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4.5 yrs ago we lived in MO. There's a recycling centre near us and hubby's Air Force base but a few things we had to take to a suburb of Kansas City. Hubby's always screaming at his people to recycle
We live in England and trash and recycled good get picked up every other week, alternating. There are bins in for things not picked up also. Some counties don't do glass so there are glass bins in those villages.
Getting a coffee, unless you say takeaway, they serve in ceramic. I go to a Starbucks on base and always a paper cup. I'd have to tell them in advance I'd like a ceramic cup.
We go to a party, or a church fair, and we get ceramic. So after the party we alway offer to help with dishes. Huge fun fairs they use throwaways but there's usually a recycle bin.
It's blissful here
We've always been a recycling junky and will be in Memphis area for a month with a week in Disney World. Should I prepare myself so that I will have a great visit? I was always that odd person at somebody's party separating the trash :/
I think for the most part people are recycling. Here in my neighborhood in So Cal we get from Waste Management a black bin for trash, a blue bin for recyclables and a green bin for green waste. Anyway, I notice that most of my neighbors take out their blue bin to the curb for trash pick-up day and everyone uses the green bin. Also, our city provides two free Saturday recycling days a month for appliances/electronics like TVs, computers and refrigerators. This station is packed. Also, we have about 3 or 4 recycling kiosks in the city for aluminum cans and plastic bottles. These are busy every day. It's obvious that cities and towns with recycling programs encourage their residents to recycle.
I have friends all across the country who live in all kinds of situations. The more urban the environment, the more likely that recycling is widely practiced. The more rural the setting, the less likely that recycling is even available, much less widely practiced.
But to see how much recycling is on people's minds, just attend any large public crowd function, like an open air concert or a fireworks show and see how much litter is just dropped on the ground, both rubbish and recyclables alike. It's staggering.
In other words, sadly, recycling is still a minority activity.
Before then, it was a huge pain in the rear. Then my city got the recycling bins and recycling centers popped up. Now, I've moved (Des Moines) and my trash can is much smaller, so I've gotten into the habit of separating the trash, plus I'm now challenging myself to bring home fewer containers and less wrapping. That's easier to do when shopping at the farmer's market: I can buy food and just put it in a reusable net bag.
In other words, sadly, recycling is still a minority activity.
It's a shame that people are so lazy and wasteful, it's a live for the moment mentality and there will be a price to pay in the future.
A lot of times when I walk my dogs I will collect aluminum cans to scrap for cash but also get a lot of plastic and glass bottles that I put in my recycling bins.
I recycle - heavily. And I, too, collect Aluminum cans to recycle for cash. Really, it pays my fuel bill to get to the recycling center. We even have a place you can take chemicals and paint cans to as well. You can drop off tires, electronics, mattresses, and appliances at several "dump sites" around too. They get recycled as much as possible too.
People do recycle - but not everyone does. Today I went to the dump to drop off some old computer CRT monitors and some plastic patio chairs I no longer wanted. The lady next to me at the dump ended up taking the chairs. That made me happy - as I would rather she have them, then they go into a landfill.
Recycling is largely a feel good activity. Does anybody really know what they do with them? The fact that you never hear that side of the story tells me it is probably not very good. Presumably, recycled matter should come back to life as new products. Can you name a few? I can't imagine the labor involved in separating recycled matter. There was a report not long ago that some waste collection company simply dumped the recyclables in trash.
Seeing as how the metals I recycle I am paid for I can only assume they end up back as consumer products. Many things are made from Aluminum, Copper, Brass, and pot metal. For me, I rarely have anything but Aluminum. They probably make more aluminum foil and soda cans from the aluminum. Copper and brass are heavily used in plumbing from fixtures to pipes. And the low grade pot metal I find in lamps and cheap pots.. (Hence the name)
I see napkins and paper cups that say XX% post consumer recycled materials, so I assume that is where the paper I recycle goes. And plastics are recycled to make more plastics. There is still some waste in recycling and garbage is made - but not as much as if you threw it out. And a lot of energy is expended in doing so.
When my county first started recycling they couldn't handle the volume and a lot was dumped. Now they have an automatic sorting machine that processes and sorts paper, plastics, and metals from each other.
But I do get your point and share your skepticism.
Recycling is largely a feel good activity. Does anybody really know what they do with them? The fact that you never hear that side of the story tells me it is probably not very good.
To the contrary, I'm afraid you're simply not well informed. Sadly, this is an example of the logical fallacy known as "ad ignorantium," one form of which loosely translates as "if i don't know about it, it must not be true."
There is a lot of readily available information about recycling, and a lot of news stories published about recycling on a continual basis. It seems to me a person would have to work pretty hard to avoid all of it. Seriously.
The Environmental Protection Agency has the following report on Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) recycling, which is the hardest to evaluate. Industrial waste recycling rates of scrap materials are very high because so much of their scrap is easily processed for reuse as long as it is kept clean and separate from other materials. Steel, aluminum, copper, lead, glass, paper, and some plastics are examples of materials with high recovery rates.
MSW recycling is more complicated, because solid waste from households typically mixes many kinds of waste, and because food waste contaminates some materials, like paper, and renders them useless. So some form of separation is required, either collecting different materials individually, such as cans, glass, plastics, paper, and compostable waste such as food scraps and lawn trimmings; or in collecting combined materials (often referred to as "single stream" recycling) and then separating it at the collection points. In some places this separation process has become automated enough that it is deemed less expensive than separate collection of different materials. Either way, the recycling rates have been rising steadily for years.
Quote:
Each year EPA produces a report on MSW generation, recycling, and disposal.
In 2012, Americans generated about 251 million tons of trash and recycled and composted almost 87 million tons of this material, equivalent to a 34.5 percent recycling rate. On average, we recycled and composted 1.51 pounds of our individual waste generation of 4.38 pounds per person per day.
.....
In 2012, newspaper/mechanical papers recovery was about 70 percent (5.9 million tons), and about 58 percent of yard trimmings were recovered (Figure 3). Organic materials continue to be the largest component of MSW. Paper and paperboard account for 28 percent and yard trimmings and food waste account for another 28 percent. Plastics comprise about 13 percent; metals make up 9 percent; and rubber, leather, and textiles account for 8 percent. Wood follows at around 6 percent and glass at 5 percent.
Presumably, recycled matter should come back to life as new products. Can you name a few?
Absolutely, because there are many. Aluminum beverage cans are largely recycled material, with almost total recovery rates. Ditto glass bottles, such as beer bottles. "Tin cans," like all forms of steel, are readily recycled. Plastic beverage bottles are made into fleece lined garments and upholstery filling. Paper fiber can go around the recycling loop up to seven times, and is widely used in newsprint and cardboard manufacture. Plastic milk bottles are turned into weather resistant decking and dimensional lumber. Discarded Christmas tree lights are baled up and sold to recyclers in China, who strip off the insulation, and separately sell the plastic and the copper to manufacturers to melt down and reuse. And there are many, many more examples. Even compostable materials like food waste and lawn trimmings are being recycled as top soil and fertilizer.
Sure, there are occasional stories of failures or scams, where recyclable material winds up in a landfill somewhere, but they are a small minority, and usually occur in places where the quantities are too limited to be practical to deal with, or facilities to deal with them are inadequate. But most communities are learning to manage their municipal waste well and finding value in what they recycle. I was pleased to see that Austin, Texas, a city I used to live in which took an early forefront in recycling, has recently renamed its "Solid Waste Division" to "Resource Recovery Division" in recognition of this new focus on the viability of a well designed program to recover value from household waste.
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