is so widespread that it leaves people frustrated to the point of throwing everything in the trash. This issue is lack of standardization.

如果我们看看咖啡杯作为一个常见的物品的一个例子，每个市都需要对其进行不同的排序。有些人可能需要咖啡杯进入废物，混合，有机物或纸溪流。这是因为由于在加工中缺乏标准化，回收中心存在巨大变化。一些回收中心具有能够将薄塑料或蜡涂层从纸杯中分离的技术，有些则不会。有些人有焚烧炉或厌氧消化器，允许杯子转化为可用的能量。虽然其他人没有上述并使咖啡杯处置作为浪费，因为他们没有市场。这只是一种导致一个城市混乱的一种材料。关于杂货店，污染的餐巾纸，油腻的披萨盒，丸瓶，破碎的玻璃，墨盒呢？列表继续和打开。

The amount of variation in accepted materials, even from municipalities close in proximity can be confusing, and it really complicates the issue for everyone. When cities make decisions about what items to collect, they look into a variety of factors, such as is there a purchaser or market that can use this material, can we make energy from it through incineration or decomposition, is it economical for us to separate it and do we have the technology to do so?

涉及缺乏标准化时，它不仅仅是一种不一致的材料的集合，而且是容器的选择。我们熟悉我们在公共场所看到的垃圾箱的变化;它们包括不同的形状，尺寸，颜色，具有不同的开口，并置于许多不同的配置中。这适用于标牌，只有一些用词来传达什么，一些图片和图标。

Overcoming a lack of standardization is arguably one of the largest waste management challenges facing businesses, individuals, municipalities and governments. A general lack of standardization leads to recycling and waste stream contamination, which ends up costing sorting facilities billions of dollars annually as they require the technology and manpower to sort through all the unrecyclable materials. Not only this, but contamination also degrades the quality of the end-recycled material, lowering its resale value, limiting purchaser options and, in some cases, leaving the entire batch of recycled material destined for the landfill.

As individuals and sustainability experts, ensuring recycling is kept simple is the best thing we can do to help achieve consistency. Solutions to combat the issue of lack of standardization include the use of the same recycling and waste containers throughout your facilities. These containers should also support restrictive openings and clear color coordination for easy stream recognition in order to offer as many visual cues to users as possible. These visuals provide a moment of education to the user, and communicate the message and proper action, again and again. Additionally, use clear and concise labeling and signage options that leave the guess work out of it. Simple, easy to read signs at eye level, that incorporate both graphics and a short list of items, have proven to be the most effective.

Another suggestion is to determine what kind of labels and signage options your city uses in public spaces and use this same format—repetition and consistency is a huge driver of long-term learning and information retention. Many cities offer an online program on their website that allows a consumer to enter a product, like pizza boxes, and it will tell you where to dispose of it correctly. Knowing and communicating this information on signage can help people to make better informed decisions, increase diversion rates and lower contamination.

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回收成本

Another big challenge in upholding a successful recycling and waste strategy are the associated costs. Outfitting an entire building with new, consistent and effective recycling containers can sometimes be expensive. Luckily, there are recycling and waste container designers and manufacturers who develop products with longevity and durability in mind, and the investment you made today will be working for you, for years to come.

Something to consider—if your business is starting to recycle for the first time, there is a cost of adding an additional collection service on your waste management plan. If before you were paying $80 per pickup for a 6-cubic yard container of waste, now you may be paying that same amount, plus an additional $30 for a container of recycling. The good news here is that as your program improves, and the amount of waste you generate starts to decrease, pickups will also decrease, and you will begin to benefit from cost savings.

How can we either mitigate or minimize the financial impact of recycling as a business owner? There are lots of opportunities to offset the cost of a recycling program, and most of them begin with opening a line of communication with your recycling and waste collection service. Find out how exactly you are being charged for collection. Is it a flat monthly fee regardless of the amount collected? Are you being charged per pickup or do you have a cost per ton agreement? If you are being charged per pick up, there is a good chance you could save 50 percent or more by introducing a recycling program instead of just waste as you divert more and more materials from the waste stream. And if you are charged per ton, every pound removed from waste is money saved.

关注您的州或省环境保护或保护机构提供的潜在拨款和资金。这将有助于抵消新的回收计划的成本。垃圾填埋场是昂贵的，政策制定者将帮助您做出必要的变化，以确保它们具有较长的寿命，以降低与创建新的成本。

In today’s day and age, people are beginning to open their eyes to environmental issues. You are seeing more and more successful businesses popping up with sustainability built right into their core values. There is tremendous value associated with branding yourself as an eco-conscious company that draws attention from consumers who make purchases or align themselves with sustainable organizations. Conversely, you are seeing a lot more negative attention being directed at companies that fail to implement change to reduce their environmental impact. Implementing, marketing and promoting a successful recycling system is one of the cheaper and impactful changes you can make as a company to align yourself with the sustainable choices consumers are making today.

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Overseas Strategies

An interesting point to be made about the challenges associated with recycling is that many of the same pain-points are not felt globally. There are many European countries such as Sweden and the Netherlands that have experienced better recycling and diversion rates than North America for more than 40 years. Sweden has had national legislation and policy framework dedicated to the continual improvement of recycling and resource recovery for decades, while it seems North America has fallen quite behind.

有解决方案有助于我们缺乏标准化和回收成本的挑战。有各国和企业处于行业的最前沿，制作大步迈进，提高转移率，最大限度地减少第一处的浪费发电 - 他们正在减少包装，使用更环保的材料，并确保他们创造的产品是可回收的。这些国家将环境可持续性和资源恢复放在议程前，并拥有垃圾填埋场的90％的转移率。他们还持有大型企业，他们未能减少对其行动的财务责任。这是我们可以不断努力的方向，并浏览这些国家和企业作为设置示例和标准的领导者。