When it comes to recycling, when in doubt, throw it out. It's much better than mixing dirty recyclables w/ clean ones.

If you throw a soiled pizza box w/ cardboard, it might contaminate the clean cardboard, which will require throwing out a lot of clean cardboard.

A jar w/ leftover peanut butter or mayo in it will contaminate the clean plastics. If it "can not be cleaned out with a quick rinse of a low volume of water", then throw it out. It's not worth using a lot of water to clean, and the recyclers prefer you don't mix clean & dirty recyclables.

I believe in recycling and I still do as much as possible. Rinsing empty containers is no big deal.

quote:

Originally posted by GaryBF:
I believe in recycling and I still do as much as possible. Rinsing empty containers is no big deal.

For the past two months, most of the plastic bottles, jugs and containers have been filled with tap water, resealed and shot with airguns before going into the bin.

We still recycle even though I have about 8 good friends in the waste management business. They all tell me 85% of the residential recycling bins in the country are dumped in the same landfill as the trash. Industrial recycling is a very different story. But for residential it costs lots of money to recycle that stuff that is dirty. Pizza boxes have zero recycling viability due to the sauce and cheese and crap. So it is truly virtue signalling IMO with no productive value.

Thanks for all the replies and very interesting. Our town used Waste Management for years but a couple years ago switched over to a rinky dink disposal outfit to save money. I would not be surprised if they just dumped most everything into the land fill.

Surprised to hear about those of you that have a tiny container for waste and a big container for recycling. Must be some progressives involved along the line thinking they can force you into recycling more. At least we still have a big waste container.

I used to be a guy who cleaned out the peanut butter jars with hot soapy water and multiple rinses but no more. I am putting more food stuffs into the trash too instead of down the garbage disposal as wanting to reduce the risk of needed Roto Rooter at some point.

Another idea is a ‘compost bin’. All we have that will decompose goes there. That’s normally vegetable trimmings, coffee grounds, egg shells, peels & such.

I’ve backed off gardening, but still have the compost bin out back.

I wouldn't do it all except that my wife insists ~ so we do it.

In town they have a "recycle program" built into the garbage collection fee for homeowners and they accept glass, aluminum, metal cans, cardboard, and plastic. My understanding is while all is collected and separated only aluminum and metal are recycled. Glass, plastic, and paper go to the landfill because there is no market for it.
Commercial accounts are charged by volume for their garbage and are exempt from being included in the recycling program.

Living in the country I don't even utilize garbage collection instead I take bags of garbage to the dumpster at my apartment building in town and the aluminum and metal to my friend's house where it's collected.

 
We have private trash collection, a black 95 gallon container on wheels that is picked up once/week. That service costs by the month.
 
Several years ago, they gave us another 95 gallon container, this one blue, for recycling. It is picked up twice a month and is free, no fee, so I stuff everything I can into the blue one. Usually it's just cardboard, packing materials (that brown paper) and some containers, but I also put a flywheel and bellhousing in there once. The blue container has saved us from having to contract for a second black container.

We still have the "single stream recycling" where everything has to be clean, and then we have "general refuse".

I found out last year, that due to the increasing cost and fewer options for recycling, the recycling bin goes to the same place the general refuse goes (it's not being recycled).

They still have the guy that checks the quality of the "recycling" though, because they don't want people to get in the habit of recycling "dirty" stuff if the recycling goes live again.

No. They killed our recycling for a few weeks during Covid, then again when the freeze (blizzard as far as our area is concerned) hit for a week. City provides recycling bags that you have to pick up from the civic center. They send out the letter once a year to pick up your "free" bags for recycling. Trash pick up is twice a week, recycles once a week. I participate. Glass, aluminum cans, plastic and cardboard. No separation, it's all in the same bag. I'm not cleaning a damn thing. Cast iron sewer lines that are 70's built so I'm careful about what I send down the disposal and what I don't. To the point at some point this year I'll dispense with using toilet paper and convert to Toto toilets complete with bidets. AS it pertains to recycling, what they do with it, I really don't care. As a taxpayer being way overcharged for property tax, and our water/trash cost is not cheap by any means, they should drop the fucking bags off at my door instead of making me pick them up. So I still participate for now. As many cans of carbonated water I drink (probably the better part of a 12 pack per day), I need to buy a crusher, mount it in the garage and start getting some change for my cans.

quote:

Originally posted by tsmccull:
Cardboard and plastic/glass bottles are about all we put in the recycling bin. When China stopped accepting imported recyclables a couple years ago, recycling as a whole became much less cost effective. Many locales now take recyclables directly to the dump, but don’t publicize that fact.

Ours definitely did this during covid season. I'm unsure if they still do.

I take a truckload of cardboard boxes to a city ran recycling place a couple miles away, but that's only because we receive TONS of boxes /w guns and stuff from distributors so about once a week we take a truckload up to the recycling place (just a bunch of cardboard recycling dumpsters in a dirt parking lot). Other than that my recycling bin at home only goes to the road maybe once every couple months because I never use it for anything.

Recycling less and even throwing out less. Didn't even bother rolling the cans out yesterday since there's only 1 garbage bag in the bin for the whole week.

the county provides a bin for recycling and free pick up every other week,

I have private trash pic up weekly,

about the only thing in the trash is some kitchen stuff, and cat crap,


everything else goes in the recycle, so much so we 'rented' a bin the same size as the my trash bin and it is full every 2 weeks,

mostly the paper stuff we get in a paperless society, and boxes (Broken down etc) that I don' t reuse at my shop,


brother leaves at the same address as our shop, and bought a big firepit , so we now burn all the extra paper, cardboard etc generated there,


the county gives you one free pickup of trash a month, but they are not exactly consistent or reliable , , it I did not have the cats, I would go that route

I don’t recycle.

Glass, aluminum and paper, the easiest to do. Good chores for a young kid.

Plastic is the wildcard for most waste management, seems there's a lot of passing the buck or, outright not doing it. China not accepting recycled waste has thrown a wrench into the US process. I know the Philippines accepts Japan's trash, lots of shanty town slums built and sustained through all that garbage.

When I moved into the neighborhood 15 years ago, they gave us a large roll out container for trash and a bin for recycling. Two different trucks would pick it up. About a year ago, they showed up with another slightly smaller roll out container to replace the bin for recycling. I told the recycling guy, that I didn't have room in my garage for another roll out container. He said, then just throw everything in the large roll out trash container because it all goes to the same trash dump. So much for my feeling righteous about recycling.

Having worked in the Waste & Recycling industry for a few years I can verify what many posters here have said - virtually none of what you are placing in your recycle bin is actually getting recycled. Cross contamination, capacity constraints and basic profitability all are driving factors here.

I never used to do any of it. Probably a knee-jerk reaction to the gov't and media always trying to shove "green" down my throat. But the garbage/recycling company here gave me a dinky little rollout container for garbage and a great big one for recycling. When I acquired a roommate our combined trash output grew to where it wouldn't all fit in the garbage bin. So I started rinsing metal cans and some plastic bottles and recycling them. It made a difference in the volume of garbage and wasn't a huge PITA, so I figured why not. But with the things I've read in this thread (and elsewhere) about them not actually recycling the recycling junk, I'm leaning toward reverting to my old "screw it" attitude. I need to try and find out what the actual practice is here.

quote:

Originally posted by cruiser68:
...I have about 8 good friends in the waste management business. They all tell me 85% of the residential recycling bins in the country are dumped in the same landfill as the trash. Industrial recycling is a very different story. But for residential it costs lots of money to recycle that stuff that is dirty. Pizza boxes have zero recycling viability due to the sauce and cheese and crap. So it is truly virtue signalling IMO with no productive value.

+1