How much time do you spend?

[Nicfin36]

I recycle what "gets recycled", aluminum and metal cans. The rest goes to directly in the garbage saving the recycling company the effort of separating it out themselves to take to the landfill. My question is why does glass have to go to the landfill? It's sand and other similar material if nothing else they can grind it up for roads.

On the topic of aluminum, I find it funny to see people who "care' about recycling throw aluminum cans in the garbage. I have seen this primarily at work, but have seem it a few other places over the years. When I see it happen, I ask, "I thought you were big on recycling, why did you toss the can in the garbage?" The person just shrugs or says, "It is no big deal."

My coworker was ranting a few days ago about fast food cups being put in the recycling bin where they don't belong. I just played along and said, "Yeah, it is also irritating to see aluminum cans thrown in the garbage cans too." And he actually said, "Oh, I do that."

Glass should be recycled, but I guess it is no longer economical to do so. I remember picking up glass cola bottles in the day, as well as aluminum cans.

 

[Oliver]

....Glass should be recycled, but I guess it is no longer economical to do so. I remember picking up glass cola bottles in the day, as well as aluminum cans.

IMO glass containers should be standardized, cleaned and reused. Recycle if it makes sense and every color can separated. If not at least grind it up for good use rather than taking up landfill space.

 

[ccoon520]

We separate recycling because it takes longer to fill up a burn barrel if the recycling is pulled out. Then we just drop our recyclables off at the recycling dumpsters on our way into town. We also seperate aluminum cans and plastic soda bottles because that's 5 cents each when we turn them in. If the recycling center or whoever takes the materials turned in for recycling doesn't do what they are supposed to that is not my problem. I have done "my part" turning them in.

Also in the past with milk jugs and coke bottles being recycled was because it cost so much to make new cans/bottles that it made more sense to have people recycle them. Once it was cheaper to not wash them anymore Coke was like "it is the consumer's responsibility to dispose of the cans and bottles we are flooding the market with responsibly not ours."

It comes down to dollars and cents as it does with anything. It is cheaper for me to recycle than to empty burn barrels more often. It is cheaper for a corporation to use cheap unrecyclable materials than renewable ones. If a corporation makes a decision to do something it is because they think it will result in higher revenues. Which is fine that is all a business is and all it is meant to do. Buying in that a company "cares" about anything is wrong cause a company doesn't have a conscious it has one goal and that goal is staying in the black.

 

[Nicfin36]

We don't have deposits on anything down here. Aluminum cans, if one chooses to personally recycle them, are by the pound based on current scrap metal prices. That would be the only thing even worth recycling in a household down here and I have a couple of drums in the barn I throw my aluminum waste into, as I don't like to put it in the garbage.

We have recycling roll-out carts for recyclables that the city will pick up once a week. I don't participate though.

I would not be opposed to having a deposit fee on containers. Heck, if they did, I might start picking up cans and bottles along the road and in the garbage. Lazy people around here wouldn't care about saving a nickel or dime per container.

 

[Tooljunkie]

Buddy works in a far away land. Everything hits the ground, nothing is recycled. And those torrential downpours wash all that litter into the bay. It is a shame that recyling isnt what its made out to be. I used to be dilligent with what gets recycled, now, like everyone else, metals, glass and drink bottles. .
Now our local recycling agency is getting choked out,and big city is getting the recyclables. Whic as you mentioned gets picked through and the rest is trashed.

 

[Daren Todd]

Do you burn your plastic in it?

The yahoo that borders my neighbors back yard does. You can smell it everytime he lights his burn barrel.

I use a burn barrel with the bottom torched out to get rid of stumps in my yard. But all I burn are oak droppings.

Another idiot at the beginning of the street managed to get it so bad one night that the neighbors (me included) called and bi#ched about. The smoke was so putrid, and low hanging, thick that nobody could go outside their homes. He got fined and the fire department put out his bonfire.

He's a veterinarian and was burning about 600 of those 1ft square Styrofoam coolers/ shipping boxes that refrigerated meds get shipped in.

 

[802Driver]

Burn barrel makes my life simple

We also burn a lot of garbage, when the burn barrel gets full, I haul it off into the bush and dump it, but we do separate recyclables and bag them, and haul those off to the dump.

 

[Lil Foot]

Here we have once a week trash/recycle pickup. We throw garbage in one can, recycle in another, and they are picked up once a week. What happens after that, who knows.
I do separate & recycle aluminum cans for a little pocket money every couple years, and aluminum, brass, & copper scrap for more than a little pocket money also.
Those flimsy plastic grocery bags are not allowed in the recycle can, (they use air column sorters at the recycling center) so they must be returned to a bin at the grocery store.

I also recycle #2 plastic, (HDPE) and will cover that in another thread.

HDPE Recycling

A few years ago, one the plastics suppliers that I dealt with for years stopped selling to the public, and the other went out of business. I needed some colored plastics for a few upcoming jobs, so i thought I would try recycling HDPE. (High Density Poly Ethylene) I take no credit for the...

www.orangetractortalks.com

 

[Borane4]

I recycle what "gets recycled", aluminum and metal cans. The rest goes to directly in the garbage saving the recycling company the effort of separating it out themselves to take to the landfill. My question is why does glass have to go to the landfill? It's sand and other similar material if nothing else they can grind it up for roads.

Glass quality degrades quickly when recycled - mostly in the color. My understanding is that recycled glass has to be melted and purified with equal or more intensive processes than just starting from clean sand. Aggregation and transport of dirty/mixed/contaminated glass is more work than worth, they just landfill it. Same is probably true for road materials, a truck full of $2/ton sand is more economical than a truck full of more expensive dirty glass.