Wednesday, February 12, 2025
Salt Lake City recycles almost half of the waste it collects from residents.
Urban Living
Posted By Babs De Lay on February 12, 2025, 4:00 AM
Salt Lake City has a goal of reaching zero waste in our landfill by 2040. That's good, as it's expected to be completely full in 60 years.
The good news is the city is recycling close to 50% of waste collected from residents. The bad news is that when the landfill is full, it will have to move to a new location and most likely far away. The farther away the landfill, the higher the costs to residents due to gas, transportation, etc.
Our city is lucky to have a Master Recycling Facility (MRF), which recycles roughly 95% of everything delivered to it through something known as "single stream recycling." This process allows for everything from paper and plastics and even metals to forego sorting and rinsing. This system doesn't apply to glass recycling, but the city offers that service as well through a company called Momentum Recycling.
Plenty of countries are great at recycling. Wales has a high level of separate collection systems for materials. Austria has banned certain waste items from landfills.
South Korea has private companies collect the waste and sell it for a profit and has banned PVC, plastic bottles, disposable cups and straws. Singapore is probably the world leader in recycling, as they have very strict trash and recycling programs that if ignored will cost you high fines and even jail time. Germany, too, gets applause, as they recycle almost 70% of their waste.
We could do better with our trash by requiring all recycled packaging that comes into our state to be clearly marked with simple colored dots, such as other countries use: blue for paper and cardboard; yellow for plastic and soft metals; green or brown for organics; and gray for household waste. Also, we could enact laws requiring "polluter pays" policies, where both businesses and households pay for any non-recycling waste we produce.
I remember my childhood days of collecting pop and beer bottles for money—like five cents a bottle. Countries like Germany charge a deposit when you buy bottled or canned beverages, and you can then get this refunded when you return the empties.
When did this practice stop here? I see unsheltered people collecting aluminum cans out of trash receptacles and selling their finds to Wasatch Metal Recycling—but otherwise I have not seen bottle deposits in quite a while. Local brew pubs, however, do recycle glass if you buy jugs of suds and return them empty.
Props to Moab, Park City and Logan, which have banned single-use plastic bags, while other cities have discouraged their use. Given that it's Legislative season, wouldn't it be nice to have a statewide ban on plastic bags? I love that Harmon's grocery stores only use paper bags at checkout (unless you buy meat that must be wrapped in plastic) and hope more retailers would ban plastic bags forever!
About The Author
Babs De Lay
A full-time broker/owner of Urban Utah Homes and Estates, Babs De Lay serves on the Salt Lake City Historic Landmark Commission. A writer and golfer, you'll find them working as a staff guardian at the Temple at Burning Man each year.
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