Quite a lot of what people think they are recycling actually ends up in the same waste stream as garbage. That’s right, it’s destined for a landfill. Sure, you put everything out at your curb in a bin with a recycling symbol on the side, But...what happens next?

A truck with a recycling symbol on its side reliably picks up what you put out for it. 

But where it goes from there can get pretty iffy here in the foothills of Colorado (or just about anywhere in the U.S.). 

Even many waste companies will tell you that once they hand it over to their downstream partners, it often gets re-channeled into a standard waste stream. It’s not bait-and-switch on their part. It’s just that most recycling workflows require processes that rely on purity. Only certain plastics. Only certain papers. Only certain metals. Cross-contamination within a single batch of recyclables often dooms the entire load. And that happens far too often. 

Wish-cycling is also the practice of recycling items that cannot be recycled. It is most common with plastics because of the complexity of plastic recycling, but can also happen with other products like heat-proof glass or aluminum foil. People wish-cycle because they believe that the items are, or in some cases, should be recycled. It's usually people that are extremely well-intentioned but don't have a complete education around the complexities of recycling.

So while you may feel like you’re doing good by the planet, you’re actually just “wish-cycling.” It feels good to you, but it’s still often bad for mother nature.  (source: Method Recycling)

At Foothills Recycling, our entire reason for being is to give individuals and small businesses who wish to recycle here in the Evergreen/Conifer area the opportunity, the resources and the friendly assistance to get it done right. What you recycle with us is steered into a certified recycling process that we monitor and that we have vetted. Recycling is all we do, so we are committed to doing it right.