recycling: yay or nay?

[Nice Guy Eddie 13728]

2 hours ago, DougO said:

I think recycling is a very good thing, but for the most part it is done ineffectively and even counter-productive. Especially if it's performed by any type of governement.

Those recycling collection trucks lose about half the stuff they pick up while loading and hauling. I followed one of those trucks one day and it was just flinging crap all over the neighborhood for miles. And that's after half the stuff that's put out on the curb in the cans has been blown out by winds. And all that time a shitload of fumes is being belched out by those bigass trucks hauling it all over town. It's basically just redistribution of trash. At least the bagged up garbage ends up mostly in the dump. Not so much for recycle pickups.

If the trucks are truly dumping half of the bins onto the streets that is a problem that can be solved.  I don’t see that in Houston.

[DougO 5264]

12 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

If the trucks are truly dumping half of the bins onto the streets that is a problem that can be solved.  I don’t see that in Houston.

 

If you don't see it, it's likely because you haven't really looked or noticed. You've just taken for granted that the stuff is getting picked up and disappearing to a nice place.

Sure, it's fixable, but not without a complete and total redesign of recycling bins and recycling trucks. Are old recycling bins even recyclable?

And even the recycle stuff that finally makes it to the proper recycling center, a great amount of it just gets tossed in a dump.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/29/climate/recycling-landfills-plastic-papers.html

 

Fact of the matter is, municipal recycling is more about producing a good feeling than it is achieving actual recycling and benefit to the environment. At the same time, it replaces another day of garbage pickup so that trash has more time to sit at the curb and get knocked over, or rot in people's houses and cause all sorts of health and safety hazards.

Edited December 30, 2018 by DougO

[Ten Bears 2500]

So you are trying to tell us that there is recycling waste scattered all over the yards and curbs and shoulders of the roads where you live?

What part of Alabama?

[Texaskimo 135]

What shitty trucks and bins is your shitty waste company using, DougO? Mine uses trash and recycle bins that are on wheels and have an attached cover, and I've never seen any garbage or recycling falling out of the trucks as they drive around. As far as garbage sitting on the curb getting knocked over or sitting in the house as a health hazard because they switched a garbage pickup day to recycling pickup... the bins are on wheels and have a cover, so my bagged trash is sitting in the bin with the cover on in my garage until the morning they do the pick up, at which point I wheel it out to the curb. Losing a pickup day is a complete non-issue. All the problems you seem to have with your waste company are trivially easy to solve.

[Lat22 4086]

Nope. 

[ernest_t_bass 1196]

I live in the country, so I burn what I can.

[MrPhlegm 3413]

Recycling became a thing in the 90s. It’s still in its infancy. Culturally and technologically. It will be better in 50 years. 

90s? Lulz. Fucking whippersnapper you dont know shit.

Humans been recycling for 10s of thousands of years.

Gaia been recycling for billions of years.

Subduction and sedementation motherfucker do you speak it.

[MrPhlegm 3413]

Started recycling when I met my wife.  She's really big on it.  I never really cared but I've really come around to it.  We have two trash cans built in our kitchen cabinets now.  Takes minimal effort to recycle.  When we used to live in our old complex, I'd have to drive my car full of trash to the nearest recycling dumpster at a nearby neighborhood.   Texas is much further behind as far as recycling goes.  I hope people here make a bigger effort.  

Oh lord the stupid is off the charts in this one. Texas is at the forefront of recycling. Permian basin, motherfucker do you speak it?

Gaia recycled all those hydrocarbons and Texas is using them. Recycling fuck yeah!

[MrPhlegm 3413]

pet peeve: boss likes to toss non-recyclables into the boxes we use for paper recycling (i dump those things into a recycling dumpster myself - building doesn't offer recycling).  always on him about greasy paper, plastic film, and receipts. 

No such thing as non recyclables. Gaia recycles EVERYTHING.

[MrPhlegm 3413]

I am a pretty fanatical reduce / reuse / recycle person. However, I also agree that most of it likely does not good but feeds the emotional outrage of the masses. But I still do it even if it all ends up in the landfill and try to beat it into my kids.

You seem stupid. You have been reported to cps.

[MrPhlegm 3413]

When we lived in ATX, my wife and I and two kids were able to reduce our trash from using the largest waste container the COA offered to the smallest.  Every two weeks our recycling bin was full and we were able to compost plenty. 
 
I felt good about it.  but then id see my neighbors who wouldn't use their recycling bin at all.  It would piss me off.
 
We still recycle religiously and if we had a bigger place we would compost because we waste way too much food, unfortunately.
 
I try not to think about the people who don't care about the environment and focus on the stories of those people who do.  
 

No such thing as food waste. Something in nature will eat it.

[MrPhlegm 3413]

We’ve been recycling since the late 80s, but two of my daughters have suddenly become experts on the ecology of recycling.
For instance, on our last trip to the grocery store, we forgot to bring our reusable bags. My vegan daughter expressed her disappointment, so I took an empty 3 quart jug of her almond milk and weighed it on our kitchen scale. It was 117 grams. Then I weighed all 15 of the plastic grocery bags, and it came to 84 grams. Knowing that much of the plastic never gets recycled, her disappointment turned to temporary disillusionment. 

Almond milk is posion. It is not allowed in our home.

[MrPhlegm 3413]

I live in the country, so I burn what I can.

Good for you. The trees and plants love the life giving co2 that you free up while burning not to mention all freed up micronutrients.

[Onionhead 14]

Yay for the most part

[52-80 19377]

The municipal entities owe it to people to create educational campaigns about how their garbage disposal works

Edited December 31, 2018 by 52-80

[Post Oak 20560]

On 12/31/2018 at 12:26 PM, 52-80 said:

The municipal entities owe it to people to create educational campaigns about how their garbage disposal works

This is a great point.