The one hour tour began at the Milwaukee Environmental Education and Tour Center with a presentation about why it's important to recycle and what’s acceptable to put in the recycling bins. Then we all put on hard hats and eye protection and were led through the MRF where they receive about 300 tons a day of materials to be sorted and processed in an eight to ten-hour shift. The presentation was really enlightening and our tour guide gave us great information which I’m very excited to share with you!

First, why recycle? And does it really make a difference?

• Every year 100,000 mammals and 1 million sea birds are killed by ocean debris.
• Each week 10 billion plastic bags are used and only 1% are recycled.
• Each hour 4,000,000 plastic bottles are used, but if recycled, they can be made into enough carpet for 29,600 homes.
• Each ton of recycled paper saves 3 cubic yards of landfill space, 17 trees, 380 gallons of oil, 4000 kilowatts of energy and 7,000 gallons of water.
• Each year, 20,000,000,000 steel cans are recycled (stacking those cans would go from the earth to the moon 7 times).
• Using recycled aluminum to produce new cans makes 20 times more with the same amount of energy than it takes to make one from non-recycled aluminum.
• It takes as few as 60 days for a recycled can to be back on the shelf.
• According to The annual recycling report, the city of Milwaukee avoided $1.1 million in landfill costs and received over $1.3 million for the sale of materials in 2018.

Does it make a difference? Yes, if you do it correctly.

Did you know recyclables arriving at the facility in trash bags will go straight into the trash? So basically everything you carefully sorted, rinsed and thought was going to be recycled becomes landfill!  It’s very important to put your recycling directly into the bin and keep in mind the following instructions:

• Only plastic containers with a #1, #2, or #5 symbol.
• NO wax/foil/plastic-lined paper (like ice cream containers)
• NO window glass, light bulbs, ceramics, drinking glasses, china, or Pyrex
• Rinse aluminum, steel, and aerosol cans but don't crush. It’s ok to leave the labels on!

If you’d like to read a very detailed list about which things can or can’t be recycled check out the Recycling Directory from the city of Milwaukee.

The greatest challenge to the MRF is plastic bags and other contaminants which should not be put in curbside recycling.  These can jam the sorting machinery which causes production to shut down while the jam is cleared. However, plastic shopping bags and other plastic wrappings such as, zip food storage bags, ice bags, product wrap (like toilet paper wrap or paper towel wrap), dry cleaning bags and cereal bags can be recycled but only through collection programs hosted by stores that collect them. Enter your zip code in this Plastic Film Recycling directory to find a drop off near you!  Riverside Urban Ecology Center is a collection site!