Myth-BustingSeptember 20, 2026
Your Receipts Do Not Belong in the Paper Recycling
Thermal receipt paper carries a bisphenol coating. Put it in the paper stream and the chemistry ends up in recycled paper products.
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Explainers, teardowns, and myth-busting on waste management systems and green engineering.
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Myth-Busting posts
Myth-BustingSeptember 17, 2026
Shredded Paper Is Paper. That Does Not Make It Recyclable
Most recycling programmes reject loose shredded paper, and the reason is mechanical: the strips are the wrong size for the machines that sort paper.
Myth-BustingSeptember 14, 2026
"It's Paper, So It's Recyclable": What Actually Happens to a Coffee Cup
A hot-drink cup is about 95% paperboard. The other 5% is a polyethylene liner, and that 5% is why most mills reject the cup outright — even when you put it in the right bin.
Myth-BustingSeptember 11, 2026
"Compostable" Is a Facility Spec, Not a Property of the Object
Certified compostable packaging is engineered to break down in a hot industrial windrow. Put it in a garden bin, a recycling bin or a landfill and it behaves like ordinary plastic — because in those conditions, it is.
Myth-BustingSeptember 8, 2026
"Infinitely recyclable" is a property of glass, not a description of what happens to it
Glass really can be melted and remade forever without losing quality. About a third of it in the US actually is. The gap between those two sentences is the entire story.
Myth-BustingSeptember 7, 2026
"30% Recycled Content" Under Mass Balance Might Mean None in Your Bottle
Mass balance accounting lets a producer allocate recycled input to selected outputs. The molecules are real somewhere in the plant. They are not necessarily in the product carrying the label.
Myth-BustingSeptember 5, 2026
"Waste-to-Energy Is Clean Renewable Power" — No, and the Reason Is Arithmetic
Burning municipal waste for electricity emits more CO2 per unit of power than a coal plant. The climate case for incineration rests entirely on what the waste would have done instead, not on the electricity.