Single stream recycling.

Trade

Trade

Well-known Member
We no longer have to separate our stuff for recycling. So this morning I took our all our stuff, plastic bottles, cardboard, tin cans, and glass jars, to the recycling place and dumped it in the dumpster like container they have. And I gotta say, it looked like garbage to me. And then they have this compactor in there that crams it all together. Is this really doing any good? How does this stuff get separtaed out and recycled? Or is this all just a scam designed to make us feel good when in reality the stuff just gets dumped at the landfill with the rest of the garbage?
 

Trade said:
We no longer have to separate our stuff for recycling. So this morning I took our all our stuff, plastic bottles, cardboard, tin cans, and glass jars, to the recycling place and dumped it in the dumpster like container they have. And I gotta say, it looked like garbage to me. And then they have this compactor in there that crams it all together. Is this really doing any good? How does this stuff get separtaed out and recycled? Or is this all just a scam designed to make us feel good when in reality the stuff just gets dumped at the landfill with the rest of the garbage?
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I hear that is what is happening locally here in Houston. :oops:
 

Many people refuse to bother recycling because they believe it's all a con. They might be right, I don't know. I do think that our rubbish is an untapped resource. Imagine if every home had a machine which burned our refuse and used it to create electricity. Has anyone thought of actually doing that?
 
Rosemarie said:
Imagine if every home had a machine which burned our refuse and used it to create electricity. Has anyone thought of actually doing that?
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It's been thought of
Back in the '90s
It was on the table for awhile in a think tank I was involved with
Not sure what happened, but some hotter items came across that table at the same time

Seems I read somewhere that the Japanese have zero garbage

Interesting

I did visit a huge recycling place in Oregon City
It was once just a pit
So, I imagine it's not all just a con
Prolly some filtered incinerating...stuff like that
 
I've seen videos of our local operation. There are machines that pick out some material like steel cans and do some sorting. Then it travels down a conveyor where people pull items off. Clean paper and cardboard, aluminum cans and bottles get pulled, but most of it goes to the dump. I wouldn't want that job.

Our trash company sent a letter saying "When in doubt, toss it out." They don't want greasy stuff or plastic bags.

There are strict laws in Japan about recycling, and stiff fines if you break the rules.

Recyclables are getting hard to get rid of. China won't take ours anymore, and it's of little value.

Don
 
I know it isn't recycling, but on the subject of rubbish...I think 'disposable' nappies was one of the worst ideas someone came up with. How many of those disgusting items are filling the holes in the earth, because mothers can't be bothered to launder 'proper' nappies.
 
I saw a feature on the news about this several months ago. We used to send our recycling to China to be sorted (not sure why) and sent out for the actual re-use. China stopped accepting our stuff because there was too much non recyclable stuff mixed in, and it would contaminate the whole batch.
Also, It has reached a point where the recycle centers bring the stuff right to the dump as there is more that can be ever used to make goods out of the materials. Not enough manufacturers are using recycled materials in their products. One thing I read from another source was that right now, the only thing that consistently gets re-used in in manufacturing is the cardboard we recycle. So, there are times when all I will recycle now a days is my cardboard. I just spent an hours the other day cutting down cardboard boxes (Yes, I am keeping Amazon in business) and filled both my recycle bins PLUS a third plastic bin.
 
Recycling is becoming less and less a priority anymore.....as corporations, etc., are finding it almost cheaper to start with raw materials, rather than going through the expense of sorting and reusing. Eventually, human consumption is going to create some serious problems with pollution, etc. The world's oceans and water supplies are already seeing the beginnings of this. In some of the poorer 3rd world nations, people are already living in what we would consider a trash heap.
 

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