Here in Las Vegas, the sanitation department has a fairly decent recycling program. They give you multi-colored crates that stack, one for cans and plastic bottles, one for glass and one for newspaper. You can ask for more crates if you need them. Once every two weeks, they come by and pick it up.
On my entire street of about40 homes, there are only 4 of us who recycle.
I was wondering why? Is it too difficult to throw empty cans/plastic/glass/newspaper in a crate?
We recycle pretty much everything that the waste hauler will take. This includes plastic of all kinds, bottles, cans, metal,newspaper and paper and yard waste. The hauler will take batteries and waste oil if properly contained. We have 3 containers and you can mix all the recyclables into one, yard waste in another and the smallest one is for trash.
My parents were big on recycling for as long as I can remember. Early/Mid 70’s, before it was the law in NJ. I remember making trips to the local township recycling bin and sorting all of our glass by color/cans/etc. We saved our newspapers for the recycling drives the elementary school my sister and I went to. We always had to wash the cans/glass jars before we recycled them, something I still do today. Yes, I clean my garbage.
The town my mother lives in now makes it ridiculously easy to recycle. One big blue bin for all glass and cans and plastic, one smaller square shaped bin for newspaper/cardboard, and a green one for yard clippings. The town I live in makes it even easier than that. One bin for everything (actually, there is a separate one for yard clippings, but since we live in a condo, we have no need for that one.) We’ve got a regular guy that comes and pulls out our glass bottles for the CRV nickel before the truck comes in the morning. If my son ever forgets to take the bin to the curb, he even takes it out for us. Nice guy!
I can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t recycle. You have to throw the stuff in the trash anyway. Throwing it in one bin as opposed to another isn’t any extra work at all, IMO.
The sanitation company also provides us with three transportable bins for garbage, recyclables, and garden stuff. Of course we carefully separate out all of the recyclable stuff every week and place it in the right bin for pickup. All of my neighbors do the same. This a very successful program where I live.
We do. We wash out the cans and the milk jugs and let them stack up a bit along with newspapers. When we have a bunch we call up someone with a car to drive us to the recycle place or take one of the carts around the neighborhood and walk.
We don’t have a curbside pickup for recycling, they have places scattered around the city where you can drop everything off (quite a few of them). They are looking at starting curbside here, I know they were doing a trial run for a few months. Out neighborhood probably won’t get it though, it’s all townhouses and apartments with new condos being built.
We recycle religiously. It’s easy here. We have a big tall plastic container on wheels that we roll out to the curb. It’s divided in the middle to separate paper from glass, metal plastic. We can recycle all plastics, metal, paper, magazines etc. No more looking for the number on plastic bottles. I like the big rolling cart too because you don’t leak stuff on you like I did when we had to carry out those small rectangular boxes. It also shred most of my mail even junk mail, so that makes it very easy to just empty into the recycle container when the shredder is full.
We live on a short block, only 7 houses and all but 2 houses recycle. Those two houses are where the Republicans live…no kidding.
Yes, we do. I even called the city and asked for an extra bin so we could separate the cans and bottles and plastic from the cardboard and paper. If that stuff doesn’t end up in a landfill, I will have done a small something for somebody.
You’re supposed to put your paper in a paper grocery bag, and set out corrogated cardboard on its own. One bin for everything else: metal, coated paper (like milk cartons), glass, plastics #1 and 2, but no stackable plastic (like yogurt cups), unfortunately.
Most driveways along our road have bins out on recycling day. We have to put tags on our garbage that cost about a buck a can, but you can put out recycling for free, so I think that’s a pretty good incentive for most people.
We have what is called a “pay as you throw” garbage system. The city will only take trash that is in special bags with the city logo on it. These bags cost either .50 or $1.00 each, depending on size. The more bags you fill up, the more it costs you.
But there is no charge for putting things in the curbside recycling bins the city provides. Therefore, there is an economic incentive for you to put your newspapers, cans, glass and plastic in the bins rather than in the “pay as you throw” bags.
The system works remarkably well. You put your “pay as you throw” bags and your recycling bins out on the curb the same morning each week. I’ll bet I see 90% of the houses with the recycling bins out on Monday mornings.
When we moved here a year ago, I called about garbage collection. Not only was it expensive - $25/month for one pickup a week - they don’t take recycling either. However, there’s a county convenience center about 6 miles from us - not only do they have a dumpster for garbage, they have containers for recycling - glass, plastic, paper, cardboard, oil, anti-freeze, clothing… I gladly drive there every other week. And it’s free!
Yep - we recycle.
Heck, most of the mail doesn’t ever make it into the house. We have a bin for paper out in the garage, and all the ads and mortgage offers get tossed in there before I get to the door.
First of all, I live in Michigan, so all cans and bottles are recycled since we have a deposit.
I recycle cans as well, but that’s the only thing the recylcers will take that I use. (I don’t read the newspaper).
I feel really guilty because I’m diabetic and on dialysis. I take two shots a day plus another 2 a week and none of those needles can be recycled.
Also, I got through 5 bags of dialysis solution along with various wraps and plugs that also can’t be recycled. The amount of garbage I create is staggering.
I’m a non-recycler, too. Screw it - I pay for trash pickup regardless, so there’s no economic incentive. I don’t believe all the hype about there being some sort of crisis of landfill space. I’ve read about some studies that show that recycling actually uses more resources than obtaining new materials, thus hurting the environment more (mostly by producing greenhouse gas), and that much (sometimes 90% or more) of what gets thrown into recycling bins ends up in landfills anyway. And I came to these conclusions even before I saw the episode of Penn & Teller: Bullshit! regarding recycling. That just helped cement my opinions.
Believe it or not, I really am an environmentally-minded individual. I believe in the whole concept of “reduce, reuse, recycle.” But the implementation is next to worthless, and I don’t waste my time or effort if I can help it.
Is it the same four every time? There’s a fortnightly door-to-door collection here, of paper and of garden waste. I only produce the former at a rate to fill their crate once every four collections, and all of my (minimal) garden waste is recycled without leaving the garden. Don’t assume that the lack of vicible recycling means they’re not doing it.
I was just wondering why people didn’t recycle…and am glad a few have come to this thread to say why they don’t.
Maybe I lived in Europe and in California too long, but for me, recycling is just second nature, even though there is no monetary reward. Just trying to get a read on how others feel about it.
Depends on where I’m living at the time. Aside from collecting bottles and such to get the refunds, we don’t recycle here. The last place I lived was about the same way.
Living in residence (where I’ll be again next year) or at home, I always recycle. Rez has bins for paper and bottles to go into. At home we seperate our garbage into bags–regular recyclables in one blue bag, drink containers into another (the local baseball league has an on-going bottle drive to raise money, so ours generally go there), regular garbage into the green bag. There’s also a provincial composting program, so food waste goes into the green bin* and is also picked up each week. Regular garbage only gets picked up every two weeks at home, we’ll have two, maybe three bags at that point. There’s a cap on how many regular garbage bags you can put out at once, though I think it varies from area to area–I’ve heard that here it’s something like 6 bags a time, and it’s picked up every week.
It has definately become second-nature at this point. It took me a little while at my last place to get used to not seperating the trash. I remember being a bit apprehensive when it first came out, but really it takes hardly any more time and quickly becomes habit**.
*provided for free by the province, with a mini-bin for inside the house which then gets dumped into the big one for curbside pick-up. Some people have opted for paper bags instead of using the smaller bin though, or buy cardboard bin liners, as it’s less mess to deal with.
**except at McDonald’s. The ones at home just have garbage bins, but the ones here have seperate ones for compost and garbage. I don’t eat there often enough to have gotten used to that yet, so it always surprises me to see it.