Having the recycling barrel (which they dump for free, twice a month) has actually helped us out. My wife and I generate enough waste that we were on the verge of overfilling the regular 95 gallon trash barrel. If we had needed to get a second one, that was another $20/month. By separating the trash into the blue and black barrels, we easily get by with just one trash barrel. For us, it is just an economic thing. I am not a recycling nut. I keep a 30 gallon can in the house where I can toss recyclable stuff, and dump that once a week into the big blue barrel outside. I have a lot of sympathy for those who live in jurisdictions that go whole hog, requiring you to separate recyclable stuff into different bins by type. Pain in the ass tree huggers.
 

It has always been my position that such tasks be accomplished by prisoners.

Yeah, it's "slave labor", but it is also labor that some people choose to do, but the operations themselves are wholly inadequate, because it is a mandate and oversight by EPA, driven by emotion.

Now, put the differnt prisoners in the loop of intake, sorting and managing the recycle process, and I believe it would work and make money, if not at least break even.

The prisoners would learn work skills, management skills and be productive, and that often leads to a frame of mind that "social acceptable thinking and behaving" can be built upon.

The processing/separation of materials then get shipped to plants as a "clean" (no junk) resource that can recycle into product.

Most of the operations could be managed, and the cost of goods sold to recycle centers go to pay the extra staff to over see operations, guards and the premises/equipment.

Not only garbage, but electronics, white goods and other "throw away" items.

Yes, it could be a large scale operation in cover many locations, but fees, taxes and dollars are collected and spent already, it's just inefficient, ineffective and uneconomical.

Those last three things can be flipped.

Imagine if garbage" was the only source of raw materials with which we ran our lives?

Given that we truly are "digging trash" out of the earth in the first place to make all this crap, then it is mostly a "mindset" that has us believe it cannot be made to work.


But to the original topic, as PHPaul sez: "...their blowing sunshine up our ass."

That's why I don't do it and no longer care that I don't.

recycling and the lottery

neither will answer any questions about what goes where or who is responsible for what

quote:

Originally posted by bendable:
recycling and the lottery

neither will answer any questions about what goes where or who is responsible for what

Werd.

I've never bought a lottery ticket, being at least minimally competent at math...

quote:

Originally posted by bendable:
recycling and the lottery

neither will answer any questions about what goes where or who is responsible for what

I knew you were an alien.

we started like every one else,

take it somewhere and sort,

then curbside, sorted and placed in separate bins on a truck,

now,

all in one, and sometimes they reject stuff at curbside, sometimes they do not,


it is run thru a processing line, what isn't processed, goes to the dump,

excess goes to the dump,


and yes, it should be part of a prison work system, not paid by the hr laborers,


(well , pay the prisoners whatever they get for laundry etc)

Mountains Of Trash Piling Up On US Shores After China Stops Taking It

https://www.zerohedge.com/news...hina-stops-taking-it

Mountains of trash have been collecting at US recycling facilities shores after China stopped accepting "contaminated" materials from facilities across the country.

Since 1992, China and Hong Kong have taken in approximately 72% of global plastic waste according to a study in the journal Science Advances. Since January, however, Beijing stopped accepting most paper and plastic waste in accordance with new environmental policies.

What they do still accept - cardboard and metal, now has an extremely low contamination threshold of just 0.5% - a level far too low for current US recycling technology to handle.

Making matters worse is that US waste handlers believe that China is on track to close its doors to all recycled materials by 2020, just 17 months from now - an impossibly short deadline.

"There is no single and frankly, probably not even a group of countries, that can take in the volume that China used to take," warns Adina Renee Adler of the Washington-based Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries. -Yahoo

Scrambling to find room

China's sudden policy shift has sent the US waste industry into a panic. In Elkridge, Maryland for example, a Waste Management facility now has a pile of effectively worthless mixed paper and plastics on their hands - while paying subcontractors to haul it away.

Other US recycling plants are simply sending mixed recycling straight into landfills.

"Nobody wants to say it out loud, because nobody likes the fact that they're having to do it," said Bill Caesar, CEO of Houston waste company WCA.

Waste Management and Republic Services, another industry heavyweight, have admitted doing it under limited circumstances, while some small towns, particularly in Florida, have simply stopped collecting recyclable waste.

Other scrap importer countries such as Indonesia, Vietnam or India are incapable of absorbing the tens of millions of tons that China had previously taken.

And few American industries possess the ability to treat the waste. -Yahoo

"The biggest issue here is that China just gave very little time for the industry to transition," said Adler.

National Waste and Recycling Association president Darrell Smith added: "Eventually we will have such a large backup that more and more will have to start being diverted to landfills if we don’t find new markets and new uses for the recycled materials."

The trash crunch is compounded by the fact that many cities across the country are already pursuing ambitious recycling goals. Washington D.C., for example, wants to see 80% of household waste recycled, up from 23%.

D.C. already pays $75 a ton for recycling vs. $46 for waste burned to generate electricity.

"There was a time a few years ago when it was cheaper to recycle. It's just not the case anymore," said Christopher Shorter, director of public works for the city of Washington.

"It will be more and more expensive for us to recycle," he said.

Perhaps America can begin expanding into the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, lashing together hundreds of square miles of floating garbage islands which would undoubtedly be considered prime real estate.

Voluntary here NC.
I use my blue can on wheels to pick up limbs in the yard. .....

Recycling isn't a scam, government is a scam. Take a great idea that works and is useful, and introduce some gubmint bureaucrats, watch the whole thing turn to goat shit.

We have a free drop off yard for the county with separate containers for paper, plastic 1&2, plastic other, plastic bags, glass (separate bins for color), steel cans, aluminum cans, scrap metal, brush, used cooking oil, batteries, electronics and wiring,

There is a nominal fee to recycle TV's, and brush and trees up to 6" in diameter. Once a year, they bring in a giant chipper and turn the brush/trees to mulch, which you can buy for $10 a pick-up bed load.

I can pick through the computer area and salvage good hard drives and repurpose them for back up drives or storage devices. I have recovered several multi-terabyte drives for picture and movie storage, and have two working laptops that just needed operating systems. One is a nice HP Core I3.

All in the eastern panhandle of WV. We are pretty fortunate here in terms of recycling.

quote:

Originally posted by gearhounds:

I can pick through the computer area and salvage good hard drives and repurpose them for back up drives or storage devices. I have recovered several multi-terabyte drives for picture and movie storage, and have two working laptops that just needed operating systems. One is a nice HP Core I3.

We had a metal recycling place about 10 miles from the house so I saved up all my scrap metal and got paid by the ton for it. Not a lot, but enough to cover gas and put a little cash in my pocket.

Apparently that market has dried up as well (or the owner got caught playing fast and loose with the books which, knowing him, is a distinct possibility) and it's closed. Next nearest place is 60 or 70 miles away...not cost effective.

So I took everything I had to the Transfer Station and dumped it in their metal dumpster (free). Then I picked up 5 ladder sections off a tree stand that were laying next to the dumpster and threw them on the trailer and lugged them home. I get some pretty decent stuff for my steel stash that way...

quote:

Here in the Yoop,you pay an extra ten cents on the recyclable aluminum cans you buy. Then you take them back to the store and you get your dime back.
Problem:
To do this you go into a nasty room in the Yooper grocery store. The floor is sticky. The machine you put the cans into is disgusting. You wait in line behind alcoholic college kids who are recycling last weekends toga party cans by the hundreds. When you finally get up to the machine, you put in three or four cans and the machine shuts down because its full! So, back in line behind the next relay of drunks and their cans. Oh... from time to time, the machine says your can is not acceptable.
The entire process is a disgusting pain in the ass.
But... I am saving the planet! And I get my dime back!

Same here. When I first moved to this dump, my wife insisted we take the cans back to get our nickel. After checking out the situation and the types of people that go there, I forbade her from going alone. After several run-ins with unsavory street urchins, we now just throw everything into the recycle bin. Thought the problem was solved, but now the urchins have taken to raiding the cans at 0-dark thirty. It's quite the sight to see them toting a massive bag of shit up and down the road.

quote:

Originally posted by Rev. A. J. Forsyth:

Same here. When I first moved to this dump, my wife insisted we take the cans back to get our nickel. After checking out the situation and the types of people that go there, I forbade her from going alone. After several run-ins with unsavory street urchins, we now just throw everything into the recycle bin. Thought the problem was solved, but now the urchins have taken to raiding the cans at 0-dark thirty. It's quite the sight to see them toting a massive bag of shit up and down the road.

Wife and I walk 2 miles every day. We have a 15 mile route we rotate through. Take the truck, park it on the designated section. Walk a mile up one side of the road and mile back down the other side to the truck, picking up cans as we go. We walk for the exercise, picking up cans is just something to do while we're walking. We "make" about $40 a month in non-snow months.

Our redemption centers are privately owned and operated and the one we use takes our word for the count. We just drop off the bags of cans and tell them "We've got $85.15 worth of cans this trip" and they pay us. Easy-peasy.

quote:

Here in the Yoop,you pay an extra ten cents on the recyclable aluminum cans you buy. Then you take them back to the store and you get your dime back.
Problem:
To do this you go into a nasty room in the Yooper grocery store. The floor is sticky. The machine you put the cans into is disgusting. You wait in line behind alcoholic college kids who are recycling last weekends toga party cans by the hundreds. When you finally get up to the machine, you put in three or four cans and the machine shuts down because its full! So, back in line behind the next relay of drunks and their cans. Oh... from time to time, the machine says your can is not acceptable.
The entire process is a disgusting pain in the ass.
But... I am saving the planet! And I get my dime back!

You omitted the part where, if the can is crushed the machine will not accept it.

My condo by the lake vs recycling:

Several years ago Waste Management bribed our city administration to make curbside recycling mandatory (and to charge a fee for the green can.) Of course, the green can was a bear attraction. Mama bears were dropping their youts by for training. Called the city, was told it was a people problem: "Food waste is not to be put in the green can!" AND that it was the law! I unloaded on her: "How about you posting a GD guard on the green can 24/7 to stop weekend renters and old ladies who can't lift the metal dumpster lid from putting their leftovers in the can?". "Someone is going to be injured by a bear!". She huffed that I could call WM. After I explained the bear situation to the lady there, they picked up the can, but we still pay monthly for it.

In my home in NW FL, they pick up the recycle and just throw it in the landfill.

quote:

Our redemption centers are privately owned and operated and the one we use takes our word for the count. We just drop off the bags of cans and tell them "We've got $85.15 worth of cans this trip" and they pay us. Easy-peasy.

Every grocery store here has an alcove containing machines for glass, or aluminium. They are consistently occupied by the dregs of society, regardless of the time of day / location. Even the almighty Whole Foods (whole paycheck as I like to call it) is infested. The floors are awash in a foul smelling brown liquid with all manner of detritus strew about. The machines only accept those containers with the correct UPC codes that reference a product sold by said store. The state owned places are worse. You bring your shit in and dump it across a sorting table and have to repackage it into cardboard flats, all while jockeying for position amongst the bums.

No thanks.

It's always been my understanding that recycling- when done correctly- is about conservation of resources; it is not a business incentive. It generally costs more to reprocess something than to make it from scratch. For example, a business will often choose to replace a defective product with a brand new unit, rather than repair the existing one. It's actually cheaper that way. You recycle mainly to limit depletion of natural resources that would go into primary goods production, and of course must look for some way to fund the higher cost.

We live about 12 miles outside of town. The only thing we recycled was cardboard. That stuff really seems to pile up—everything delivered to the house in a box. There were cardboard and paper products recycling bin out in front of the Lowes in Cheyenne. All they asked is that you break down the boxes before putting them in the bins. People who don’t give a shit ruined it. They would do things like haul a box from a new appliance to the bins and just leave it next to them. Fill the bins with boxes they were too lazy to break down. Trash around the bins...until finally the complaints mounted and the bins were removed. Assholes.

Now, we have to take boxes to the privately-owned recycling center. Not convenient for us to get to at all. We note however, that they take about everything and are considering buying tthe necessary containers to recycle more things. I don’t know, it’s every bit of 15 miles away...maybe

This message has been edited. Last edited by: TMats,

quote:

Originally posted by TMats:
The only thing we recycled was cardbord.

We are overwhelmed with cardboard, 90% of it says Amazon Prime on it. I shuffle the broken down boxes into both trash and recycle bins, depending on the load in either one. I take all packing material and good boxes to our local vacuum cleaner/sewing machine repair store which doubles as an authorized shipping agent for UPS, FedEx, and DHL. That's where I go to ship anything that requires those services. I get a bit of a break on their charge because of how much packing material I haul in to them. They take all boxes and have a big "library" of them. They measure your item and can lay hands on the proper size box in seconds. Any they cannot use get recycled via the local Lion's Club.