Study finds just 2.2% of Baltimore’s trashed plastic is recycled, while 47% is burned
By Timothy Dashiell and Fern Shen | July 30, 2021 | Baltimore Brew
Activists who have been pushing Baltimore to move faster toward a Zero Waste goal – with paper and glass more widely recycled, food waste composted and the BRESCO trash incinerator mothballed – are speaking out about a part of the waste stream that doesn’t fit the concept:
Single-use plastic.
A new report looking at the challenges of recycling plastic finds that only 2.2% of plastics are recycled in Baltimore, the lowest rate of five cities studied (Detroit, Long Beach, Minneapolis, Newark and Baltimore).
Of the 97.8% that’s left over, 47% is burned at the Wheelabrator BRESCO trash incinerator in South Baltimore – the city’s largest source of industrial air pollution – and most of the rest is landfilled.
This is according to the report by Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, a worldwide alliance of grassroots groups and NGOs with U.S. offices in Berkeley, Calif.
Two thirds of the plastics in Baltimore’s waste stream was not recyclable, the report found.
The material has no value in the marketplace, isn’t feasible for sorting and is basically intended by the manufacturers for disposal.
“This sheds light on the myth that plastics are being recycled and everything can continue like business as usual,” said Shashawnda Campbell, at a press conference organized by the Baltimore Zero Waste Coalition and the South Baltimore Community Land Trust (SBCLT).
The groups are calling city and state elected officials to ban the burning of single-use plastic at the BRESCO incinerator.
They’re also trying to build support for laws that make polluters pay. Maine, for instance, recently approved legislation that requires manufacturers, rather than taxpayers, to cover the cost of recycling.