Recycling fail

[redhawker]

Our recycling rules say no shredded paper at all, and for some reason, they won't take tin cans (like Campbell's Soup can type of cans). An interesting story about "recycling". My wife was a teacher. At her school, each classroom had the regular trash cans and at least one blue "recycling" can. I put "recycling" in quotes because each evening after the students were long gone for the day, the Janitors would come in to clean the rooms and take the trash out. They'd throw the trash from all the regular trash cans into a big trash bag and then take the "recycling" trash can and throw the contents into the same big trash bag. When my wife asked the School Director about this, she was told, "It makes the kids think they're doing something."

 

[Danjet500]

And they wanted you to rinse out the beer cans.

This would take me several hours a week alone!

 

[Richard76]

in Vermont it is actually illegal to put food scraps in your trash. you are supposed to compost them yourself or take them to a facility to compost. you know what happens when you try to compost meat?
stupidest reg ever.and unenforceable

 

[Watertender]

My town has trash and recycle totes for each address. Trash is picked up weekly and recycles are biweekly. For the last several times the recycle tote has only had about half of it dumped into the truck. I am fed up with this so now everything is going into the trash tote and they can take their recycle tote and recycle it.

 

[el caminero]

Semi pre-sorted at the local landfill, one time i saw two Shopsmiths, and a 5 gallon stainless steel hno3 keg from the 50s, but was told they dont sell anything to anybody. Bummers!

 

[el caminero]

in Vermont it is actually illegal to put food scraps in your trash. you are supposed to compost them yourself or take them to a facility to compost. you know what happens when you try to compost meat?
stupidest reg ever.and unenforceable

My silly city dosent allow ANY composting!

 

[Jeepnik]

I always suspected that trash companies don't recycle to the degree they say they will. Our trash is picked up by a company that is "selected" by the board of supervisors". We had one company in this area for over 50 years. Suddenly a couple of years ago (right when we had a large change in the board) another company got the contract. Hmm...

One morning I happen to be reviewing my camera that covers the area the cans are placed for pickup. Lo and behold, the truck comes by and picksup both the trash and recycle cans and intermingles them. So much for separate trucks for trash, recycle and green waste.

A call to the county ended up with them stating that the trash hauler is allowed to do er a three day weekend to "catch up". When I asked the lowly person that answered the phone how much money the board members got to replace a company that had been doing a good job for 50+ years, she hung up. Apparently the grift didn't go that far down the ladder.

 

[epags]

in Vermont it is actually illegal to put food scraps in your trash. you are supposed to compost them yourself or take them to a facility to compost. you know what happens when you try to compost meat?
stupidest reg ever.and unenforceable

And in Oxnard, California it is required to put food scraps in your green barrel on top of the grass and other green stuff and they are supposed to be wrapped in paper. LOL

The expression "Great minds think alike." would indicate there are no 'great minds' in either of our states.

 

[Ranger]

I remember many years ago hearing that Houston or some large Texas city (don't remember which now) required homeowners to sort into three separate bins - which went into three separate bins on the garbage trucks which dumped everything in the same spot in the same landfill. Economics made it impractical to recycle even when things were already mostly sorted.

 

[blume357]

in Vermont it is actually illegal to put food scraps in your trash. you are supposed to compost them yourself or take them to a facility to compost. you know what happens when you try to compost meat?
stupidest reg ever.and unenforceable

My wife tells me we are not supposed to put meat in our composter and I can't for the life of me figure out why, other than she is a vegetarian... heck we composted meat for centuries.... in one form or another... there's plenty of meat composting over in the mid east right now....

 

[Jeepnik]

So for a long time the trash collectors didn't want FOG (fats, oils, and grease) in either the trash or recycle. Then the sanitation district didn't want it run down the garbage disposer because it clogs up the sewer lines and inhibits the process at their plants.
Apparently, the sanitation district has more clout (and it's county owned whereas the trash is a private contractor) as we can now put FOG in the recycle. But this led to recycle cans that now stink like the garbage cans of old. You know the small metal cans food scraps were put into for separate disposal before garbage disposals became common place.

To combat the odoriferous cans the trash company now comes by every few weeks and washes the cans.

 

[GasGuzzler]

My silly city dosent allow ANY composting!

How could they enforce that? And why?

My wife tells me we are not supposed to put meat in our composter and I can't for the life of me figure out why, other than she is a vegetarian... heck we composted meat for centuries.... in one form or another... there's plenty of meat composting over in the mid east right now....

My wife and I took a one-day course at the local college on composting. It was made very clear to not put any animal byproducts, including carnivorous feces, in the compost. There are many reasons but the first is that attracts too many negatives such as scavengers and maggots. Also, it doesn't help with the composition of the soil you (well me for sure) are making. I compost to use the extremely rich soil in my garden, not to keep stuff out of the landfill. And soil with dead animal parts or carnivore poop in it doesn't work as well. Aged and dried cow manure is a great element to mix into garden soil but it came from a herbivore. Ever heard of buying dog crap to put in your garden? Well, there's a reason.

 

[Jeepnik]

Animal poop isn't good fertilizer? Better tell that to companies like Kellogg. They've been using human poop for decades.

After human waste is processed relatively clean water is pumped to the ocean. The remaining solids are then layer out in long rows to finish drying. They have a special machine the turns the material to facilitate drying and decomposition.

When the solid is ready it's trucked to an adjacent bagging plant owned by Kellogg. Then sold as "Nitro Hummus". With a great big warning on the bag no to use it on fruits and vegetables.

For twenty years I worked in a refinery that was next door to a large sanitation plant. I watched this process take place. More importantly I grew up a short distance from the sanitation plant and it was taking place then. So we're talking over 70 years.

 

[irishjack]

After reading all the crap some people have to go through for trash pickup, I'm glad I live where I do in central Utah. We have one large can into which we put everything, paper, glass etc. If we have too much trash to fit in the can we just put it on the ground next to the can and they will pick it up after they empty the can.

 

[Yaworski]

My wife tells me we are not supposed to put meat in our composter and I can't for the life of me figure out why,

Something to do with upsetting the pH and bacteria colonies. I still do it.

I don't formally compost. I just put all of my food waste into a compost bucket on my counter and when it's full, I take the bag and chuck it over the hill in my back yard. I suppose I should get some worms and chuck them over the hill too.

Grass, leaves, branches, old 2x4s, and food waste all go over the hill.

 

[vito]

For some it would not matter to them if they found out that much of what they "recycle" ends up with the real trash in the landfill, because it is the appearance of virtue that they value, more than virtue itself. Going through the effort to separate items into the different bins for recycling and proudly having those blue bins waiting for pickup tells the community what a good citizen you are. I am convinced that if a local government officially informed their citizens that everything that is put at the curb goes into the same landfill, many would still want to separate trash from "recyclables" since it makes them feel good to do so.

 

[JiminMaine]

I live in a small town, pop. 2200. We don't have town trash pickup. We have a recycling center where you can drop off "recyclable" materials (any color glass, cans paper and cardboard) go into the "Single stream" recyclable dumpster. You can also drop off used electronics and waste oil at the same place. Then we have a transfer station where they have separate dumpsters for scrap metal, demolition materials, tires (have to stop at town office and pay a fee first) and one for mixed trash (must be in a $1.85/bag town trash bag bought at town office). I only fill one 30 gal. bag every three to four weeks. Every spring they have a day where you can bring in old furniture/mattresses for free, the rest of the year you have to break it down so it will go into one of the other dumpster, or just dump it on the side of the road which way too many people do.

I have a garbage bucket in the kitchen for food scrape that get dumped in the woods for the critters.

Since I am retired and all those places are on the way to my gun club/range it isn't a big deal for me to drop things off as I go shooting. The transfer station is also next door to the towns gravel pit which is also a nice place to shoot.

There are also three private trash companies that will pick up at your house for a fee. Some days I see all three trash trucks go by my house within a half an hour. The drivers must wave at each other as they meet.

 

[Yaworski]

I like the idea of the "official town trashbag" and having my trash fee based on how much I throw away. I put out one bag a week and my neighbor puts out about six each week. I feel like I'm getting ripped off.

 

[Jack Ryan]

I sort my trash in to three bins, burn, won't burn, and sell. The big metal recycling place will buy aluminum cans and about any other metal. The campfire ring will burn anything paper or plastic. Only what is left after that goes to the dumpster area for the landfill. If I get a LOT of cardboard and a dumpster run is due I'll take that and put it in their card board bin.

This has cut down my dumpster runs to about once a month or more where I used to go every single week. Plus I usually get about $10 for a full garbage can of pop cans.

 

[hike]

I think you need to use a paper bag. Same with leaves.

Trash bags are no good for recycling.

They make clear "plastic-looking" bags just for recycling paper. Our local Kroger sells them but Amazon has them cheaper. The bags are recyclable. I use these bags BUT the OP highlights the farce/scam that recycling is.

 

[Ale-8(1)]

We attempt to recycle. We have trash cans that we use in an attempt to separate the recyclables by type as expected. But when we take these to the big steel recycle bins provided by our local government we open the carefully labelled doors to deposit our separated materials we discover that there are no interior partitions separating one bin opening from another . . . just one single large cavern, with everything mixed all together. Something tells me there's no efficient way to separate the aluminum/cardboard/glass/plastic/paper/etc materials. There are signs posted at each bin site imploring us to keep the stuff separated as indicated by the door labels. What am I missing here?

 

[Danjet500]

We have recycling paid for by our township taxes. All items go into a single, large container regardless of type of material. Paper, cardboard, plastic, glass and metal all in the same bin. I can only hope it gets separated somehow.

 

[3manfan]

Hoax. Proven to cost more in the end.... for the cost for the special bins, the extra labor for the garbage men to spend time to deal with recyclables, the special plant equipment & additional employees to process it, the extra energy required for processing, time & special handling & storage, then transportation costs for the final product to go wherever its final destination is to be if not utilized on site....than it saves. Many cities nationwide have dropped their recycling programs.

 

[Dan in MI]

My daughter lived in Japan for a few years. They take recycling serious. Makes sense to me being an island with limited space and resources. You sorted items by their rules and different items were collected daily. Paper Monday, steel Tuesday, etc. they also did not collect it if it was sorted wrong.

As far as our recycling. No idea how or if it is sorted. I thought I heard a few years back (3-4) that China quit buying our recyclables and since then it has kinda petered out due to costs

 

[Watertender]

Now for the recycling joke of the century. My 93 year old father in law just got a full set of dentures because the teeth that were holding his partial plates broke. He actually called the town to ask if he could recycle his old set

 

[GasGuzzler]

I didn't not say "animal poop" isn't good for compost nor do I think anyone else did. I did say not to but animal byproducts (chicken bones, skin, rendered fat, etc.) or CARNIVOROUS animal feces in compost that is intended to make fertile dirt. Maybe look up "carnivorous". I also gave the reasons why. Check it out or maybe give me an example of someone adding dog crap to their backyard garden.

Here is my box of potatoes I am growing. Every time new sprouts come up I wait a week then cover them with compost. They keep re-sprouting which makes more potatoes. After they're done, I have the fertile dirt captured for reuse. Mentioning because I "made" this dirt as described above with very little effort.

 

[s4s4u]

We have recycling paid for by our township taxes. All items go into a single, large container regardless of type of material. Paper, cardboard, plastic, glass and metal all in the same bin. I can only hope it gets separated somehow.

In the town I lived in prior to currently, that job was reserved for "sentence to serve" participants.

Kids with minor infractions/misdemeanors had the pleasure.

 

[ArizonaTea123]

I burn everything. I'm doing my best to raise CO2 levels to make the earth warmer and greener, like it used to be before the last ice age.

 

[Yaworski]

My wife's last job was with the county agency that dealt with trash and recycling collection. Recycling stuff went to a sorting facility where it was separated into glass/metal/paper/plastic. The recyclables were then sold to an assortment of companies who wanted glass, etc.. Income exceeded the cost of collection and sorting.

FWIW, glass manufacturers love waste glass and steel and aluminum manufacturers love scrap metal.

 

[tazbigdog]

When we were in AZ, the recycle bin was not to take shredded paper. Whatever!

On the note of recycling…we, the US, had been sending our recycling materials to China! Why…because they were low bid. WTH!