Recycle Utah

Nonprofit Summit County, Utah Recycling Center

#recycle utah

The Lifecycle of Foam

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Packing peanuts, food containers, coffee cups, and packaging material you might know as Styrofoam. In fact, Styrofoam is a Dow company trademarked name for extruded polystyrene foam (XPS) that’s used for insulation purposes. The foam we often encounter when we order large items online or pick up takeout for dinner is expand polystyrene foam (EPS).

Polystyrene is a type of plastic that begins in the manufacturing process as small synthetic beads. The beads are heated and molded to form several types of commonly used plastic, including CD cases, smoke detectors, disposable razors, and other hard plastics. During the heating process, the beads can be expanded and molded to form EPS and XPS foam. EPS and XPS foam are expanded between 40 and 80 percent of the original volume and consist primarily of air. It’s inexpensive to manufacture, simple to transport due to its lightweight nature, and is a semi-durable and reliable product. So, what’s the problem?

EPS and XPS foam are notoriously difficult to recycle due to our municipal recycling infrastructure. In the landfill, it can take around 500 years for it to decompose. When EPS and XPS foam end up in our natural environment, it leaches into our water and soil systems as component cells. The health risks of the component cells in our natural environment are daunting with some experts suspecting them to be carcinogenic.

To help prevent the pollution of EPS and XPS foam in our environment, use alternative products to foam, encourage your local and online businesses to switch to paper products,  and vote for policies and politicians that will create bans of foam in your community.

By Addison Marr

Energy Upgrades

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Our energy supply gets cleaner every day. In fact, while less than 20% of Utah energy is still delivered to us via renewable sources, this will change drastically within this decade. The 80-megawatt solar farm in Tooele County, one of the largest generators connected to Rocky Mountain Power’s Utah grid to date, is due to deliver green power to our Summit County homes by 2030. This farm is intended to power over a dozen Utah cities, counties, universities, and ski resorts.

Knowing this, it’s wise to start saving up to slowly transition off fossil fuels to a cleaner and healthier home. Think long term: cost savings, health, and environmental impact. The new Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) bill is jam-packed with rebates, but the savings depends on your tax bill (which can lower the amount owed but won’t offer a refund if you don’t owe anything). Consider upgrades to the following home areas:

  1. Get a home energy audit.
  2. Install solar or other renewable sources.
  3. Install a heat pump heating and cooling system.
  4. Switch out your appliances (gas stove to electric, laundry, and more).
  5. Upgrade your thermostat.
  6. Upgrade your insulation, windows, exterior doors, ventilation, air leaks and more.
  7. Purchase an electric vehicle, home charger, or battery pack.

The IRA bill is serious and thorough, including low and middle-income households and offering 50 to 100% upfront rebates. Another action we all can do is to support Green Power on our monthly power bills through ThermWise (natural gas) and Blue Sky (electric). Be proactive and think electric.

By Mary Closser

Hope in the Face of Climate Change

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Climate change is here and it’s terrifying. From natural disasters, sea level rise, air and water quality, food scarcity, to ecosystem collapse, climate anxiety is paralyzing, and the future can seem hopeless. Media outlets prey on this collective fear often focusing on negative stories with clickbait titles. Nevertheless, it is vital for us to be informed of the effects of climate change, to understand the privilege we have as a community currently safe from major impacts of climate change, and to remain hopeful as we face the climate crisis at large.

Hope is often dismissed as an inadequate tool in creating change, but if we don’t have hope and we believe we’ve already failed, then we will. Our opportunity to change before we’ve created irreversible damage is closing, but we still have time. If you’re struggling to find hope, here are some tips:

  1. Involve yourself in your community! Experiencing the world through clickbait media is lonely and daunting, but in reality, a lot of amazing people and organizations are doing the hard work to combat climate change. Volunteer for a local organization focused on sustainability, write to your legislators, vote, and surround yourself with people who are passionate about creating a better future.
  2. Find media outlets that promote the good with the bad, like thecooldown.com that reports on sustainable solutions happening throughout the world.
  3. Close your eyes and visualize! Practice imagining a future you want to live in, and the steps needed to create this future. For inspiration, read Robert Costanza’s “Visions of Alternative (Unpredictable) Futures and Their Use in Policy Analysis.”

By Addison Marr

Our Grocery Choices: Some Recycling Packaging Conundrums

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We often hear about nixing the plastic bag for a reusable and that’s easy. What about some of the more complex sustainability conundrums as we stroll through the grocery aisles?

  1. Styrofoam: Always looks for an alternative. Eggs? Choose paper. Meat? Buy directly from the butcher.
  2. Yogurt: Small containers or the big tub? Select the big tub unless you won’t be able to finish it to avoid the food waste.
  3. Soup stock: Nix the non-recyclable Tetrapaks (often used for stock and alternative milks). Choose concentrated stock in small glass jars or cubes.
  4. Kid lunch items: The cute single-use items are screaming to be purchased (mini applesauce, juice boxes, Lunchables, etc.), but they are single-use and end up in the landfill. Pack your own goodies in reusable containers and save money.
  5. Coffee and tea: Standard plastic coffee bags that are mixed with paper or metal are not recyclable. Buy in bulk with your own containers or buy coffee in a metal container and avoid using the individual coffee pods. Tea can also be purchased in bulk but if individual bags are preferred, they are compostable. Prioritize teas in paper packaging rather than plastic or mixed-material packaging.

Packaging is complex and ever-changing. If in doubt, always choose paper, metal, or glass over plastic. Plastic was an amazing invention at one point in history, but we are now seeing the environmental repercussions. Glass and metal can be recycled endlessly without degrading in quality. Paper is easily recyclable and usually compostable. It’s the smart choices we make now that will benefit our children down the road.

By Mary Closser

Cosmetics and the Environmental Working Group

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Before slathering your moisturizer on your face or applying your new mascara, I would invite your first to ask, “What exactly am I about to place on my skin?”. Today, the Food Drug Administration does not require safety testing for ingredients in our skincare and makeup products. Many products on the market today may contain toxic chemicals such as Formaldehyde, a well-known carcinogen.

Luckily, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) released an app called Healthy Living which allows you to confirm if a product is EWG VERIFIED. EWG verification is based on their Skin-Deep database, which provides consumers with information on personal care products. Using the data from this database, the Healthy Living app allows you to find products based on the organization’s strict standards that ensure safety from chemicals on their “Unacceptable” list. The list includes ingredients that concern our health, contamination, and ecotoxicity. By knowing your product is EWG VERIFIED, you can ensure transparency in ingredients based on decades of research. 

To use the app, simply tap scan at the bottom of the page, scan your product’s barcode, and receive an overall rating. From there, you can further explore individual ingredients to find their rating and use. Additionally, the app offers data on food and household cleaning products. 

The EWG is an activist group founded in 1993 that conducts research and advocacy work focused on protecting public health. EWG has made great strides in fighting against damaging agricultural practices and outdated legislation. Their website EWG.org offers not only information on personal care products but also food, water, energy, and more!

By Miriam Flores

Recycled Metal is Always Precious

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Metals are elements mined from ores. Unlike glass and plastics which are produced from natural resources, we can’t make more metal like iron, aluminum, lead, copper. That keeps the demand and value of used metal high. Nearly all metals are infinitely recyclable without degradation. Scrap metal dealers pay recyclers for their scrap metal. They haul Recycle Utah’s mixed metal dumpster to a scrap metal yard where it is sorted, separated from non-metallic material, crushed, and compacted into large blocks. These are transported to a steel mill where they are melted in furnaces into metal sheets and ingots. We should be diligent about recycling metal. Recycled metal is vastly cheaper than mining ore. It significantly reduces manufacturers’ use of natural resources and energy. It provides recyclers some steady income.

So, what metals go into our curbside recycling bins? If it’s metal and food came in it, put it in your bin and make sure it is 90% clean. Labels do not need to be removed. Recycle aluminum cans, trays, pans, and foil. Keep top tabs attached to or inside crushed cans. Put steel and tin cans, metal bottles and caps into your bin as well.

What goes into Recycle Utah’s metals dumpster? Any non-hazardous item containing at least 70% metal! For example: washers, dryers, stoves, microwaves, bed frames, bikes, grills, cast and wrought iron, cans, golf clubs, tools, and car parts.

By Bev Harrison