Sustainable Materials

Common beauty and hygiene products such as toothpaste, deodorant and shampoo are common waste producers in our daily lives. These products typically come in plastic packaging, which is often either exceptionally hard to recycle or recyclable at all. When purchasing hygiene products, look out for non-plastic or easily recyclable options to reduce waste – newer companies are offering non-plastic alternatives. Read on for suggestions  to reduce plastic consumption and waste in your home: 

Toothpaste: Traditional toothpaste tubes are hard to recycle; the average family uses 24 tubes of toothpaste a year! Luckily, there are several great options available locally to make the switch. Toothpaste tabs or powder are an increasingly common product, available at grocery stores such as Harmons, Whole Foods, or fulFILLed in the Outlets. These tabs and powders are sold in glass, metal, or paper packaging.

Deodorant: About 3.2 billion deodorant containers are thrown in the trash each year! These containers are typically made of specially shaped, heat-resistant plastic and therefore not recyclable in curbside recycling. Recently, however, cardboard containers are emerging to replace plastic – a better option for recycling or even landfill. Or, try a crystal deodorant that will last longer. 

Shampoo/Conditioner: Traditional shampoo and conditioner come in plastic containers that are recyclable in curbside recycling. Traditional shampoo and conditioner are up to 85% water, therefore requiring waterproof plastic containers. Check out shampoo and conditioner bars: hard soap bars which can be used when wet as shampoo and conditioner! These bars typically cost between $7 and $20 but can last 2-3 times as long as liquid shampoo (meaning they can also be the more cost-effective option). Shampoo and conditioner bars are typically wrapped in paper or cardboard boxes, both of which can be recycled, resulting in a zero-waste and plastic-free product!

By Mia Moore

35 years ago from tomorrow, on August 7, 1990, Recycle Utah’s founders signed the Articles of Incorporation. In honor of Recycle Utah’s 35th birthday, let’s take a look at where we started, how far we’ve come, and what the future holds for us. Recycle Utah’s story began in 1978, when Marianne Cone organized Park City’s first community recycling effort.

Though her small facility closed by 1982, it laid the groundwork for what came next. In 1988, Greg Schirf gathered a group of locals at the Wasatch Brew Pub to address Park City’s growing waste problem. That meeting—with key players like Scott Becker and Sally Elliott—sparked a new push for recycling. Becker led the charge, launching a drop-off site for newspaper, cardboard, glass, plastic, and aluminum in a rundown metal building in what is now the Walgreens parking lot. Recycle Utah incorporated in 1990 and, after a few relocations, settled into its permanent home on Woodbine Way in 1996.

Recycle Utah operates on just 0.4 acres—but in that small space, we recycle over 3.5 million pounds of material each year. With more than 400 cars coming through every day, our staff have to be efficient, knowledgeable, and adaptable. We take in 45 types of materials, many of them not accepted anywhere else locally—everything from cardboard and glass to batteries, skis, sneakers, and electronics. Our leaders, like Insa Riepen and Carolyn Wawra, have always been passionate about doing right by the community and our planet. Recycle Utah’s goal has always been natural resource conservation, saving landfill space, and making sustainability accessible to our community.

As our community continues to grow, so do its needs, and Recycle Utah is committed to growing with it. We’ve come a long way from where we started, today serving thousands of residents and diverting millions of pounds of waste each year. But we’ve reached the limits of what’s possible at our small 0.4-acre facility. To continue meeting the demand for our community’s recycling services, education, and outreach, we need more space. With the same spirit that brought us from a metal shack in a parking lot to where we are today, we look forward to building a facility that can serve Park City and Summit County for decades to come.

By Chelsea Hafer

We at Recycle Utah often get questions about the small stuff. The caps? Lids? Corks? Small bath products? First, keep in mind that products need to be pure. If it’s made of mixed materials, it’s often not recyclable. Additionally, all materials need to be 90% clean of any residue – food, grease, etc. Lids can stay on plastic bottles and be recycled through curbside service or Recycle Utah.

Though, there’s a good chance the lid will pop off when bailed and may be swept aside into the landfill pile at the Salt Lake City recycling facility. Recycle Utah has designated containers for small plastics, corks, and metal caps to assure recyclability of small items. Metals are important to recycle as they consistently have market value – and recycling metals is less energy intensive than converting the raw material of ore into a new metal.

Try compacting foil pieces, yogurt covers, and more into a tennis ball-sized mass or save them in a sealed metal can. Metal products are often mixed with plastic – consider that the item needs to be at least 70% metal to be recyclable at Recycle Utah.

Now the bathroom, an open door to creative alternatives! First, how can you reduce? If your product is disposable, is there a sustainable and non-plastic replacement, such as washable wipes, glass or metal containers, toothpaste tabs, or bulk buys? Recycle Utah accepts toothbrushes and toothpaste containers, a program with Colgate and Terracycle. To learn more about all the products accepted, recycled, and diverted from the landfill, visit our website at recycleutah.org.

By Mary Closser

A few weeks ago, we toured METech, the facility where Recycle Utah sends all collected electronics. METech is an R2v3-certified recycler, meaning it meets the highest standards in electronics recycling: maximizing material recovery and ensuring all data is securely wiped from devices.

Recycle Utah’s electronics are stored until there’s enough to haul to METech’s Salt Lake City facility. There, items are weighed and sorted—especially those containing data storage, which are securely wiped. Most materials are then baled and shipped to their central hub in Gilroy, California.

At the Gilroy facility, motherboards are carefully dismantled by machines that recover valuable metals like gold, palladium, and platinum, separating them for reuse in new electronics. Other devices are shredded and sorted using magnets and eddy currents to recover metal, plastic, and glass. These materials are then sent to manufacturers who use them in products like laptop covers, new electronics, and more.

What surprised me most was the sheer volume—and variety—of items they receive and dismantle for recyclable parts. I even picked up a leather cushion, assuming it was landfill-bound, only to learn it was headed to a leather recycler! That level of detail made it clear that METech is committed to recovering everything possible, beyond just items with a plug or battery. We’re lucky to have one of their facilities so close. Across the U.S., many electronics are trucked hundreds of miles to reach facilities like this.

The EPA estimates that almost 3 million tons of electronics go into U.S. landfills every year. Recycling electronics keeps hazardous materials out of the landfill, and arguably more importantly, lets us reuse valuable non-renewable resources like precious metals, whose extraction is damaging ecosystems, polluting air and water, and causing human rights crises across the globe. 

Seeing METech in action gave me real hope. When done right, electronics recycling truly can close the loop—and we all play a role by choosing to recycle responsibly.

By Chelsea Hafer