We’re taught to look on our trash for that telling triangular symbol—the same one that instructs us to put something in the recycling container rather than the garbage bin. From there, our recyclable materials are whisked off to a center where they’re broken down and reused.
That is, first of all, if people even bother to recycle. In the United States in 2015, a little over 30% of glass was recycled—pretty dismal for a material that is 100% recyclable. But we can’t just blame consumers, because recycling is, quite honestly, confusing sometimes. Plastics alone have a wide variety of types, some of which are easier to recycle than others. And items like cardboard pizza boxes or coffee cups are ones we often think can be reused but really can’t.
