I think it is. I've watched my trash guys come around with the trash truck numerous times, grab the recycle can and tip it in and keep moving plus I've heard stories that it all simply ends up at the same landfill or incinerator anyway.

Is recycling a sham? Only 5% of the 51 million tons of American household plastic waste generated last year got recycled, bombshell report claims

Feel good make work legislation… It’s fucking mandatory around here. Zero benefit.

Over the last 10 or 20 years, US recycling switched to the receiving site separating the types of recyclables rather than the originator (e.g. homeowners used to separate their different types of recyclables). This made recycling more manpower intensive but it limped along since we shipped so much to China.

In 2018, China banned foreign recyclables and it set US recycling on its ear.

I have long believed that curbside recycling is nothing more than a bogus feel-good fraud perpetrated on environmentally-conscious voters by their elected officials.

Of course it could also be that the recycling companies contracted to perform this service simply dump their gleanings wherever it is cheapest to do so, and the ones that are sharpest at this turn to foreign countries, or the deep blue sea.

The only true recycling I can see are the pickers who precede the trash trucks and select whatever they can make a buck on out of the pile. Call it a victory for capitalism.

Cousin worked at a landfill running the heavy machinery you see crushing the trash and burying it. My county contracted with his to handle the recyclables. Residents sorted the stuff at the various sites around the county. My county hauled it 3 counties away at which point my cousin would direct the recycling trucks to dump their loads and he’d simply compact it into the landfill and cover it back up. Glass had its own station where it was dumped onto a concrete pad, run over with a sheep foot roller and once the pieces were small enough, they’d simply scoop it off with a bobcat and take it to a pit and bury it with layers of dirt on top.

Yeah, I’m gonna go with it’s a big fucking sham! I’ve stopped recycling. Cardboard is kept for mulch/ground cover for our garden and everything else just goes to the dump.

Our recycling was cut way back a while ago, no more glass, no more of a lot of different things.

As a result, I take out my recycle bin around once every 6 weeks these days.

Interestingly enough, although the recycle folks work load dropped significantly, the price we pay for it remained the same...

Residential is pretty much a waste of time in my opinion.

As someone that works on the industrial recycling side a fair amount, appliances, home electronics, and vehicle recycling is the real deal and a solid money maker depending on the market prices. Any of these can be shredded, sifted, and sorted using various methods, with pretty good recovery rates.

One of my projects even includes a plant that produces synthetic cured 4'x8'x3/4" sheets out of what is essentially ground up circuit boards and the plastic from home electronics. They're slightly heavier than a typical exterior grade sheet of plywood, but also pretty much waterproof.

I put it in the feel good category. Most people don't follow the rules about putting only clean, non food contaminated items in the bin. The workers at the recycle center aren't going to wash out dirty paper plates, pizza boxes, dirty soup cans and such. Those just get sorted to the landfill. (extra expense) If it only was aluminum cans that had been rinsed and water bottles the process might make sense.

What ticks me off is the 5 or 10-cent bottle and can deposits.

I've got this big blue container for recyclables, but I have to take these cans and bottles to a gross, maggot-infested breeding ground for viruses and bacteria to slide them into a machine one at a time to get my nickel back?

Fox Tango. I'll not be doing that.

Oh, I know WHY the stupid can and bottle deposits still exist after the introduction of the big blue containers ... just follow the money.

quote:

Originally posted by steve495:
What ticks me off is the 5 or 10-cent bottle and can deposits.

I've got this big blue container for recyclables, but I have to take these cans and bottles to a gross, maggot-infested breeding ground for viruses and bacteria to slide them into a machine one at a time to get my nickel back?

Fox Tango. I'll not be doing that.

Oh, I know WHY the stupid can and bottle deposits still exist after the introduction of the big blue containers ... just follow the money.

That would piss me off as well. Even if you get it back like the old days with soda bottles, in today's economy most people aren't going to get to excited about 5 cents and spending the time to take these back for a small refund. I suppose they figure this and it's just a revenue stream for them. So, so glad Texas hasn't fallen into this trap.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
Is recycling a sham? Only 5% of the 51 million tons of American household plastic waste generated last year got recycled, bombshell report claims

Does this have anything to do w/ China refusing our recyclable waste a couple yrs ago?

Yes

Not to my wife. Not for 32 years of sorting stuff, washing stuff, even taking apart the Keurig used pods to get plastics to the recycling. I have no heart to share the truth with a woman as principled and diligent as her.

My ex was...probably still is a fanatic about recycling and every other aspect of environmentalism. To a degree, that's admirable, to her obsession about it, it and other factors were definite reasons for divorce.

Yes , no where near as effective as we are lead to believe .

"What ticks me off is the 5 or 10-cent bottle and can deposits."



The real purpose of that fee is to get people to drop that stuff off so it can be disposed of somewhat properly instead of pitched out along the road.
Another benefit is for those items improperly thrown out, the bums will go along in some areas and pick them up for the deposit money and that cleans it up for free.

I had a discussion, maybe 10 years ago, with the person in charge of trash and recycling where I lived. In short cans and appliances are in demand enough that the city actually benefited. Cardboard, when it was "high" could be given and trucked a longer distance at the city's expense, to a paper mill in MD rather than trucked a shorter distance to a landfill. Most of the time though the mill wouldn't even take it. The mill is now shut down anyway. Plastic and glass always simply went to the landfill. The money made from the cans and appliances didn't begin to cover the handling of cardboard, plastic and glass, much less the transport to the landfill and dump fees.
One thing I wonder is why not standardize on bottle and jar sizes are reuse them? If not that use the pulverized glass in asphalt, concrete, etc rather than dumping it in landfills.

My pet peeve is plastic garbage bags. People put their paper, plastic, and other waste IN A Plastic Bag then the bag in a can to be picked up. Hell I even see people filling plastic bags up with leaves and grass clippings to be taken to the landfill. We could eliminate most of the plastic garbage bags.

quote:

Originally posted by steve495:
What ticks me off is the 5 or 10-cent bottle and can deposits.

I've got this big blue container for recyclables, but I have to take these cans and bottles to a gross, maggot-infested breeding ground for viruses and bacteria to slide them into a machine one at a time to get my nickel back?

Fox Tango. I'll not be doing that.

Oh, I know WHY the stupid can and bottle deposits still exist after the introduction of the big blue containers ... just follow the money.

That sounds annoying. In Kommiefornia, you can recycle your bottles and just lose the “redemption”, or you can take them in bulk to a place that pays you by the pound. Of course you don’t get anything like your “deposit” back. Heck, your probably lucky if you get enough to pay for your gas getting there. Sigh…

Yes it is.

They should be burning all the cardboard in energy plants…doesn’t matter if it’s covered in pizza grease or not.

They should do away with plastic bottles and bags you get at the grocery store and return to glass soda bottles and paper bags…….both infinity recyclable.

And all the plastics out there now can be melted into park benches and what nots

The only recycling that works is aluminum because you can turn a buck doing it.