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Loias calls you out if you can't RTFA
January 20, 2010 5:02 PM
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Now if I could only convince my HOA to provide recycling in our community.

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jimcarm
January 21, 2010 12:49 PM
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Recycling costs the city money to implement and run. That being said a HOA may have to pay for recycling . This can add thousands of $$ to their yearly budget which will raise your condo fee.

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Papercutninja
January 21, 2010 9:45 AM
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Well that would mean that the HOA would actually do something instead of telling Mrs. Doherty that she has to take down her Christmas lights or be fined.

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dreamsneverend
January 20, 2010 5:05 PM
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Here in Tampa even if you don't sort your stuff it still gets separated before it goes into a landfill.. I always saw recycling programs as free labor you do for your city.

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NatalieErin
January 20, 2010 6:52 PM
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In Minneapolis you get a credit on your bill for recycling, although it is a flat rate.

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john
January 20, 2010 6:09 PM
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It really isn't free labor for the city. You are paying for the privilege of sorting the trash for them. The only thing I recycle is aluminum because it pays me. The rest just benefits corporations.

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GearheadGeek
January 20, 2010 8:13 PM
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My city has \"single-stream\" recycling, we just have a big recycling bin for each house and a fairly long list of things that are OK to put in the recycling bin. There are 2 sizes of trash bin, and the smaller one costs less per month than the big one. Using the recycling bin allows us to use the smaller waste bin and save money, and sorting the recycling out as we toss things (we have 2 trash bins in the kitchen) allows us to sort it without any real effort. So, while the city benefits in reduced landfill usage, we benefit in smaller monthly fees AND get the warm-fuzzy-smugness for being more eco-friendly.

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Conformist138
January 21, 2010 8:25 AM
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Totally, Portland has that, too. Glass is the only thing that goes in a special bin, all other recyclables go in a giant blue rolling can. It's amazing, but it seems damn near everything that isn't totally nasty can be recycled. We have a small trash can for 4 adults because so much of what we put at the curb is recycling. It's not hard, saves us money (not getting a larger can), and saves landfill space. Now, there's even a possibility that the proceeds from bottle deposits will be collected by the state to help with the recession (why we were just giving it to the beverage distributors is kinda beyond me since it's tens-of-millions of dollars per year).

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athmsVT
January 20, 2010 6:45 PM
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I agree with you on the fact that the tangible benefits you directly see from recycling are small.

If your local government collects or authorizes the collection of recyclables, they are the recipients of the revenue generated. That revenue can be used to reduce taxes.

If your trash company collects your trash and recyclables, you monthly payment is subsidized by the revenue generated for the recyclables.

In Fairfax, VA, the company that collects your trash is required to collect recyclables. One of the companies in the county weighs recyclables and reduces your bill according to how much you recycle. You directly benefit from the amount you recycle. They use single stream recycling, so you do not get more money for certain materials. Some recyclable materials cost the company to dispose of because of the current market, but the cost is less than placing the materials in the landfill.

It is no harder to separate your recyclables from non-recyclables, and the intangibles from the consumer point of view are what really make recycling worth while. In the time you had to walk to your trashcan anyway, you have already made the distinction of where to place the item. The reduced size of landfills, reduced carbon footprints, and reduced reliance on the production of increasingly finite raw materials are just some of the reasons we should all be recycling. As the price of raw materials goes up, the greater the impact recycling will have on the price consumers pay.

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pantheonoutcast
January 20, 2010 6:45 PM
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Yes, unquestioningly recycling everything adequately prepares them for a lifetime of ideological indoctrination by corrupt government officials paid for by uninformed, special interest lobbyists. Good luck, future generations!

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HogwartsProfessor
January 20, 2010 5:08 PM
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LOL! Eerie. I was JUST reading this elsewhere and clicked back over and there it was!

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MaytagRepairman
January 20, 2010 5:45 PM
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When you flatten a cardboard shipping box to put into the recycling bin do you try to remove the adhesive tape and labels?

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athmsVT
January 20, 2010 6:54 PM
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That is generally not required, but I often do it. You can generally throw envelopes away with the plastic in them. When the paper is recycled, it is dissolved at which point contaminants such as staples and plastic are able to be removed.

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tbiscuit360
January 20, 2010 5:45 PM
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Or you could not just recycle 99% of things. Most people are not aware that it is worse for the environment to recycle due to the extra processing that has to go into recycling. It actually does not save resources at all. That oil \"lost\" by throwing out plastic is being used to transport the plastic away from the recycling center and to the processor to process, etc. The things that people say we are \"running out of\" are actually growing. Moreover, it is just a waste of tax dollars.

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PsiCop
January 20, 2010 11:58 PM
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You're correct. As Penn & Teller explained several years ago, recycling is \"bulls%@$.\" (See the episode for yourself.)

The (relatively) good news for me, as a resident of a town covered by CT state agency CRRA, is that our non-recycled trash does not go as such into a landfill. It's used as fuel in a trash-to-energy plant. Only the ashes are placed in a landfill.

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athmsVT
January 20, 2010 7:25 PM
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The more proliferated recycling becomes, the more recycled material you have per area. Allowing for recycling plants to be built in close proximity to collection. Ethanol works in some places, not so well in others. The difference in recycling has been the general lack of participation, meaning it makes little sense to build plants local enough. As you can harvest recyclable materials where you consume them, it means you have a local market to sell your processed recyclable material. With ethanol in the US you can have local production, but markets are far away.

In the current market, some materials require collectors pay to dispose of them. That said, it is usually still cheaper for to pay someone to take the material off your hands who will then reuse/recycle the materials than place the item in a landfill. As the price of placing item in landfill vs paying someone to recycle it are tied to real cost items like land and oil, it generally speaks to the fact recycling makes sense in the worst of times.

It is premium content, but a little more updated and fact backed analysis than that other bull at the economist:
http://www.economist.com/search/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9249262

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kooly
January 20, 2010 6:18 PM
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I hate recycling items that need to be washed first like ketchup bottles - wastes too much water.

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bishophicks
January 20, 2010 9:23 PM
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Ketchup, mustard, jelly and peanut butter jars and bottles can be cleaned out easily using about 4 ounces of HOT water. I heat it in the microwave until almost boiling, pour it into the jar I want to clean, shake it a bit and pour it out.

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Raekwon
January 20, 2010 6:13 PM
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This was an interesting read on the subject (it is the last topic) http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4128

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Admiral Byrd
January 20, 2010 6:03 PM
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That, and there's unlimted landfill space. Wait- no there isn't.

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ChuckECheese
January 20, 2010 8:17 PM
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Just build the trashpiles higher. There aren't any as big as Everest yet, not even close.

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NatalieErin
January 20, 2010 7:01 PM
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Although I do recycle, I feel it's important to point out that not every municipality uses landfills. Here in Minneapolis we incinerate our trash, and generate electricity from the incinerator. That does make it exceptionally important to not throw out certain things, though, like CFLs - the mercury in the bulbs needs to be disposed of properly, not vaporized.

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lchen
January 21, 2010 4:44 AM
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Unless they screen out all plastics from incineration there will be still hazardous chemicals that will be released.

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AirIntake
January 20, 2010 6:36 PM
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From the episode, a 35mile*35mile*200ft tall landfill will hold 1000 years worth of America's garbage at current yearly rates. So no, we are absolutely NOT running out of space.

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Admiral Byrd
January 20, 2010 7:03 PM
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Amazing. And where is this 35 mile by 35 mile landfill? I mean, since nobody would object to living that close to that much garbage, it could be anywhere, really. I would love to have over 1,000 square miles of the beautiful countryside where I live cut down and converted into a giagantic landfill. Or, if we wanted it out of the way, we could just pay extra to ship it somewhere else where we can't see it? That would be cheap.

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mmmsoap
January 21, 2010 12:25 PM
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I would love to have over 1,000 square miles of the beautiful countryside where I live cut down and converted into a giagantic landfill.
Don't forget, it gets to be 20 stories high too! (Even better!)
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gStein_*|bringing starpipe back|*
January 21, 2010 1:45 AM
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but that then gets into what someone above complained about, transportation costs.
also, where are you going to find 1225 square miles to make a 200-foot pile of trash?

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catastrophegirl chooses not to fly
January 20, 2010 6:53 PM
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depends on where you want it. my county is currently preparing our former landfill for use as a playground next to a new [upcoming] school. it closed about a year and a half ago.
they only kept it open THAT long because the thought of a new landfill was very much a N.I.M.B.Y topic

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AirIntake
January 20, 2010 6:18 PM
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Are you saying the world is out of space? Some areas yes, but overall, not even close. You should watch that episode of Penn & Teller's Bullshit. Here you go. http://www.milkandcookies.com/link/92358/detail/

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Michael Belisle
January 20, 2010 11:29 PM
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Or you can just read the 1996 NY Times article Recycling is Garbage, which covers about 98% of what Penn & Teller cover with a much smaller time commitment. The problem with Penn & Teller is that the economics and realities of recycling in 2010 are not the same as they were in 1996. They don't even attempt to update the conclusion or research beyond what Tierney said.

In New York, for example, recycling almost becoming economical. One of the greatest current limitations is simply a lack of participation: if more people would recycle, crews would spend less time driving around picking up nothing.

It's all but assured that in major city centers, at least, eventually recycling will become more economical than landfilling.

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Admiral Byrd
January 20, 2010 7:11 PM
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Depends on what you define as \"space\". I can tell right now that you and I don't agree on that definition.

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pantheonoutcast
January 20, 2010 7:50 PM
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Length, width and height. It's pretty standard. We've got plenty of it.

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jamar0303
January 21, 2010 12:33 PM
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Now it's just a matter of getting people to let you use it. Who wants waste dumped anywhere near their homes?

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AirIntake
January 20, 2010 6:09 PM
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Penn & Teller's Bullshit or the criticism and efficiency section of Wikipedia's recycling article should get you started.

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myrna_minkoff
January 20, 2010 9:11 PM
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Well, I can hardly think of more reputable scientific sources than two semi-has-been magicians and a free user-generated Web site.

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pantheonoutcast
January 21, 2010 8:04 AM
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They're a lot more reputable than a bunch of misguided hippies who have been collectively fooled into perusing a worthless endeavor.

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AirIntake
January 20, 2010 5:51 PM
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Yup, the only thing that makes actually sense (energy use and balance wise) is aluminum cans and some types of paper. Recycling in general is worse on the environment than making something new. But hippies won't believe you.

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Michael Belisle
January 21, 2010 12:04 AM
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It's a huge leap from \"recycling x doesn't make sense now\" to \"recycling x will never make sense.\" There have been times in the last 100 years (1950-1960, for example) when aluminum recycling didn't make economic sense.

So to consider plastics, most plastics recycling doesn't make economic sense right now. But does that mean it the issues that make plastic recycling more expensive will never be resolved? Should we just quit now striving to recycle plastics now, because there will be a limitless and cheap supply of oil to satisfy demand for plastics forever until eternity?

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veg-o-matic
January 20, 2010 6:59 PM
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Good god. We get it.

You hate recycling and want to cram the Earth's crust with your old juice boxes and ipods.
Point made, dude.

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AirIntake
January 20, 2010 5:49 PM
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Throw it in the garbage? Seriously, if you have to think about it, then your local government has set up a recycling program that is too complicated.

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catastrophegirl chooses not to fly
January 20, 2010 5:58 PM
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here, if it isn't supposed to get recycled the waste management folks leave it in the bin. or at my sister's house they throw it into the middle of the lawn

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catastrophegirl chooses not to fly
January 20, 2010 6:06 PM
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oh, and the tip above about \"Plastics marked No. 1 or No. 2 are virtually guaranteed to be accepted\"
yeah, here they only take bottle shaped plastics.

\"All plastic bottles and soft plastic beverage rings can be recycled in the City's programs. Plastic BOTTLES should be rinsed lightly. To help save space, please crush the bottles, before putting them in the recycling bin. Plastic bottles are the only plastic containers the City collects for recycling. A bottle is defined as having a \"neck\" that is narrower than its base and usually has a screw on type lid. Items such as plastic yogurt cups, margarine tubs, food service trays and flower pots, cannot be recycled through our recycling programs.\"

\"Why can't we recycle ALL plastic containers? Why just BOTTLES?
    Even though a bottle (soda, shampoo, water) and non-bottle shaped plastic (yogurt, margarine, deli tray) product may have the same \"number\" or resin code (#1-7) on it, there are NOT the same. The non-bottle shaped product has had a chemical added to it that makes it melt at a much higher temperature. There are no markets to sell non-bottle shaped plastics to in the southeast. It is cost prohibitive to warehouse and transport non-bottle shaped plastic to the west coast where there are most markets, most of which are shipped to China. When a stable market develops in the southeast we will add non-bottle shaped plastic to our program.\"

so yeah, always check with the local regulations

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katstermonster
January 21, 2010 11:12 AM
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Same here. In my parents' town, the neck of the item has to be smaller than its base, or some other bizarre qualification.

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Admiral Byrd
January 20, 2010 6:01 PM
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It saddens me that the cities in my area have to emphasize that used diapers cannot be recycled. Because that means that there is a large population out there that thinks that it is somehow possible to recycle that thing that their kid just shat all over.

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yagisencho
January 20, 2010 7:37 PM
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Recycle diapers? Sure - just turn them inside out and shake the crap out of them!

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CyGuy
January 20, 2010 6:30 PM
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glass bottles and metal cans are pretty universally accepted as well, I don't know why Slate has left those off the list.

The questionable items that you really should verify before recycling are:
Plastics other than 1 & 2
aerosol cans
milk cartons (and aseptic beverage containers like juice boxes)
pizza boxes
Styrofoam

things that most places do not want you to recycle:
batteries
other electronics
paper that has food on it
light bulbs
mirrors and other plate glass
autoparts

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Kevin411
January 21, 2010 12:35 AM
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I was also wondering where metals and glass were on the list. Steel (\"tin\") cans, aluminum cans and most glass (the kind you buy for what is inside it, not the kinds you buy to have the glass). This is a much too localized issue for a national site's discussion. My town's recycling center wants ALL grades of plastic except styrofoam. 1 and 2 are recycled normally (and locally). The other grades are ground into chips and infused with recycled melted plastics as filler for non-critical containers such as recycling bins, landscape items, flower pots and stepping stones. They take all papers as long as they are dry and oil-free. All types of metal except Stainless steel is accepted. It's all co-mingled and machine-sorted. I've toured the plant and it's an ingenious process!

Light bulbs, batteries, engine oil, car parts, etc. can usually be recycled somewhere in your community if not at the main recycling center.

Anyway, my point is still that every town is different, so don't trust most \"rules of thumb\" except the main one: Know when you throw (learn your community guidelines), and when in doubt toss it out.

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NatalieErin
January 20, 2010 7:04 PM
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I thought most places did want you to recycle batteries, since the contents are problematic? When I was a kid we used to drop them off at the grocery store (huge bin of used batteries) and now they accept them in a plastic bag set on top of the trash container.

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catastrophegirl chooses not to fly
January 20, 2010 7:29 PM
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my county has a special hazardous drop off for batteries/paint/etc. they don't recycle them but they dispose of them in some way that doesn't involve being put directly into a landfill

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CyGuy
January 20, 2010 6:34 PM
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BTW, is anyone else having problems posting comments from FireFox? I tried four times before giving up trying from IE.

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cerbie_the_orphan
January 20, 2010 7:04 PM
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It happens often, and it's server-side, not your browser. Epiphany and Opera have the same problem(s) at the same time(s).

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MaytagRepairman
January 20, 2010 6:49 PM
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I think it was a temporary hiccup. For a while I couldn't post in either Chrome or IE.

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cerbie_the_orphan
January 20, 2010 6:58 PM
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\"The best solution is to print out a copy of your city's approved items...\"
\"If in doubt, throw it out.\"

...and there are people who wonder why recycling isn't commonplace.

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RvLeshrac
January 20, 2010 7:26 PM
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Here's what should be recycled: Metal. Glass.

Everything else should be thrown away.

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morlo
January 20, 2010 8:16 PM
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Those items can be collected from an incinerator. Bonus is that they can be separated by melting point

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yagisencho
January 20, 2010 7:32 PM
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I asked recycle booth representatives from Waste Management at two separate events which plastics (as in, labeled with which numbers) they accept for recycling. On both occasions, the reps looked at me as if they didn't understand the question. Pressed on the issue though, they said, \"Any plastic that has the recycle symbol on it.\"

So I don't pay attention to the number any more, I just look for the symbol. I hope they were right. I can only assume so, since their website doesn't spell it out, and I haven't received any nastygrams from their office.

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GildaKorn
January 20, 2010 9:04 PM
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Seattle's recycling is way more complicated than that. There's a very limited list of plastic items that they claim can be recycled. The numbers don't matter at all here.

But in any case the official \"when in doubt throw it out\" motto seems like an easy way to get out of any fines.

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Admiral Byrd
January 20, 2010 7:53 PM
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From what I understand, plastics that don't make the list of things to be recycled are in that status because they aren't lucrative enough.

Plastic sacks are bad though: F- up the sorters.

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nitroburn
January 20, 2010 8:09 PM
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All we have to do here in the GVRD of BC is look at the side of the recycling bin. It is written right on the side of it.

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Rain
January 20, 2010 8:40 PM
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I'm in the suburbs of Vancouver and it's not written on my box. That would be awesome though.

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ChuckECheese
January 20, 2010 8:13 PM
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There are a few compulsive pan-recyclers in my life, people who think that everything has recycling potential, including plastic trash bags, shiny cardboard, milk cartons, tetra-paks, wax paper and used plastic wrap and foil.

And I try to explain that their unwillingness to recycle only those things the city can recycle actually increases costs and the likelihood that the city will give up the recycling program because it isn't feasible. It often seems to me that recycling is another way to say OCD.

I have an agreement with my current roommate that we do not go through the trash looking for things the other may have overlooked recycling. Leave my trash alone.

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xrmb
January 20, 2010 8:51 PM
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I recently got my new recycling pickup schedule, which had a list what not to recycle...

pizza boxes
yogurt cups
bags of plastic bags

...sad, ok the pizza box might recycle itself, but the other stuff will be around for a while.

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JonBoy470
January 20, 2010 11:34 PM
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There are certainly \"economy of scale\" issues in doing recycling, both in the required sorting and collection. Metal recylcing (most notably steel and aluminum) is very well established and effective for two reasons: the recycled product is actually cheaper than virgin metal. Also, metals experience no degradation from recycling. You crush a car, reclaim the steel, and use the steel to make new cars. Same thing for aluminum.

Unfortunately, organic materials (paper, plastics, rubber, textiles, and so forth) are, given current technology, virtually impossible to recycle into the same product. The end product is invariably lower grade than the source material. Soda bottles get turned into detergent bottles, detergent bottles become park benches, and so on. Some products (tires come to mind) are such a soup of variable, incompatible and unknown materials that they are impossible to recycle at all.

Ultimately, small-scale trash to energy solutions (See http://www.istenergy.com/ http://www.vegewatt.com) could allow disposal of organic waste in a highly localized and convenient manner, recovering the energy from the material.

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PsiCop
January 21, 2010 12:18 AM
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Speaking of recycling ... our town was part of a refuse district (RRDD1) which had an active recycling program in 1972. Before most of the US even knew what recycling was, we were doing it. And it was elaborate.

At first, only metal and glass were recycled. Glass had to be washed, labels removed, and sorted by color (green, brown, clear); plate glass (e.g. windows) had to be kept intact, if possible, and stacked separately from the rest. Cans had to be washed, labels removed. Shortly after this they started recycling cardboard ... corrugated only, not \"shirtboard\" or thin cardboard. It had to be clean and neatly broken down. Then they started taking newspaper ... which had to be stacked neatly in brown paper bags (not in twine, tape, or plastic bags).

Things like yard waste, fallen trees, Christmas trees, raked leaves etc. had to be brought to a separate area, where they were stacked up and, I assume, mulched. Leaves could not be in any kind of bag ... you had to dump them directly.

These rules were not issued lightly and were not allowed to be broken. The district hired people to police the place, and were required to make sure all the rules were followed to the letter and that no recyclables went into the trash. For a while they were writing tickets ranging from $10-50, but had to stop when they were told they had no statutory authority to do so.

While it was horribly annoying to deal with all these rules, they had an important effect: All of the recyclable stuff they were collecting ... all nice and clean, with labels removed, glass sorted by color, etc. ... was sold to finance the RRDD's operation. For most of the 70s and the 80s, no property taxes were required to fund the operation. It basically paid for itself.

Then the brilliant minds in Hartford decided that our landfill was a \"model\" to be emulated by the rest of Connecticut. In 1991 they mandated recycling in all of CT's municipalities. Towns everywhere leapt at the chance to finance their own refuse operations as we had.

But they forgot something ... a very important something known as the Law of Supply and Demand. Our refuse district had been able to sell all that stuff for good money, because quite frankly, there weren't that many places doing so. But as of 1991 an entire state began flooding the \"recyclables\" market with stuff. And guess what? Their value plummeted, to nothing.

We went from having a self-financed landfill, to having to pay for one. All because the state government decided it would be profitable for everyone in CT to recycle. Trouble is, there's no profit in an entire state doing so ... just in a few towns doing it.

Once again, stupid people doing stupid things, in the name of a noble cause that may, in fact, not turn out to be as noble as they think, but because of the nobility of said cause, none of said stupid people will admit how utterly stupid they'd been.

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ClutchDude
January 21, 2010 10:05 AM
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Interesting but makes sense. Without subsidizing, how the heck is there going to be a viable market for using recycling material when the supply is so glutted?

Should there even be a market for this stuff or instead just stockpiling.....hmm...it begs the question: in terms of environmental and economical costs: is it cheaper to just throw the thing away rather than invest the energy to sort, clean and process recyclable stuff?

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PsiCop
January 21, 2010 10:21 AM
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Our refuse district is now part of a state agency called CRRA, which operates a trash-to-energy plant. Anything that's not recycled, they burn. They only need to dump the resulting ash ... not the waste itself ... into a landfill. They then sell the electricity generated to the power company (CL&P). What they make from that isn't enough to pay the bills for the entire CRRA operation, but it does provide an offset nonetheless. And it's much better than putting all of that waste into the landfill.

As far as I'm concerned, that's probably as economical as any recycling scheme.

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JonBoy470
January 21, 2010 9:27 AM
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What's going to end up happening, eventually, is that recycling will be the only viable way to obtain certain materials, as the virgin sources will have become... uneconomical to exploit, if not completely non-existent. Don't be surprised if our grandkids resort to surface mining of our landfills to obtain these materials.

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Covertghost
January 21, 2010 9:49 AM
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I love my city's recycling program.

Pretty much everything is recycled that can be (you can get a ticket if you throw away empty plastic bags)

You don't have to split or sort anything, tear off labels, etc.

Cardboard, paper, glass, metal, plastic, you name it all goes into one bin.

In turn, pretty much everyone here recycles because it's not at all a pain in the ass.

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_hi_
January 21, 2010 10:08 AM
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I didn't read the article. Did they mention call 311?

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nickster
January 21, 2010 3:36 PM
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I saw on a commercial once that you should remove the cap from a bottle and throw it out and just recycle the bottle. Is there any truth to this that the caps are garbage anyway?

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JonBoy470
January 21, 2010 9:43 PM
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The cap is made of a different kind of plastic than the bottle itself. Thus, in recycling streams where different plastics must be separated, the cap has to come off.

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