There is a lively debate in the recycling world over the pros and cons of single-stream versus dual-stream recycling — the essential difference being that paper and paper-based packaging are kept separate from containers in dual-stream. The reason for doing that is to prevent other materials (glass, food waste, plastic) from contaminating the paper and making it of less value and more difficult to utilize for the paper mills. Broken glass in particular can damage machinery at recycled paper mills.

While single-stream recycling is marketed as being easy and convenient for consumers (and that’s a very good thing), the primary driver for its expansion is economics — it’s cheaper and easier on the collection side (which is the most expensive part of recycling) to mix everything together in one truck.

While convenience for the consumer and increasing collection volumes are very important, from a recycling and remanufacturing standpoint, it’s more important that these materials are kept clean enough so they can be readily utilized by the end-users who would turn them into new products.

What’s especially important is that the materials are clean enough so they can be used by companies here in America, instead of being so contaminated and of such low value that they are shipped to China, where an abundant supply of cheap labor can further clean the materials before processing.

That gets at the heart of how to design products and packaging for recycling.

I, and my organization, support extended producer responsibility (manufacturer take-back) policies for consumer products and packaging. We think products and packaging should be designed with secondary uses in mind, and that manufacturers should finance the collection and recycling infrastructure that efficiently turns these materials into new products, while preserving their inherent value so they can be reused and recycled as many times as possible in high-value applications.

This is cradle-to-cradle design or, put another way, it’s about ensuring that those materials are put to their highest and best use. A used glass bottle becoming a new glass bottle through an industry-run bottle bill system is a great example. Single-stream glass becoming landfill cover is an example of down-cycling and a waste of the resource.

Perhaps the best way to consider collection systems — which is really what dual-stream, multi-sort and single-stream are — is to work backward from the end-users (paper mills, recycled glass manufacturers, plastic producers, etc.) and find out what kind of material quality is needed to ensure effective remanufacturing of the recycled materials. I wonder if the close proximity of the Cascades Auburn fiber mill had anything to do with Auburn’s decision.

It may be that better technology will help us move closer toward solving some of those problems. In the interim, more attention should be paid to ensuring material quality, while making recycling more convenient for consumers, both at home and away from home.

Longer-term thinking should focus on how responsibility can be transferred from the municipalities to the producer for recycling products and packaging in closed-loop systems, ensuring that the materials are stewarded from design to sale, to end-of-life collection, to remanufacturing.

That is a big component of a sustainable future, and if we do it right, we’ll create a whole lot of American and, hopefully, Maine-based jobs in the process.

Matt Prindiville is associate director of the Product Policy Institute, a think tank based in Rockland that provides leadership in policies that create environmental, social and economic benefits through the stewardship of products and packaging materials in cradle-to-cradle recycling systems.