Recycling: Curb Your Enthusiasm

Meet the cities at the bottom of the residential recycling pile.

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THE FIRST RULE OF RECYCLING IN AMERICA: There are no rules. A 1976 federal law gives states and localities responsibility for how they handle their trash, including recycling. National standards could put an end to the “Can I recycle my yogurt lid?” conundrum once and for all, but there’s little political will for a major overhaul of the country’s 8,000-plus recycling programs. Which is why we’re stuck with a frustrating free-for-all in which one town’s recyclables are another’s junk, and the average city recycles only about a third of its trash.

Still, many municipalities lag far behind even that unimpressive standard due to a combination of official indifference, cheap landfill, and regional variations in the recyclables market. (What’s up with that?) Waste & Recycling News annually ranks the 30 biggest cities’ recycling rates. The data can be dodgy since they’re reported by the cities themselves—Detroit, the largest city without curbside recycling, nonetheless claims a 10.5% residential recycling rate. These five cities, which failed to see a benefit in juicing their stats, are officially last.

City % trash
Recycled
excuses

Houston

9.4%

Only 23% of households have curbside recycling, and 25,000 are stuck on a wait list for bins. Suburban sprawl makes pickup pricey. And plentiful landfill means it’s easy to mess with Texas.

Philadelphia

8.4%

90% of residents of one neighborhood participated in a pilot program that rewarded them for recycling more, but city officials chose not to try it citywide. Philly just introduced single-stream recycling—and pickups on the same day as trash.

San Antonio

4%

The city opened a bigger, better reprocessing facility just before the price of recyclables crashed. Combined with inexpensive deals with landfill operators, recycling doesn’t pay the bills.

Indianapolis

3.7%

Only 12% of residents have curbside pickup—it costs them $6 a month, but costs the city $34 per home. And Indiana just suspended its recycling grants and loans for cash-strapped cities like Indy.

Oklahoma City

3%

City dumps won’t be full for 20 years. Households pay to recycle, and it’s expensive if they do. A weekly $100 prize bumped citizen participation by a pathetic 0.17% last year.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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