[StarfishKey]

I recently read an article discussing FL recycling, and the Tallahassee effort to increase resident recycling from its current 50%, to a minimum of 75%. I must say, I don't get it. I have been recycling my whole life. Where I grew up, which was pretty conservative politically and socially, recycling was something the majority of people did since I was a kid. What could possibly be holding Floridians back from doing so?

Do you recycle? If not, tell us why not? Are you just not used to it, or don't know how?




For those who haven't tried it, you don't even have to sort the categories, which makes it much easier. Just throw everything into the blue bin, and put out on recycling day. It keeps a huge amount of trash out of our landfills and ultimately the ocean, and saves us from wasting natural resources and constantly having to destroy the Earth to find or create more. Recycling paper prevents constant deforestation of beautiful, tall old trees, which are pretty essential to the oxygen content on Earth. Many partially-recycled products are also cheaper. You can find guides online for how to recycle in your specific county.

Most grocery stores offer plastic bag recycling bins, so when you do your shopping you can just drop off the plastic bags you have at your house. Cans, bottles, and now virtually all kinds of hard plastic can be thrown into blue bins, as well as cardboard. [Another option if you have any yard space is to compost paper (this is great for sensitive materials that you normally should shred, like financial papers) in a corner with your produce scraps - it's really easy, and if you do it properly, it won't smell like anything but dirt nor attract rodents.]

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A note, although I know this is something many people resist - buying 100% unbleached recycled toilet paper with a minimum of 80% post-consumer content, is way better for your health, and for the environment. No, this does NOT mean the toilet paper was already used! It's just clean recycled paper, made into rolls. It can be made very soft and comfortable, and while it is beige in color, it is completely clean and healthy to use. The bleaching process is terrible for your body, and for our oceans and air, and it is a huge waste to constantly cut down new trees when we already have a ton of paper product available to disinfect, for something that is immediately going to be flushed down the drain. Plus, recycled paper is less likely to stop up your toilet. These guidelines are the same for paper towels, kleenex, and paper napkins. Popular brands include Seventh Generation, Marcal, and others. If you buy them in bulk, they are also cheap. Florida is also seeing a rise in the use of bidets, which is another option. Something to think about.

[beachmouse]

They make it easy here (unincorporated south Okaloosa County)- single stream curbside pick-up in a nice green bin provided by Waste Management. I think about 50% of my neighborhood has their recycle bin out every Friday for pick-up.

[Fredesch]

In theory we split our recycling into two categories, which we do. But I have heard the guy on the recycling truck throws both bins on the same area. Not sure if this is true... Also take plastic bags to the grocery store recycling.

[chopchop0]

Single-Stream Recycling Is Easier for Consumers, but Is It Better? - The Atlantic

[d4g4m]

How do they know it's only 50% recycling? If anyone drove around my 1200 home sub-division on a Tuesday, they might conclude that it's almost 100% There is a red and blue bin in front of every house.
And there is a separate yard waste truck. Yard waste was supposed to be for making mulch but there's so much of it that it's being used to cover the garbage at the county dump.
btw- when W/M complained that there was no market for Styrofoam and plastic bags, we were told to throw it in the regular trash barrel.

[bale002]

Originally Posted by StarfishKey

For those who haven't tried it, you don't even have to sort the categories, which makes it much easier.

I live in a building. We do have a recycling program, but the instructions on the garbage chutes are actually quite complicated, more "don'ts" than "dos", the categories are anything but easy to understand and follow, a very garbled message, in two languages, it doesn't matter, the message is simply not clear.

As a result, whatever the intention of the recycling program, it winds up being maybe 25% effective. Better than nothing, but it could be better with fewer, simpler, clearer rules and procedures (sort of like the tax code, isn't it, mostly a garbage garbled message).

[kyle19125]

Originally Posted by d4g4m

How do they know it's only 50% recycling? If anyone drove around my 1200 home sub-division on a Tuesday, they might conclude that it's almost 100% There is a red and blue bin in front of every house.
And there is a separate yard waste truck. Yard waste was supposed to be for making mulch but there's so much of it that it's being used to cover the garbage at the county dump.
btw- when W/M complained that there was no market for Styrofoam and plastic bags, we were told to throw it in the regular trash barrel.

You have to consider the commercial end as well. Where I live the company that contracts the city recycling program will not undertake commercial/business recycling.

[StarfishKey]

Originally Posted by bale002

I live in a building. We do have a recycling program, but the instructions on the garbage chutes are actually quite complicated, more "don'ts" than "dos", the categories are anything but easy to understand and follow, a very garbled message, in two languages, it doesn't matter, the message is simply not clear.

As a result, whatever the intention of the recycling program, it winds up being maybe 25% effective. Better than nothing, but it could be better with fewer, simpler, clearer rules and procedures (sort of like the tax code, isn't it, mostly a garbage garbled message).

When I lived in Miami, I had a similar problem. What I did was call the recycling number directly and find out how to recycle of items properly. I then asked for their brochure and spoke to my complex about making that brochure prominent for residents. They did not care, but I pointed out that our garbage area was a source of dismay for residents as it was always overflowing, and convinced them that the recycling program would likely reduce that a great deal and make for a lot of clean organized waste, with a more manageable smelly garbage section. Based on that encouragement, they gave it a try, and put a copy of the brochure into everyone's mailbox, and posted them prominently at the waste section. It did increase recycling a lot, although it was not anywhere near 100% compliance. But that was also because many of the people living there were always moving in and out, and were recent immigrants from Caribbean and Latin American nations where recycling was not a thing, so that was to be expected.

You could give that a try if you'd prefer more clear instruction as to what to do, or to get other residents more involved as a community.

[StarfishKey]

Obviously, I already said that I do recycle, and I also compost so I only actually throw 2 garbage bags in an entire year. Everything that I want to throw out, gets composted, or recycled in the bin, or are plastic bags recycled at the store, or goes out sometimes with yard debris mulching, or once in a great while is brought to the recycle center directly when it is a large electronic item that is unsalvageable.

But some people are wondering who doesn't in FL, and I can tell you, one of the reasons I brought this up is mine is one of the few houses in my community who does recycle. We also have yard debris pickup, and overwhelmingly I see my neighbors throwing their yard debris away rather than using it for composting or for community mulch. From what I have found in living in SFL for 7 years now, is that native Floridians are far less likely to recycle, and so are people who are recent immigrants from Caribbean/Central American countries. So if that is generally true, if you think about how many of those two populations are in FL, that may account for a lot of the percentage of people who are not on board, or not interested in promoting this among their community schools, businesses, etc.

Of course, that is a generalization, and will not apply to all people. It's just my personal experience from the people I know that among Southern-born (generally speaking), or immigrant populations, it's less common. Older people seem less willing to change their ways, and of course that is another large population in FL.

As for my neighborhood, it is a mix of born Floridians, and very wealthy outsiders. The wealthy outsiders I think do not recycle because they are focused on their vacation lifestyle, as well as short-term rentals. That to me is not an excuse, because I was a landlord and I made clear the rules of the house for my tenants, and gave them brochures and showed them how to recycle when they were not familiar with it. But then again, I owed property in a place that could technically fine you for not recycling. I actually liked that it was a local law, not up to resident choice, and it wasn't a big deal there because everybody pretty much recycled - it was so easy there was no reason not to. But here, there is no enforcement, and so a lot of people are rather careless with the huge amounts of waste they put out every week. That's a problem for all of FL, but for my area it's a special issue because we live on islands and all of our refuse has to be trucked out to another county, since there is no land to dump it here.

So yeah, a lot of different people in FL don't recycle, I would not doubt that their 50% number is close to accurate. I just don't really understand why people refuse to do it. Especially where I am, it's so simple. They sort it for you. They don't freak if cans and bottles are not washed perfectly, like in one of my old areas in another state. They do all the work for you. I don't always trust that everything is going where they say it's going, but it's still worth trying in my opinion, because it costs me so little in time to comply with. I saw a video of a recycling center before that followed up, and although I'm sure it's not the same in every location, it was reassuring that even when things were improperly separated, like in this case a plastic bag went into the metal and plastic recycling, the facility still sorted it and made sure it ended up being transported where it was supposed to, they did not just throw it out. I am wary of private companies being in charge of this, where profit is their main motive and not recycling for the community, which seems common in FL - but again, it's still worth trying. That is money to them, so I would assume they will recycle most of it - they're dealing with raw materials that are worth something.

[Bobdreamz]

I'm a voracious recycler to the point that I even remove the plastic tabs on cardboard dairy boxes & paper labels from cans! We have 2 bins for recycling, one is for bottles, plastics & cans; the other is for newspaper, cardboard and all other paper type products. What is bothersome is they don't tell you where to dispose of styrofoam! Paper or plastic?
I also remove cans from the bins and sell them to a recycler after I've gathered enough cans to sell. I didn't think much of it until I sold the cans I was throwing away and walked away with a few hundred dollars in a year.
People would be surprised at how much money they are throwing away. For people to recycle it has to become a non-conscious habit and train yourself. In other words when you open a box , a bottle or a can and are finished with it the inclination should be that it goes into the recycle bin & not the trash.
I'm not sure about that 50% recycling rate for Florida though. It's hard to fathom that people don't think about where their trash goes. It seems like almost everybody recycles in my neighborhood.