Minnesotans are throwing away as much garbage as ever, but the contents of the average household dumpster have changed dramatically in the last 10 years — a new profile that reveals how daily lives have evolved as well.
Paper is down — thanks to computers and smartphones — but plastic is up, especially the filmy stuff used in those ubiquitous shopping bags. A rising number of plastic bottles in trash pickups shows how often Minnesotans drink beverages away from home, where it's harder to find a recycling bin. And the biggest change is that the clean-plate club is no more. Today, almost a third of the garbage stream is "organics," and of that more than half is wasted food.
Hidden within those piles of garbage — about 3.6 million tons of it this year — is about $217 million worth of valuable materials, according to a Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (PCA) study to be released this week.
The agency's first breakdown of the state's waste stream in 13 years shows that one third could be recycled, a chance to increase the 37,000 direct and indirect jobs and $2 billion in wages generated by Minnesota's recycling industry.
That portion includes recyclable paper and cardboard, commodities in high demand by manufacturers, and plastic that can be made into construction materials, packaging and food containers.
"There are still people who think [recycling is] not worth doing," said Wayne Gjerde, coordinator for the PCA's recycling market program.
Minnesota's average recycling rate is higher than that of most states — and it has stayed high, just under 50 percent of what gets thrown away, even as the total amount of waste generated in the state has increased in the years following the recession. But the recycling rate has been largely flat for years.
The PCA conducted the garbage analysis in part to figure out ways to reduce what goes to landfills and incinerators. The results are based on sifting through 40,000 pound of garbage at six sites in Minnesota.