What is the recycling situation in your city?

Forums: Recycling, Trash, Garbage
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We're lucky in that we can recycle almost everything.

Every week the disposal company picks up:

Lawn debris (this can also include any kind of food, pizza boxes and the like, paper towels, basically anything compostable including meats and cheese and things you can't compost at home)

Glass (no sheet glass or lightbulbs but just about everything else is okay).

Basic recycling (all mixed together -- paper, plastic, aerosol cans, aluminum, etc., etc., etc.)

We also have a special recycling center for things like paint, batteries, hazardous chemicals (you have to take these to the recycling center though) and a couple of times a year each neighborhood hosts events for recycling larger items (appliances, tires, blahblahblah).

Garbage, on the other hand, is only picked up twice a month. Garbage is things like paper plates (why can't we recycle those?), Styrofoam, odd packaging (especially plastic clamshell packaging), bottle caps and various lids to things, animal waste). Many people arrange to only have their garbage picked up once a month and some people have done away with garbage service altogether.

I think my city is way ahead of the curve. When my family comes to visit they marvel at how "clean" our trash is.

How clean is the trash in your city?

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Type: Question • Score: 8 • Views: 2,171 • Replies: 11

[+3] - Woodworker766 - 09/16/2014My town used to make everyone separate everything for recycling but about 2 years ago we went to a "single source" system. No sorting. No separating. Everything goes into the same...

In my neighborhood it all goes in the big truck and straight to the dump.

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@boomerang,

About the only things that get recycled around here are bottles and cans because they're redeemable for cash at redemption centers. (Even so, some people just throw their empties in with the regular trash. There are no laws regarding recycling.) One item that's in short supply these days is plastic bags. Grocery stores are no longer allowed to use them. Paper only or bring your own totes which is what most people do these days. At any dump site, recycling is, in theory, available; but it's not mandated.

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I have my own bags for grocery shopping. I would have bought some much sooner than I did, if I had realized how much simpler things became with them. They are strong, easy to carry and nothing spills from them.

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@boomerang,

We've the same situation here today as it was 25 or 30 years ago: all and everything can be recycled.

Recycling in Germany

The differences from town to town mainly are just collection periods.
In our town it's two weeks for everything besides paper, which collected once per month.
Twice per year, large "garden rubbish" (hedges, trees etc which doesn't fit in the bin) is collected, additionally the christmas trees.
And since a couple of years we've got special collecting bins spread over the town for small electric and electronic devices.

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@boomerang,

I think recycling is a big deal in and around the City of Boston. We have a large dumpster out back, that just about everything goes into. This includes TVs, computers, printers and air conditioners all of which, are NOT to be placed in the dumpster.

Then we have 3 other kinds of trash containers, used for recycling. One is for bottles/cans, another is used for paper and a 3rd one ( my favorite) is for all paper, cans and bottles.

Usually on Sunday AM, the "pickers" stop by and go through the bottles and cans, to take to the store for $$.

Some times, we'll see cars lined up outside our major dumster and people will be pulling bags of trash from the dumpster, sorting it and then saving what they "like" in the trunk of their car.

I once saw a man, take several bags of garbage from our dumpster, withoust even opening them and throwing the bags into the trunk of his car.

I also saw this same man, going through several books, page-by-page. I'll have to assume that ONCE he probably found some money in one of the books and still has high hopes of finding more.

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@Miller,

Miller wrote:

I also saw this same man, going through several books, page-by-page. I'll have to assume that ONCE he probably found some money in one of the books and still has high hopes of finding more.

Why would you assume that? Perhaps he is just browsing some particularly interesting passages in the books.

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In Toronto, there is weekly pick-up of trash. One week is "litter" (i.e., it will go to a landfill) and the alternate weeks are recycling. The city offers three sizes of trash cans--small, medium and large. We use the medium trash can, and usually don't fill it; and we use the large recycling can, and usually fill it, even to packing it down to close the lid. All of the municipal trash cans on the streets have a slot for litter, a slot for glass and aluminum cans and a slot for paper. Every week when the pickups are made, we put our "green bin," whic holds what the army would call "edible garbage."

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@boomerang,

As for your paper plates, they may not recycle because they are coated with plastic. Every so often, ads appear in community newspapers to remind people not to put "paper" coffee cups in the recycling. They cannot be recycled as paper because of the plastic coating. I'm just guessing here, but i'll bet that's why they don't want your paper plates.

Also, styrofoam containers in Canada can now be recycled (you want to look for the triangular recycling symbol on the bottom.)

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@boomerang,

We have garbage pick-up twice a week, and pick-up of recyclables (aluminum, glass, plastic bottles and containers, etc.) twice a week. Once a week, paper products ( newspapers, magazines, catalogs, collapsed corrugated boxes) are picked up for recycling.

Once a week, larger heavier items--furniture, large appliances, carpets--are picked up. In the fall, bags of leaves are picked up once or twice a week.

We have a special drop-off center for hazardous materials, like paint and certain chemicals. In addition, there are periodic drop-off places for unused prescription medications.

We have no recycling of any type of food--that goes out with the garbage.

I'm pretty satisfied with the waste disposal/recycling job they do around here.

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@boomerang,

My town used to make everyone separate everything for recycling but about 2 years ago we went to a "single source" system. No sorting. No separating. Everything goes into the same bag/truck/dumpster and then gets hauled off to a recycling facility where everything gets broken down and sorted.

This is supposed to be much more efficient since it doesn't require multiple collections . Fewer trucks, fewer collection people. It also eliminates the problem of people either "cheating" by not sorting, or simply "forgetting" which bin something goes into.

At the facility, the trucks pull in at one and dumps whatever they collected and the recycled materials come out all neatly sorted, stacked and bound at the other end.

The same facility has a toxic waste drop-off room for cleaners, paint, pesticides and whatnot. You have to take that over yourself but it is open 3 days/week.

The only thing we can't dispose of is yard waste but that isn't much of a problem. It's a small town that is 70% woods so getting rid of leaves & twigs is pretty easy.

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We need more class action lawsuits against oil and plastic companies for their decades' worth of lies about the recyclability of plastics.

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What is the recycling situation in your city?

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