The best-laid plans of Democrats and liberals often go astray.
What's the problem ?
I’m tired of being an unpaid trash sorter to make others feel good about themselves.
The religion of recycling is not what it seems, lol.
The last I heard the same was true of paper- the demand is very low so much of that set aside for recycling is sent to the landfill anyway.
PBS had this covered 25 years ago when they traced plastic that was ‘recycled’ by Americans going to Taiwan on huge ships, where it was burned for fuel.
This is NOTHING NEW.
I have been told by a knowledgeable engineer that all our trash powers a large power generating plant 1 county over. Yet we have to ‘play’ with our garbage. Which I don’t do. We’re allowed to use black opaque bags. Which I use.
Some years back our local paper published a story revealing that the volume of recyclables trucked to the county recycling facility exceeded the capacity of the facility.
So a good portion of the recyclables are then re-trucked from the recycling facility to the solid waste facility and end up buried in the county land fill.
But the county government was still spending money promoting increased residential recycling.
I have always steadfastly refused to recycle.
It is against my principles to give away raw materials for free.
not much recycleing happens here despite the fancy transfer station.
The self righteous dutifully wash out their mikl container. and hand in their bottles and cans.
all of it goes to the burner, but lefties don’t want to face that truth.
Also forcing people to do the will of the state in small matters in their lives makes it easier to make them do more and more... think about it
when gas prices are low cardboard gets recycled
otherwise it is metal and electronics.
nothing else.
So residents are charged more to pay for separate pickup of "recyclables", they waste hot water washing out plastic containers, sort them out to the proper bins, then it all ends up in the same place at the dump.
The recycling company wins with a fat city contract. The city wins with higher collection fees. Well, two out of three ain't bad.
We “casually” recycle. We have a separate bin, which we pay extra for from our collection company.
We are going to quit, though.... after noticing that BOTH bins go in the same truck in the same way.
A lot of “recycling” programs are just eco-scams.
“Still, across much of the United States, including most major cities, recycling is continuing as usual.”
The article is wrong on that statement and how it is wrong also means the article’s focus on mainly China as the cause of the recycling problem misses what is really wrong, and not merely in the U.S. Pacific Northwest - OVER SUPPLY of goods put out for recycling that in many places now exceed what the end-users of the material can use.
Collectors and distributors of goods disposed of for recycling are finding they cannot get as much for the goods because supply is so much the buyers of the material won’t pay what they use to. Some municipalities are facing higher recycling charges needed to keep their recycling process in business. Even then, expect more landfill dumping of goods put out for recycling.
The good thing of recycling is being done more than ever now, and done so much that many more buyers of the material cannot use all collectors can deliver. They won’t pay the collectors what they use to, so the revenue vs profit margins of the collectors is shrinking, and to some the recycling has become not worth it. Cheaper to not do it at all, no extra loads to pick up on different days, pretending you’ll get your monies worth selling it - just take it to the landfill with the regular garbage.
Nowadays, on each "garbage day" TWO garbage trucks come polluting through our neighborhood, one for garbage, and one for recycling. Those neighbors who actually pay extra for this "privilege" park TWO garbage cans in front of their houses, one proudly colored green. The reason for this extra payment is, of course, that the cost to society for this far exceeds the value, so the true believers must pay.
I simply feel sorry for those in a municipality who get this for "free", often have no knowledge of the true cost.
A friend gave me a home burned DVD of the Penn and Teller BS episode on Recycling.
I was a Seattle area strident recycler until I watched that and did some follow up research. I’ve not recycled since. Done.
If I went through a lot of aluminum cans, I would recycle those, but I don’t, so I don’t.
I’m of the opinion that the manufacturers should go back to a biodegradable and glass . I am a little older and saw plastics work it’s way into the system . Don’t get me wrong their are excellent uses for plastics/bubble packs and the litany of other products , but I always look at items as to what I can use it for so as not to have a mountain of trash . Incinerate all trash and generate electrical power as many plants do across the nation and having landfills is not a bad thing ....just need to keep an eye on what you dump . So just go back to glass which is always worth recycling and metal tins for cans etc...the non-biodegradable (or the ones that take awhile) packages are what needs to be avoided . I even get my meats wrapped in paper IMAGINE that?
What is this ‘recycling’ thing y’all are speaking of? Is it the same as I do with my burn barrels once or twice a week?
Aluminum and steel cans probably get recycled as does some paper and cardboard, but glass in many areas probably doesn’t and plastics are also doubtful. I have greatly reduced my waste by not subscribing to any liberal ragsheet newspapers or magazines.
And this is relatively old news too. China has been rejecting our plastics for quite a while - at least three years now.