It makes sense, financially, to ban plastic bags and promote reusable bags. As the value of recycled goods decreases, the value of the second “R” in “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” increases.

If you are a city of Syracuse resident, the materials you put on the curb in your blue bin are not recycled by the people who pick them up. In fact, there’s a few steps, often taking place across multiple countries, before your materials are completely recycled.

First, the haulers who pick up your trash and recyclables are not employed directly by the government. They are independent haulers who are payed in part by governments, and in part directly by citizens. These private haulers bring your trash and recyclables to the Onondaga County Resource Recovery Agency facility, where they are processed for a fee.

OCRRA is responsible in selling these sorted and prepared recyclables to whoever will pay the most for them. In the past this has been China, but times have changed.

China is no longer paying for recycled goods, causing the value of the goods to plummet.

Unfortunately, the cost for OCRRA to recycle materials remains the same, and they’ve had to raise the rate that they charge private haulers to process trash and recycled goods. This hike will take effect in 2019.

Since the cost of recycling will increase, it’s financially beneficial to reuse.

Kristen Lawton, public information officer at OCRRA said in an email, “OCRRA encourages folks to use reusable bags instead of plastic (or to forego a bag in the first place).”

Kristen also said that plastic bags are, “the number one contaminant in the recycling stream.” Film plastics such as plastic bags slow down processing, which ultimately costs the taxpayer.

This is another signal that New York state needs to follow California’s footsteps and ban plastic bags.

Gary Scott, professor of paper and bioprocess engineering at SUNY ESF, agrees that reusing is the way to go, but added that if you have to choose, paper bags are much healthier than plastic.

Both paper and plastic contain carbon, but Scott said you need to consider where the carbon comes from. The carbon in plastic comes from oil, which is in the ground, and it either returns to the ground through a landfill, or is burned, and the carbon enters the atmosphere.

On the other hand, paper comes from trees, which obtain carbon from the atmosphere. Once a paper product is used, it is either burned, and returns the carbon to the atmosphere, or is buried in a landfill, actually removing carbon from the atmosphere. It will have either a negative or a zero-sum impact on the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.

So if you have to choose, the earth loving choice is paper, but if you want to save money, reuse.

Peter Morrissey is a entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises and information management and technology dual major. His column appears bi-weekly. He can be reached at pmorriss@syr.edu.

Published on November 11, 2018 at 4:00 pm