Yes. I don’t bother with it, but it appears to be pretty active.
Suburban Chicago. We have curbside recycling, and have for as long as we’ve lived here (15 years). One bin, everything goes in it, and they take quite a lot (glass, paper, aluminum cans, steel cans, and a number of different plastics). Some weeks, our recycle bin actually weighs more than our trash bin.
That’s also how it works in the small Connecticut town in which I grew up and my parents still live. Most residents take their own trash to the transfer station. In fact, on a Saturday, those running for local office will stand there to shake hands and meet voters. But there are recycling bins there for various goods, along with a trailer for stuff for Goodwill Industries.
Las Vegas and we have curbside recycling. They pick up every other week.
That said, only about 1/3 of the homes on our street recycle.
Additionally, knowing some of the people on this street, the majority of those who recycle are like us - ex-Californians. Maybe it is because we all lived in California where recycling was ingrained in everyone that we continue to recycle.
I mean, it is not all that hard to do and can’t imagine why anyone would opt to just throw those plastic and glass products in the garbage, but I guess if you never learned how or why, maybe it is too much trouble.
We live in a small town in western Pennsylvania with no recycling whatsoever. There used to be a big divided dumpster where you could take your recyclable materials, but they removed it because of overuse:dubious:. Seriously, some restaurants were dumping beer bottles and the dumpster would be overflowing before it was due for pick up. So they removed it.
I tried taking cans and bottles to a neighboring communities’ recycling set up, but it is staffed by someone and requires proof of residency.
Although we try, we no longer recycle.
Our suburban Philadelphia township has a curbside recycling program, but does not offer trash pick-up. We pay for a private trash company to pick up our trash, but the township takes care of recycling pick-up. They made it very convenient, they accept all recyclable materials in one receptacle.
Our house in Colorado has no trash or recycling offered by the township. We take all materials to the private dump. We keep three laundry baskets in the garage, one for paper, one for plastic and one for glass. When they get filled up, we take them and the other household trash to the dump. You pay based on weight. If your recyclable materials outweigh your trash, you don’t pay.
Most of suburban St. Louis, including the city where I live, has curbside recycling. It varies in how many varieties of stuff they’ll take and whether it’s single stream or pre-separated. In my town it’s single stream and they’ll take almost any clean paper, glass, metal, or plastic.
We have several regional recycling centers to drop off chemicals, electronics, etc. Some items have a small drop-off fee, others do not.
When I lived down in the city proper 10-ish years ago there wasn’t curbside recycling. I don’t know if they have it yet nowadays. But even back then the trash hauling companies offered the service to apartment complexes, businesses, and other concentrated waste sources. My condo complex subscribed to the recycling service. By reducing the number of dumpster loads going to the landfill, it saved on the total trash + recycling bill.
My overall impression is that across the US suburbia & medium-sized cities mostly recycle (75%?). Big cities might, but not in the very downtown nor in the worst neighborhoods. And small town & rural America by and large doesn’t recycle. They might have a single county-wide drop off point for hazardous chemicals, but that’s about it.
I live in the rural midwestern US. We pay for private garbage pickup biweekly. Our county has recycling centers but no roadside pickup. We have to take it in, something we do several times a year. We reuse, compost or burn as much as possible.
That reminds me: I have to take the recycling to the curb tonight.
Yes, plastic, cans, glass and corrugated. (Maybe more, but that is what ends up in my bin.)
We have three large wheeled cans. One for general trash, once for all recyclable materials and one for yard waste. All three get picked up every week by a company that contracts with the city. As far as I can tell almost everyone on our street participates as it appears to be one huge row of wheeled cans as far as the eye can see every Thursday morning.
Excess fast food napkins are saved to use in Kitty Hork clean up.
Yes, our town recycles damned near everything, all in one bin. They strongly encourage recycling by charging $1 per bag fee for garbage (and it has to be in the bag you buy from the city). If it is metal, glass, or has a plastic number on it, it gets recycled here.
Yes, and I typically have more recycling than garbage. We also have a separate “green waste” bin, which is only for plant clippings. No compost.
Nope. Unless you count being able to take your own stuff to the recycling plant, like we do with cans, since you actually get some money for it. (Heck, that was how my great uncle earned a living.)
Suburban Montreal. We have had recycling of some sort for probably 20 years. They used to ask us to divide the recyclables into paper/cardboard and non-paper (cans, bottles, plastic), but they eventually gave up on that and now every resident has a blue bin for mixed recycling that is made for automated pickup. A large pair of arms comes out, grabs the bin, and upends it into their truck. The truck is green, BTW. Then we have a green bin for garden waste. Same deal except that that truck is blue and comes weekly between April and November. Finally we have a black truck for all other waste. They have announced that soon we will have a third bin for compostables, basically anything organic not garden waste. So we will likely have four trucks come by every week. Or maybe the garden waste can be mixed with the compostables. The trouble is that they are running out of landfill sites.
Maybe this is not so bad. When I was growing up, we had twice a week collection of dry trash, thrice a week collection of wet garbage, and once a week collection of ash (from coal furnaces). The last was a complicated operation. Wonder when it ended.
I live in a small borough in Indiana county Pennsylvania. While Indiana, the county seat, does have curbside recycling pickup we do not. The recycle center is about 3 miles from my house and they have 24 hour drop off. cans, plastic, glass, cardboard and yard waste.
Hah! I know Homer City (named for Homer, of course). A few years ago, en-route to the Johnstown Folk Festival, I saw a freakin black bear in Homer City. Kept wondering what was up with the big ass dog…
Our little community doesn’t have any recycling program. They’re so old-fashioned and backward, we’re lucky to have fire, let alone the wheel.
My entire country has one. A compulsory one.
I’ve had curbside recycling for, I think, nearly 3 decades and this is a rude awakening that something like 50% of US still buries recyclable/non-biodegradable materials. I wonder whether we are getting better at recycling technology and participation, or worse?