How many people here recycle?

[WolfeMacleod]

I don't know about your guys, but Michael Bay sure does...

[M.D. Holloway]

well...recycling saves money I guess...then again, gubmint subs are the only reason why it makes any sort of fiscal sense for everything save aluminum. There I go again git'n all PARFy.

[Joeaksa]

Have been recycling for 40 years now. The Europeans do a much better job of it but at least here in Phoenix we have recycling bins at each house so thats a start.

[Noah930]

Well, why would you want to blow up two uber-rare Dodge Magnums? Isn't the destruction of one enough?

[Zeke]

This is an interesting subject for me. I've started looking into exactly what is recyclable with the aid of a weekly LA Times feature. About 2/3 rds of what I put in the bin is thrown out as trash. they really only want the cream like cans and newspapers. Trash is still trash.

Examples of what is not recycled:

Paper towels and paper plates
Plastic forks and a lot of plastic bottle caps
Pizza boxes
Common broken glass
Anything that contained food that is not washed (well, I'm not wasting time and water to wash trash)

The list varies greatly community by community.

[trekkor]

A lot of garbage gets recycled somewhere else .
It doesn't matter if you separate it at home for them or not.

They have garbage conveyors with low paid employees on both sides picking through it.
There's big money in garbage.


KT

[dtw]

Lol nice try Wolfe

[azasadny]

I don't know if you call what I do "recycling" but I try to reuse things until they are no longer serviceable... When I throw something out, it NEEDS to be thrown out!

[Laneco]

I've been recycling for a long time, now more than ever. One of the best things our local garbage service did was to provide a co-mingled recycling bin. Everything but glass and oil go into it, no seperating.

I also recycle steel, aluminum, copper and batteries. But the cool part is I get money for that! Actually, the kids get money. I make them do the work, we take it down together and they get paid.

We are way behind other countries. I have an acquaintance who does a great deal of work in Brazil. She told me that they even recycle lead acid batteries curbside in that country.

angela

[A930Rocket]

We started recycling cans, glass and plastic several years ago. I'm hoping it does some good.

I was involved with a MRF (materials recycling facility) awhile back. They had a "dry" facility in one end of a big warehouse where they sorted all kinds of paper, cardboard, plastic, etc. Lots of automation, but you still had people pulling and sorting it.

This is where we came in. They then built on the other end of the warehouse, a "wet" facilty where they took all commingled garbage from the Atlanta airport and separated out all the recycleable goods. All else was hauled off to the dump. $2.5 million of automated equipment sorted it along with workers.

It's gets dirty, nasty and SMELLY very fast both places.

[pwd72s]

What? You're not supposed to put used engine oil down a storm drain?

[pavulon]

Seperating items to be thrown out is so simple I have an unpleasant visceral response to folks who "don't have time" to do it. Effectively, they are stating that their time is so important that they can't be bothered with making small efforts toward doing the right thing. Fokkers.

[Embraer]

when i lived in indy, you had to pay in order to get a recycle bin. F-that.

[Racerbvd]

Been doing it for years, but some here like to tease about me trading everything, but hey, it is recycling, plus, at home, I recycle cans, plastic & papers, have for years.

[imcarthur]

Due to our disposal problems (Michigan won't take our garbage anymore amongst other issues), we have had recycling for over 15 years. I have been known to call them the garbage nazis. At one point, we had 5 different divisions of garbage & numerous things they wouldn't take at all - you had to go to a depot. It has relaxed a bit - for now.

Ian

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by milt

This is an interesting subject for me. I've started looking into exactly what is recyclable with the aid of a weekly LA Times feature. About 2/3 rds of what I put in the bin is thrown out as trash. they really only want the cream like cans and newspapers. Trash is still trash.

Examples of what is not recycled:

Paper towels and paper plates
Plastic forks and a lot of plastic bottle caps
Pizza boxes
Common broken glass
Anything that contained food that is not washed (well, I'm not wasting time and water to wash trash)

The list varies greatly community by community.

Most plastic water bottles that are put in a recycle bin end up in a landfill anyway.

The gubmint charges us a recycling fee but there really isn't enough of a market for recycled PET. It just isn't economical.
So we end up paying the gubmint for nothing. Again.

Most recycling programs are a joke if the truth were known, but they make people FEEL good.
They like pretending to be doing something that is good, even if it isn't.

[URY914]

From a pure $ stand point it is cheaper to make most products from raw materials than from recycled mat'l. But there are other things to consider like using up less landfill space by recyling which is good.

I think the single item that is the most wasteful is car and truck tires. We only use less than 10% of the tire and throw away the rest. Sure we've been able to come up with some uses for used tires but they don't begin to use the excess supplys of used tires. It is a HUGE waste of raw materials IMHO.

[Joeaksa]

Originally Posted by pavulon

Seperating items to be thrown out is so simple I have an unpleasant visceral response to folks who "don't have time" to do it. Effectively, they are stating that their time is so important that they can't be bothered with making small efforts toward doing the right thing. Fokkers.

Then what do you do with cities who take the stuff in recycled batches and once at the terminal dump everything together and call it all trash?

We found out that one city in this area was having people separate things only to have it all mixed together at the depot. They could have cared less about recycling, was just doing a "knee jerk" reaction to make it look like they were doing something productive.

[pavulon]

I keep doing my part to be responsible.

Originally Posted by Joeaksa

Then what do you do with cities who take the stuff in recycled batches and once at the terminal dump everything together and call it all trash?

We found out that one city in this area was having people separate things only to have it all mixed together at the depot. They could have cared less about recycling, was just doing a "knee jerk" reaction to make it look like they were doing something productive.

[lendaddy]

Originally Posted by pavulon

I keep doing my part to be responsible.

Which proves the point that results aren't what's important, it's how we feel about ourselves and perhaps more importantly how we appear to others.