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Do you recycle? I don't even have the option. (Also incentivizing "green" behavior)
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Recycling has never been this easy for me. Loving it.
Makes sense to waste gas to recycle something that probably outweighs all the costs associated with using said gas.
It is really nice for the end-user, and it does bump up recycling rates, but IMO multi-stream is better if you can get community buy-in. Sorting problems are magnified in single stream systems precisely due to the fact that various materials are co-mingling. It basically transfers the onus on seperation from the consumer to the recycling center, which isn't good because when consumers are seperating they are doing so from a 'pure' stance more or less. They are less likely to be putting a peanut-butter laden Jiff container on top of the newspaper. In contract, single stream systems have a lot more contamination issues as well as things like broken glass. And those fancy machines really have a long way to go before they can reliably seperate all of the products handled in a modern recycling program.
There are some advantages to single stream though like I said. You increase participation rates, you reduce capital requirements on the waste management company (they can re-use old trucks), and consumers are happy. But there are back-end costs.
This is not a thing. Maybe where you live. Where I live? This is not a thing at all.
Wait. Who drives to the recycling plant every day?
Gee golly I believe Arch covered this response; make it a part of your commute. Or take the bus like some of us.
If you want to recycle, the mantra (here in the US) seems to be keep all youre recyclables in a box or bag or whatever and then drive to the nearest place that actually does it. I live in a small city in Georgia, though, so I actually suspect the emissions of me driving somewhere to dump my small quantity of recyclable trash (I live alone) might basically be a overall "negative" in terms of the environment. Though that would have to do with me not knowing a place less than 20 minutes away I could do it anyway. Of course, I'm not certain this is the case since I haven't done the math on the subject. Hilariously, I actually live in one of the few cities in the area with something resembling a bus route (it just doesn't go to my apartment), though if it did, I wonder how they'd respond to me carrying a large trashbag with me onto the bus everhy so often.
It's a bummer. I grew up with mandatory recycling (with recycling being picked up alongside trash), but that's just how things are in the US South.
Yes that would not be part of my daily commute no matter what. The trash/recycling plants are nowhere near my daily commute. My daily commute is 3 miles round trip.
Nearest trash plant? 25, next one over? 50.
It'd be cheaper for me to pay someone to eat my trash. And the total cost to the environment of me using that gasoline? Totally negates any benefit from recycling. If it were limited resources (aluminium which I can recycle in my daily commute), yes, I do that. If it's glass and paper? No, fuck you.
I mean, about half the time when there's a trash can on a street corner, there's a recycle bin right next to it. And I'm fairly sure that recycling pickup is mandatory in the city of Seattle, if not the entire state of Washington.
Yeah, hence my dilemma. Furthermore, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if the local Wal-Mart dumbsters (which aren't marked, from what I've seen, but I haven't investigated the matter) aren't even subjected to recycling all the time.
But more pressingly, it is illegal.
It's pretty ubiquitous in Michigan.
And its pretty common in Kansas, too. Or at least, this small liberal corner of Kansas. I don't really travel to the other spots in this state.
Yeah the west coast is all about being eco friendly. I'm closer to the east coast and more in the south. Telling people to recycle gets you made fun of.
Going from memory/anecdotal evidence, many wal marts, during their negotiations with the city to be allowed to build a wal mart, are required to offer recycling.
I intensely dislike the thought of driving to Walmart if I could help it, but it's still much closer than the alternative (drive onto a dormitory hall on campus with my recyclables), so I'll need to do some investigating.
This is how it's done in Ontario, as well. Only they add the fee onto anything electronic.
My city actually goes one step further, as well. We don't have "garbage" bags anymore. We have 3 seperate bags: A clear bag for garbage, a blue bag for recyclables, and a green bag for wet, compostable waste. The city collects all 3 and does the appropriate things with it.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Down here? everything is recycled.
The council provides for a garbage bin on wheels, and a recycling bin on wheels. The recycling bin can be filled with plastic, metal, and glass. Cardboard and paper are set out on their own near the bins. And there are council provided (well we have to buy them) garbage bags for regular waste and compostable garden waste as well. Between the 2 of us we can fill one of the 6L garbage bags every 2 weeks, sometimes 3 weeks depending. And the recycling bin is collected every 2 weeks. it's not even a thought for me anymore. When i first got down here it was a conscious effort for me to make sure the recycling got put where it was supposed to. Now, it's just instinct.
The only thing that we don't recycle right now in our area is the plastic grocery bags. our section of the city just doesn't have that facility set up. yet. They're working on it. But that's ok, because what rare chances that we get plastic grocery bags at we save them and reuse them for rubbish bags in our small kitchen/bedroom/bathroom bins.
We do most of our grocery shopping at a store that charges 10 cents per bag, so we bring our own reusable bags. And other shopping like for clothing or craft goodies, I almost always have my own reusable bag/purse thing that i put my purchases in.
But then, new zealand is HUGE on environmental awareness and policies and saving the world bit by bit. Might have something to do with the giant hole in the ozone that sits over the country....
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Pity us!"
stuff like aluminum and glass is worth recycling
We've had easy-peasy curbside recycling for almost twenty years now in Johnson County.
This was entertainingly horrible.
In any case I don't see how you can expect normal people to be so activist when it comes to recycling @arch. It's a real untenable position to say that realistically speaking.
Steam: CavilatRest
That's how all disposal/recycling should work, not just CRTs.
If it costs <x> to recycle something, then add <2x> to the cost to purchase it and give back <x> when they return it to the center. Aluminum cans should cost an extra 10 cents each (5 cents back when you recycle), CRTs should cost an extra $200 ($100 back when you recycle), etc.
"Oh but if people don't recycle, they have to pay twice as much!" Yeah, that's the whole point!
I used to not recycle. Now I recycle everything I can. From my perspective, single stream is a winner. I even approve of the tax/millage increase that paid for it.
It's completely and totally possible to do everything that he suggested, and it doesn't really take that much more of your time or energy.
now if you really don't care about recycling, if you think that you can't be bothered or are in some odd situation like bowen where there is literally a big production about it, then yeah. Maybe it's not possible.
of course you could always lobby, or use collective action, to get what you want. but that would require some commitment to recycling.
same goes for the OP. I'm sure that if you and your neighbors got together and formed a, i dunno, collective action committee to lobby or bargain with the owners of the complex, you could probably get recycling for your community. True, you might have to pay some extra dues or fees or taxes, but it's for the greater good of not only yourself, but also your community, right?
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Isn't that what the deposit price on all the bottles and cans is all about? Like the beer I'm drinking right now has two different deposit prices shown across the eleven states listed. I always just put my recycling curbside but I thought that was the amount you were supposed to get back if you brought them in yourself.
"I can't recycle at all, there are a million barriers to me recycling, and any idea you propose that isn't 'they pick it up at my house' absolutely can't work for me."
That seems to be what you are saying here. Do you just want a bunch of people to go "Yeah! Fuck recycling anyway!" so that you can write off recycling as a stupid idea?
Where do you work? Does your company not have a recycling program? Have you looked? Does your grocery store not have recycling bins located in the store?
Same goes to you Bowen- you claim that it is a huge production for you, but I thought you worked at a hospital?
Most hospitals have an institutional recycling program for employees to use.
Guys, seriously, recycling isn't this difficult.
And if it is? The only answer is to do what you can to make it easier.
A lot of people are being huge geese when it comes to this, and I can't help but agree with @Poshniallo.
The fact that "if you don't have curbside pickup for your recycling, sort it at home, find a drop center on a route you normally use, and dump it every few weeks" is considered some crazy level of activism that normal people don't do is infinitely depressing.
I still do what I can that actually helps. Glass bottles go back to the store I got them from, cause that's what they take and I get the deposit money.
Speaking of glass, there was an earlier post that talked about how it's basically a waste to recycle the stuff. Where I am, they actually just reuse the returned bottles. I don't know what the energy cost is to cleaning them though (or how well they do it. . . ). It's definitely the cheapest option cost wise over recycling or making a new one, or they wouldn't be doing it.
Sort of. Not all states do it this way, and not all products are equally treated this way.
Even a 'good' state like California messes it up. Aluminum cans have a CRV (increase the cost upfront, you get it back when you recycle it). But something like cell phones is on the hope system, where they just sorta pray that people return them. And some chemicals require you to pay to recycle them (resulting in the usual dumping when nobody's looking).
There should just be one system: recycling and proper disposal pays you money to do it (and tacks the cost on the front end). It should work for everything everywhere, in an easy system people can understand instead of a hodgepodge depending on where you live and what item you're recycling. Creating a system with a dozen different exceptions and rules is just asking for people to get confused and stop doing it. Recycling should be brick dumb for a consumer to understand; do it, get reward.
However since oil makes plastic without being burned and therefore not releasing nearly as much CO2, putting plastic into landfills is effectively carbon capture/sequestration. Conclusion: make sure to throw away your plastic instead of recycling to save the planet from global climate change.
Ambulatory care clinic, we just started recycling cardboard this year. Employees aren't allowed to use it, we got the smallest container to save on costs. (we share the building)
It is increasingly expensive and out of the way to recycle in my area. Most businesses don't do it because of that (you have to double your garbage pickup costs for a new bin basically).
The closest place that will actually take my stuff is... quite a bit ways away from where I live and commute. Like I said my commute is 3 miles round trip. I can go to the store, they only take aluminum cans (and plastic bottles) and batteries, which we recycle.
Paper,cardboard, glass? That gets trashed.
If I wanted to drive 15~ miles (approximately how far it is, I had to check) I could drop off cardboard/paper. Though that seems relatively pointless, I'd be wasting more in gas starting my car than what is saved by recycling paper and cardboard.