Recycling -- No One Cares

I recently moved into a single family home owned by a friend. I live here with four people, including my boyfriend.

When I moved in I noticed that most of the other houses on the block had recycling bins, and I asked the owner of the house (a college kid whose parents helped him get it) and his girlfriend why they didn't have any. They replied that they didn't even know there was a recycling program and gave me the go-ahead on ordering some bins saying they would have done it themselves had they known.

Well, the bins arrived two weeks ago and so far no one but me has put anything in them.

The trash has come four times and my roommates take the garbage to the curb on the designated day, but completely ignore the bins.

So why are people so full of shit when it comes to talking about how much they care about the environment versus making the minimum possible fucking effort? Why do I find myself digging through the trash every day for recyclables?

 

Because the majority of people are full of shit about everything is the simple answer to that.

As for the idea of recycling itself. Do you know for a fact that the stuff that goes into the blue bins gets recycled?

A couple of years ago, a guy I know who lived across one of the big blue bins (for cardboard, cans and glass), decided out of boredom to follow the recycling truck.

A little background first, this is in a small town, that had town meeting about recycling and blue bins and so on, paid extra to have a 'special' truck bought to pick up the recyclables, bought a couple of those big blue bins as well as enough of the small household ones for the town and encouraged everyone to buy and use them.

So here my buddy is, bored out of his tree and following this 'special' recycling truck... right to the local landfill, where it dumped its contents along with the rest of the garbage.

Upon asking at the town hall, the story is that we don't have any recycling facilities close enough for it to be feasible, but this way, at least people get used to seperating thier trash out for the day when the facilities were available. Which most likely will be at least another decade or so.

So... assuming that it is good to use the blue bins, and bad not to, could be a mis characterization. In some cases, the blue bin recycling program is nothing more then a way for municipalities to make a little more money, while offering nothing of value in return.

Now, if your area really does send the recyclables to a center for processing, and your roomies won't help you, there is a good chance that if you wish it done, you will have to do it yourself until you can convince them to help.

One thing that I have found that is most common amongst people is that a much, much larger portion of the population say they are interested in doing things like recycle, then there are that really are interested.

 

But something like this..
Your helping waste management do their jobs, by putting the stuff in the bins you make it easy for them to make money off your trash, If you throw it all in the same bag it goes to the same place and gets sifted anyways by sorters, usually low wage employees pull out the recyclables as it goes up a conveyor...
Taking the time to sort out your money making recyclables is a good idea, I dont have waste collection but I lived once where they did.. I save my aluiminum. 80cent/lb
Its also a fine for a homeless person to sort through recycle bins for aluiminum..and so on..
Im not sure how enforced that is but thats kinda silly that a citys waste management would have such a ordinance. So they can greedly make money on your trash...
So if was the OP I wouldnt sweat it.. your not really harming nothing, Try planting some tree too if you want to help.. But its cool your trying..

 

I don't recycle.


Until someone proves me wrong, I am convinced it costs far too much time, energy & money to be worthwhile.

 

true I see people with high water bills rinsing cans for recycling, this is crazy..
or rinse other things like plastic milk containes, wasting water for no reason...

 

I still say that the best way to recycle is to craft with your trash.

 

I used to sell all my empty aluminum cans. We have a decent recycling center about 15 miles from my house and I take my plastic and aluminum every Saturday.

 

I live in a a state that leads the nation is recycling. Has for over 20 years.

Most of the country is only now catching on. Once they find out how profitable it can be, it'll take off then. They just need someone to point them in the right direction.


x

 

Most people do recycle nowadays, their are a few who do not care though. I myself have always kinda had mixed feelings of city planned recycling programs, such as the amount of fuel used to collect recyclable items. Seems kinda pointless, so I've been trying to figure out how to propose random drop sites around city's which is within stopping distance from a persons daily route to and from work, for recyclables and also trash. I do not know if this idea will work but thought I would give it a try.

 

I think if there was an incentive more people would recycle. It's sad that people have to be bribed to do something good.
As for the story of the guy following the recycling truck tot he dump... I have heard different versions of the same story, some with kids following the truck for some kind of class project.
Multiple versions of the same story kind of makes one doubt the story a bit in the back of one's mind.

 

I love recycling. Mainly because it's so far apart from society that I forget about it for a while. And I love driving to the tip to put my stuff in the recycling bins because out that far there's far fewer people. It's good to see that the bins are often full but I think it's fairly obvious that most people don't recycle because they care only about themselves. I'm sick of it. Inflations so high because they're all taking out loans that'll never be paid off and I have to pay heaps for things because of it. Anyhoo ..... that's my rant for the day.

 

All in all I think recycling is good I live in a town the recycles about 70% or more, a lot of people want to do 100% but that means we have to recycle compost.

I am not for the idea of recycling compost in a city because of the amount of fuel it will take by the time they drive around all day in 12 different trucks, dump it somewhere, plow it around with a tractor they are burning A LOT of fuel…!

For what good garden soil?

I would like to see the cost of the end product probably would end up costing around $50 for a wheel barrel full of soil at the expensive of foreign oil.
The stuff will compost in the landfill any way.

The trash collection company is all for it and has big advertisements for it but they will make millions it will be an extra charge every month x 90,000 people (millions of dollars).

But for the most part recycling is good I always thought it was crazy that you drink a bottle of something and throw away the bottle that could last 20 years seems so wasteful.

 

I wonder what ever happened to the days of putting a deposit on glass, very few company's even give that option any more.

 

actions speak louder than words, I guess you know where your friends/roomates are on that regards.

I agree with a few others that recycling is tricky. personally the other two "R's" are much more important. REDUCE and REUSE...

I try and reduce garbage and recyclables when buying stuff. takes some extra work but I think its worth it, make changes with your wallet. refuse to buy stuff with too much packaging or with throw away packaging and opt for the product with less disposables and or a reusable container as it's packaging.

As for deposit on glass and on metals I think would be great, put them on plastics and electronics too. problem is the gov is too scared to make the companies take their SH!t back when it breaks as designed... and they say it cost too much to implement...

Also please people research your town's recycling program, I looked into my town's and they accept glass but it doesn't really get recycled, as it would cost too much to ship to nearest facility so instead it is used to build roads at the garbage dump... personally I reuse any jars that come into my house and only recycle when broken. sidenote: built a clay oven one year and melted some glass down to make beads old school style. was really fun but was hard work.

anyways that was some of the stuff I had to contribute...

 

My recycler told me it cost more to transport glass than they can get for it.

 

Yeah but, a product that you have to put a deposit on their container would save the company the need to re make glass bottles. One way or another places like beer company's and such are going to have to ship in and ship out bottles. Wouldn't it be more cost effective to reuse existing bottles.

 

I've been recycling since the 70's.

Yes, I'm that old.

We have curb-side pickup now, but they don't take all different kinds of things. Fortunately, we have a local environmental group that has been running a recycling station for as long as I can remember. I usually pile up stuff and take it to them a few times a year.

I have a LOT of paper to deal with. Most of my mail goes straight into the recycle bin.

It infuriates me how our society is set up so that we get single-use items that are in packaging that will last hundreds of years in the landfill. I do everything I can to limit my use and recycle what I can, but it's a losing battle. Most of my neighbors throw out more recyclable stuff than I use.

This is probably my biggest "hippie" issue.

Keep on recycling!

 

We save out our aluminum cans & put the money we make into the "kids' cash" jar. They make about $8 per month between our house & the grandparents. (who save their cans for the kids as well)

We have curbside pickup now too, and in our county we DON'T have to rinse, remove labels or even sort our recyclables. All we have to do is be careful which kinds of plastic we put in, and remove plastic lids from bottles. It makes sorting things MUCH easier for us, because all we need now is two wastebaskets side-by-side in the kitchen. The red one is recyclables & the green one is trash. My kids have made it a game lately, to see how many times we have to empty the recycling bin for every once we have to empty the trash one. We're up to 4 times, and still counting

I've heard the argument that it's just not worth it... but I just can't see things that way. Having grown up right near a landfill that was capped during my childhood I saw firsthand the problems that come with human waste & I just can't NOT recycle. But like someone else mentioned, recycling is just 1/3 of the triangle. Reducing & reusing are by far the "easier on the environment" options.
love,
mom

 

My first post!

I'd say people do what they like to do.

I recycle because treading with a light foot makes me happy.

A lot of people get off on "living large."

 

I do recycle, but honestly, I was watching a documentary the other day about how they actually do it. Do you know that recycling is possibly worse for the planet than not recycling? How oxy moron is that.. right? It's true.. at least it is worse for the ozone. They take all the plastic, ship it to China, and melt it down in factories. In turn, it releases toxic fumes into the ozone layer.. that is why there is so much smog in China. It's kind of a lose/lose situation...