Would you get mad if your neighbor did this?

[gregpark]

Your neighbor Karen was probably thinking, "great now he's going to unload his garbage on us every week and we won't have room for ours. I better nip this in the bud!" I'd tell her "I'm sorry I should have asked first but assumed you were done filling your bin since the truck was three doors away. If at any time you have excess to dispose of and our bin is not full, feel free to fill it up"

[KFC911]

I suspect a gift card from Buffalo Wild Wings would have mitigated this grevious harm!

I just don't understand some people .... and am really glad I don't sometimes .

[Danimal16]

They really should ask first. My really great neighbor and friend filled up my can once without asking. When I went out the next morning, no room for the stuff I was working on that evening. Easy fix, I just mentioned it to him and asked him to kindly ask next time. We are still great friends.

My new neighbor took it upon himself to overfill my cans with his stuff (without asking). Waste management sent me a letter warning me that the next time that happened the cans would not be dumped. Had to show my new neighbor the letter, which kind of pissed me off a little, but still good neighbors.

[Norm K]

Originally Posted by McLovin

I am. I’m the scofflaw who put the recycling in my neighbor’s bin.

I was very surprised by her reaction. We’d been very neighborly for years, always saying hello, picking up each others mail, etc. No problems whatsoever.

Any outsider reading this thread will know we're largely an older bunch, as the time-tested and obligatory question has yet to be asked ...

Is she hot?

_

[Crowbob]

Originally Posted by stomachmonkey

Well I didn't want anyone to feel guilt for recycling recyclable bags.

In case you haven't noticed, we are not the brightest bunch.

If any of us were really that smart 90% of OT threads wouldn't be us asking each other for advice.

Apparently, 90% of recyclable stuff goes into the same landfill as the unrecyclable stuff. Supposedly, recycling at the curb level is pretty much a complete ruse, like electric vehicles.

We have self-serve recycling bins at various locations around town into which you can dump your recyclables. Of course, there’s the occasional bed mattress, broken furniture, and what-not inappropriately dumped. Dumping household refuse is not permitted and there are cameras eyeballing you 24/7.

I happened to have been at one of ‘em when the big garbage truck came to dump the contents of the bins into the garbage truck. The driver had to get out and throw something in so I asked what happens when people dump illegal stuff in here? He said it goes to the landfill just like the rest of the garbage. Nobody is ever prosecuted, and very little is ever sorted. Recycling is PR but it does keep the greeenies at bay.

[Baz]

Maybe you could get a second recycling bin so you'd have an extra just in case you needed more bin space.

That's what folks do here.

I have two but rarely need more than one.

I don't feel you did anything wrong, BTW. Sounds like you handled things right.

[KFC911]

Originally Posted by Norm K

Any outsider reading this thread will know we're largely an older bunch, as the time-tested and obligatory question has yet to be asked ...

Is she hot?

_

At this point ..... does it REALLY matter?

McLuv's OP was about his specific situation, because there are obvious "grey zones" if other variables are added. The truck was just up the street .... only "harm" done is a figment of his neighbor's perception....

So ...... IS she hawt ?

[Norm K]

Originally Posted by KC911

At this point ..... does it REALLY matter?



So ...... IS she hawt ?

It's never really mattered. But has that ever mattered?

_

[masraum]

Presumably, it won't cost me anything, so why would I be mad?

[slow&rusty]

A little common courtesy to ask "if it's OK" would be all that is needed.

[mjohnson]

Originally Posted by Crowbob

Apparently, 90% of recyclable stuff goes into the same landfill as the unrecyclable stuff. Supposedly, recycling at the curb level is pretty much a complete ruse, like electric vehicles.

We have self-serve recycling bins at various locations around town...

We get nasty notes in our local "fish-wrapper" paper about people abusing the recycling with greasy pizza boxes and unauthorized aluminum foil. (it's a small town so that's big news for this place)

I bizarrely have memories of weekly going with my mom to the recycle corner at the store in the early 1980s and sorting glass by color and, 9yo me, joyously getting to chuck each one into the bin. Kind of cathartic - I'd welcome that now. These days we just get one big yellow dumpster behind the local high school.

Oh, and I don't care if you top off my bin as long as it's not overfilled and going to spill across my yard. It costs the same regardless if it's 70 gallons of air or cardboard...

[Shaun @ Tru6]

As a courtesy, i would have knocked and asked. But if someone did it to my bin I wouldn't care.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by stomachmonkey

Well I didn't want anyone to feel guilt for recycling recyclable bags.

In case you haven't noticed, we are not the brightest bunch.

If any of us were really that smart 90% of OT threads wouldn't be us asking each other for advice.

I think it depends upon the bags and the recycling service. When you sign up for recycling, you get information/documentation from the recycling company telling you what you can and can't recycle through their service. THere are things that are recyclable that they may not accept for some reason.

And all of that ignores the fact that most of the stuff that you put into recycle never gets recycled.
https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2020/03/13/fix-recycling-america/
(not the entire article, just portions of it)

Many recyclables become contaminated when items are placed in the wrong bin, or when a dirty food container gets into the recycling bin. Contamination can prevent large batches of material from being recycled. Other materials can’t be processed in certain facilities.

Moreover, many items that are collected, such as plastic straws and bags, eating utensils, yogurt and takeout containers often cannot be recycled. They usually end up being incinerated, deposited in landfills or washed into the ocean. While incineration is sometimes used to produce energy, waste-to-energy plants have been associated with toxic emissions in the past.

For decades, China handled the recycling of almost half of the world’s discarded materials, because its manufacturing sector was booming and needed these materials to feed it. In 2016, the U.S. exported 16 million tons of plastic, paper and metals to China. In actuality, 30 percent of these mixed recyclables were ultimately contaminated by non-recyclable material, were never recycled, and ended up polluting China’s countryside and oceans. An estimated 1.3 to 1.5 million metric tons of plastic found its way into the ocean off China’s coast each year.

In 2018, China’s National Sword policy banned the import of most plastics and other materials that were not up to new, more stringent purity standards. The U.S. then sent its plastic waste to other countries, shipping 68,000 containers to Vietnam, Malaysia, and Thailand in 2018. When these countries later instituted bans on imported plastic waste, the U.S. diverted its waste to Cambodia, Bangladesh, Ghana, Laos, Ethiopia, Kenya and Senegal — countries with cheap labor and lax environmental rules. The U.S. still ships over 1 million metric tons a year of plastic waste abroad, often to countries already overwhelmed by it. Experts estimate that 20 to 70 percent of plastic intended for recycling overseas is unusable and is ultimately discarded. One study found that the plastic waste exported to Southeast Asia resulted in contaminated water, crop death, respiratory illnesses due to toxic fumes from incineration, and organized crime.

Without the Chinese market for plastic — as well as for some types of cardboard, paper, and glass — the U.S. recycling industry was upended.

“The economics are challenging,” said Nilda Mesa, director of the Urban Sustainability and Equity Planning Program at the Earth Institute’s Center for Sustainable Urban Development. “If there is not a market for the recycled material, then the numbers do not work for these facilities as well as cities, as they need to sell the materials to recoup their costs of collection and transportation, and even then it’s typically only a portion of the costs.”

As a result, U.S. processing facilities and municipalities have either had to pay more to recycle or simply discard the waste. In 2017, Stamford, CT made $95,000 by selling recyclables; in 2018, it had to pay $700,000 to have them removed. Bakersfield, CA used to earn $65 a ton from its recyclables; after 2018, it had to pay $25 a ton to get rid of them. Franklin, NH had been able to sell its recyclables for $6 a ton; now the transfer station charges $125 a ton to recycle the material or $68 a ton to incinerate it.

Municipalities that couldn’t afford to pay more have cut back on their recycling programs. Over 70 ended curbside recycling (though several have been reinstituted after public protests), and many drop-off sites closed; some programs increased costs to residents while others limited what materials they would accept.

According to the EPA, of the 267.8 million tons of municipal solid waste generated by Americans in 2017, only 94.2 million tons were recycled or composted.

Sixty-six percent of discarded paper and cardboard was recycled, 27 percent of glass, and 8 percent of plastics were recycled. Glass and metal can be recycled indefinitely; paper can be recycled five to seven times before it’s too degraded to be made into “new” paper; plastic can only be recycled once or twice—and usually not into a food container—since the polymers break down in the recycling process.

Single-stream recycling, where all recyclables are placed into the same bin, has made recycling easier for consumers, but results in about one-quarter of the material being contaminated.

Plastic recycling presents the biggest challenge because the plastic is often contaminated by other materials and consumer goods companies are reluctant to buy recycled plastic unless it is as pure as virgin plastic.

Although companies that make and sell plastic push the idea that recycling is the answer to the plastic pollution problem, six times more plastic waste is incinerated than is recycled. The CEO of Recology, a company that collects and processes municipal solid waste, wrote in a 2018 op-ed, “The simple fact is, there is just too much plastic—and too many different types of plastics being produced; and there exist few, if any, viable end markets for the material.” Moreover, because of the glut of natural gas and the resulting boom in U.S. petrochemical production, virgin plastic is now cheaper than recycled plastic.

A recent Greenpeace report found that some PET (#1) and HDPE (#2) plastic bottles are the only types of plastic that are truly recyclable in the U.S. today; and yet only 29 percent of PET bottles are collected for recycling, and of this, only 21 percent of the bottles are actually made into recycled materials due to contamination. China used to accept plastics #3 through #7, which were mostly burned for fuel. Today #3 – #7 plastics may be collected in the U.S., but they are not typically recycled; they usually end up incinerated, buried in landfills or exported. In fact Greenpeace is asking companies such as Nestle, Walmart, Proctor & Gamble and Unilever that label their products made with #3 -#7 plastics as “recyclable” to stop or it will file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission for mislabeling.

[Tobra]

I would actually prefer that to one that fails to put trash in the bin.


I am the guy who picks up trash on the street when I am walking my dogs and throw it in someone else's all the time, every day practically. Karen came charging out one time to tell me not to put anything in her trash. "I thought you were a leave the trash in the yard person when I saw you, turns out I was right," and dropped it in the street in front of her house where I picked it up.

[Cairo94507]

I believe they should have asked first; I would never just throw stuff in my neighbor's can.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Tobra

I would actually prefer that to one that fails to put trash in the bin.


I am the guy who picks up trash on the street when I am walking my dogs and throw it in someone else's all the time, every day practically. Karen came charging out one time to tell me not to put anything in her trash. "I thought you were a leave the trash in the yard person when I saw you, turns out I was right," and dropped it in the street in front of her house where I picked it up.

I don't understand the people who worry about "my trashcan" that much. It's a trashcan, it gets nasty over the years. I don't get inside of the thing. I don't bring it in the house. I put garbage in it, and the garbage is or may get nasty.

It might be one thing if trash costed and was voluntary. You know, if you've got a neighbor that refused to pay for trash, but instead tried to piggy back on everyone else. But if we're all paying for trash, and it's just one thing because there's space, what's the big deal. This has come up here before too.

It would be a big deal If my trash was full, and a neighbor stacked a bunch of crap next to my cans on the ground. But if my can isn't full, and they have something that fits...

[KFC911]

Here, the trash and recycle toters are owned (and supplied) by the city as is the street (and right-of-way fwiw). That being said ..... if she is really hot .... then McLuv is just wrong .

Where parking on the side of the street is perfectly legal, some folks think in front of their house is "theirs" ....

I just don't sweat the petty stuff .....

If she is hot

[McLovin]

Haha, no she wasn’t hot.

But one of the ones who lived there before her was smokin, and I kid you not her name was Brandi and she dressed exactly like you’d imagine Brandi to dress.

But now that you mention it, based on my hotness it’s doubly surprising she didn’t let my recycling offense slide.

[Superman]

Originally Posted by Pazuzu

WHY is your recycling bin only half full? Do you hate the Earth? Don't tell me that you can only find a half bin of stuff to recycle, try harder!

Se generate almost no volume that goes to the landfill, and the recycle bin only has to be placed at the street once per month. We just don't create a lot of refuse. I do go to the recycling center occasionally with glass and cardboard.

Neighbors are welcome to fill my bins when they are at the curb.

[Sooner or later]

No big deal.

Hell, I was gone a week so I had no trash. On trash day my container was at the curb filled ro the brim. Later in the day it was back to the side of the house. Not even sure which neighbor used it.