(lighthearted instrumental music) - If you're like me, then you're often confused when you go to the recycling bin.

And it turns out that all this confusion is causing a serious contamination problem.

(lively guitar music) So, China used to buy 30% of all the US's recyclables.

But, because those recyclables were so contaminated, they stopped.

(soft instrumental music) - China's National Sword, and I know you just asked me to cut through the confusion, but it is a bit of a complicated issue.

National Sword is sort of an umbrella term that is used to describe all of the various efforts of trying for them to get less waste imported into the mainland China.

- [Josef] And those efforts that Dylan is talking about have added up to a ban of the world's recyclables.

- So, China consumes approximately 30% of the recyclables that are produced in the United States.

And approximately 28% of the mortgages in the country were in danger of defaulting, and that's what ended up creating the great recession, in 2008.

And so, we're looking at 30% of the recyclables.

That's a big piece of the market, and so that effects are felt everywhere.

The main thing is that on the west coast though, is that a lot of those materials are consumed from there, and they're now trying to find new homes.

- So then, what's happening to all that material now?

Right now, we're going to see Megan Dobratz.

She's the president of Native Sustainability, which is a consulting company that helps other companies be more environmentally friendly.

So, as you can imagine, she's really passionate about this contamination issue.

- MRFs, which are material recovery facilities, which is where all of our recycling product goes are super interesting places where everything comes in, in this one truck, and gets all mixed up, and goes up this conveyor, and things shoot this way, and magnets pull things that way.

And it's fascinating, and I think everyone thinks, if I put this in there, they'll sort it out, but those facilities exist because they can make money doing it, and the more contaminants we put in the stream, the least amount of money that they're gonna make, and then all of a sudden all that effort that we're making on the front end of things gets to be lost.

Because if a load comes in, and it's too contaminated just from the get-go, that material then ends up in the landfill.

- Megan made me realize that I don't know how all of our recyclables get sorted, so I decided to go see it for myself.

So right now, we're about to head to Dem-Con Companies.

They're one of those MRFs or materials recovery facilities, and they're the people that sort out all of our recyclable material after we throw it away.

So, we're about to get a behind-the-scenes look at what happens to all of our things after we throw them in the bin.

- There's kind of a lack of understanding of what happens after the recycling or garbage leaves your curb.

Once it leaves the curb, I think there's a general understanding it just goes away, and that's about the limit of that, and so I think as people really come through and see our operations and the entire environmental campus that we have here.

I think that's pretty surprising to them, and we've had a very favorable reaction where people come in and they're like, "Wow, I had no idea.

"I had no idea all this happened".

And so, it's been received very well by the community, really opening our doors, and putting them in, and teaching them about what happens to their waste and recycling.

(energetic violin music) - It's clear that we need to reduce contamination going into the bin, but what can we do?

Megan invited me to a recycling summit at the US Bank Stadium, and that's where this year's Super Bowl's gonna be held.

And, I was really looking for an excuse to see the stadium in person, so let's go check it out.

At the summit, I learned about a non-profit called Recycle Across America.

It's an organization that's creating standardized labels for recycling bins.

And their thought is that if we can standardize road signs to make driving more safe, then why can't we standardize recycling bins to make recycling more efficient?

- We started the non-profit organization, Recycle Across America to fix the public's confusion at the bin, and we've introduced the standardized labeling system for recycling bins.

Since we've started this, we have really reached out to less than a handful of organizations to introduce a solution, but virally we have amazing companies that have learned about this.

And we have about seven million standardized labels now in use across the US.

In fact, we're incredibly excited because the standardized labels are now on the recycling bins at US Bank Stadium in the twin cities in Minnesota.

They will be at the Super Bowl, so we're so excited about that.

The standardized labels are also now at the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport.

So, Super Bowl fans that are coming in for the Super Bowl will have the same experience at the recycling bins at the airport that they have at the US Bank Stadium.

- If contamination is lower coming in, we don't bare the cost of trying to separate it out.

So, education certainly can reduce the cost, although it's moving mountains.

It's a glacial speed and there's a lot of people to educate, so it tends to be a bit of a daunting task for us.

I think we've looked at that and said, "Well, how are we gonna get everybody to change"?

But, you gotta start somewhere.

- I seems like something we've been talking about since the 80s, and we're still tryin' to figure out the best way to make it happen, but that's where I think these labels are an amazing solution to actually have an impact to get clean material and decrease the environmental impact of all of the things we throw away.

- So, at US Bank Stadium, in the first month and a half of using the standardized labels at the stadium, they're recycling levels went up 48%.

We have groups like University of Denver that rolled out the standardized labels, and they're recycling levels went up 100%.

They doubled when they use the labels, and their contamination levels went down 90%.

So, you hear these testimonials, and you say, what would happen if this was everywhere in the US?

The impact is off the charts.

- Of course, there are other things that you can do to help reduce contamination in recycling.

- If a US resident wants to help recycling they can do two things.

One, they can help clean up the recycling streams, so making sure that what are putting in their recycling cart is wanted by the recycling program.

- What Dylan is saying is, we need to stop wish-cycling.

You know what wish-cycling is, it's that thing that you do when you don't know whether or not something can be recycled, so you just throw it in the bin anyway.

- And the second thing that they can do is, if they're buying something, make sure that they're buying recyclables.

When you go to the grocery store, you have a suite of different options that are available.

And if there's something that's made out of recycled content, buy recycled content.

That really helps pull material through the system, and helps increase demand for recycled materials that we're putting in the cart, therefore, closing the loop on this circular economy.

(upbeat music)