{"id":12353,"date":"2016-07-18T09:58:14","date_gmt":"2016-07-18T13:58:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wasteadvantagemag.com\/?p=12353"},"modified":"2016-07-18T09:58:14","modified_gmt":"2016-07-18T13:58:14","slug":"how-much-of-new-york-citys-curbside-recyclables-get-properly-recycled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wasteadvantagemag.com\/how-much-of-new-york-citys-curbside-recyclables-get-properly-recycled\/","title":{"rendered":"How Much Of New York City’s Curbside Recyclables Get Properly Recycled?"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York City recycles a wide variety of waste, but some materials are more likely to be recycled than others. The city has three solid waste streams: refuse, paper recycling, and metal\/glass\/plastic recycling. Overall, about 44 percent of recyclable material is \u201ccaptured\u201d by city recycling programs with the remainder sent to landfills, according to data from the Department of Sanitation\u2019s 2013 Residential Waste Characterization Study. But a lot of recyclables are thrown in the wrong bins\u2014aluminum cans, for example, tossed in with regular trash. As a result, the capture rate for each of the recyclable materials varies widely, from as low as 5 percent to as high as 75 percent. Material that ends up in the refuse stream or the wrong recycling stream is not recycled. In fact, such \u201ccontamination\u201d makes recycling more expensive.<\/p>\n