Photo by tanvi sharma on Unsplash

In its third year participating, Roseville is focusing on helping residents understand plastics and reduce usage

By Cecilia Wallace — Environmental reporter

Plastic is found in everything from grocery store packaging to bathroom cabinets, where shampoo bottles, razors and toothbrushes pile up. Although plastic may seem unavoidable, the City of Roseville is aiming to educate and reduce usage by joining the Plastic-Free Challenge for the third year this February.

Hennepin County started the challenge in 2021 to “reduce waste, protect water and wildlife, address climate change” and more. Since then, it has gained traction, now educating residents of Ramsey and Washington County. 

“I get a lot of questions from people about how they can reduce plastic usage throughout their lives and also just general confusion about different plastics and how they can be recycled,” Roseville Sustainability Specialist Noelle Bakken said. “This challenge really neatly puts all of those questions and answers into one very nice place, and also does a lot of great weekly educational emails.”

The challenge has eight categories of plastic reduction that individuals can participate in. Participants can complete tasks within the comfort of their own homes or out in the community.

With seven types of plastic out there, Bakken knows that recycling correctly can seem a bit daunting at first. Luckily, she has a few recommendations for those looking to make a difference.

Within the Plastic-Free Challenge, she recommends starting with the category “Plastic 101.”

“That would be the best place to start for someone who’s kind of new to all this,” Bakken said. “That’s where you can learn about the different types of plastics. You can learn about what wishcycling is and how to avoid adding contamination.”

Wishcycling is “the well-intentioned but unfounded belief that something is recyclable when it is not,” per the World Economic Forum.

Beyond the challenge, she recommends starting small. 

“I would just start with, like, one or two simple things,” Bakken said. “I started with replacing plastic sandwich bags with reusable silicone bags that you could just pop in your dishwasher.”

For experienced recyclers, the challenge has action-based or community-related tasks like advocating for more food packaging options at a grocery store or restaurant, or trying to get businesses to participate in programs that reduce the use of plastic.

While called a “challenge,” Bakken says the overall goal isn’t to win, but to broaden the understanding behind this inescapable product.

“My goal is just to kind of help people understand a little bit more about the different types of plastics out there, how to recycle them and ways that they can look at reducing the amount of plastics that they’re using as well in their daily life,” she said.

The biggest obstacle Bakken noted with this challenge has been recycling medical waste.

“From a sanitation standpoint, it’s really hard to reduce medical waste,” she said. “The waste stations aren’t set up to be able to support that kind of material, so there’s a lot of plastic packaging, plastic usage and medical equipment that I think is also difficult to reduce.”

While the Plastic-Free Challenge only lasts four weeks, the effort contributes to Roseville’s broader sustainability goal. State law requires municipalities to reach a 75% recycling rate by 2030. Roseville is currently at the 40-50% range, according to Bakken.

“People understanding which plastics are recyclable based on what they learned through this challenge can help us get better at getting recyclable items into the recycling and not in the trash,” Bakken said.

Once the challenge concludes, Bakken hopes that individuals will still practice sustainability, not just in excellence, but in every degree of quality.

“I think a lot of people see sustainability as trying to be perfect and do everything the very best that they can,” Bakken said. “I always say perfect is very much the enemy of the good here. We need a lot of people doing a lot of things imperfectly versus one thing perfectly to try to make a lot of headway in these kinds of things.”

Join the City of Roseville’s challenge by visiting this link. 

Cecilia Wallace can be reached at celiadw016@gmail.com.