I'm so glad I don't work for waste management...

…or I would lose my mind at people’s utter stupidity/laziness. Outside my apartment building there are three large recycling bins. On the front of each of these are big, easy-to-read-and-understand signs:

Bin #1: “Glass bottles and plastic containers. Clean and dry. For the safety of our recycling personnel, please, no ceramic or mirrors. No plastic bags.”

Bin #2: “Boxboard, writing paper, plastic grocery bags. Please, no corrugated cardboard.”

Bin #3: “Corrugated Cardboard. Please flatten before inserting.”

All signs are accompanied by pictures of what kinds of items you can put in each bin, just in case the instructions were not clear. This is not a difficult concept to grasp.

However, we seem to have a number of lazy fuckers in the building. Time and again I see:

-Bottles half full of who knows what gunk that reeks and attracts hornets and bees, ceramic cups, and plastic bags in Bin #1.

-Corrugated cardboard in Bin #2.

-Gigantic, unflattened boxes crammed in the bottom of Bin #3. Because of this, the bin is almost always overflowing, and I can’t put my own stuff in.

I can’t figure out if the people who do this are lazy, stupid, just plain don’t care, or all three. It wouldn’t be pissing me off if their negligence wasn’t preventing me from putting my own things in there.

An amusing story about Waste Management where I reside. A couple of years ago we where given the recycle bins. Yet on trash day they emptied the bins in with the trash anyway.
In another pitting I would pit Waste Management for the landfill near my home, that has two stacks burning the methane from the garbage pit 24/7, rather then using it in some manner.

But onto your pitting, I would say its just laziness. People think there time is more important then the recyclers/garbage persons. “If they want it recycled they can clean it up”

It’s like the recycling boxes in offices. One is clearly, no doubt about it, and anybody working in an office knows it, for PAPER ONLY. So it must be visiting morons who are dumping their lunch garbage and crap like that in it, right? And the can/bottle recycling bins…heavy sigh. This really, honestly and truly is not that hard, people.

I have to confess that I’ve given up recycling cans and glass for the moment, because it is just too much work, and I’m tired of soaking the stupid cans and bottles, cleaning the labels off, washing them, drying them, cutting the bottoms off, crushing them, bagging them, and taking them to the depot. If they’d take dirty cans and bottles, I’d still recycle them. As it is, it seems like they sure want me to do a lot of their work for them for no real benefit for me.

That is a lot of work…:dubious:…The only stipulations here are that they be clean and dry. I wonder why they’re so specific on your end?

My city finally got a clue and gave up on the bins. Now they just ask that you seperate recyclables from trash and take it from there. They understand the litany of “rules” are not going to be followed by the majority of people.

What they do now is hire through charities and organizations representing developementally-disabled folks mainly to seperate the different classes of refuse. (Paper, glass, etc). Recycling (we’re told, anyway) is up, less material going to the landfill, and an opportunity for some people to increase their dignity and self-worth by being productive members in society.

Seems like a win-win situation. (Though, to be honest, the city is paying much more for the program than it receives in benefits to the city. But what are ya gonna do?)

Right now in the dumpster at my apartment building, there is an eight-foot long couch standing on it’s end inside. Hmmm, I wonder if they’ll pick up the trash tomorrow? No, I don’t. They won’t. And this is typical; there’s always objects in there, ranging from Christmas trees to mattresses to furniture. Stupid fucks.

Same story here. Dutifully seperated, cleaned, etc. like a good little citizen. Watched as trash truck stopped, then emptied regular trash and then my recycle bin… all into the back of the truck. Confirmed my opinion that the whole citywide recycling push is just political grandstanding. Henceforth I ignore it all, and throw my trash away in whatever bin is convenient (it’s all going to the same place).

yes.

Yes.

Yes, YES.

Definitely this one…All three stupid, lazy and don’t care.

Jerks.

The people in my apartment building are such lazy slugs that if the top of the dumpster is closed, they won’t bother opening it to put their garbage inside, they’ll just stick it on top, or on the ground.

Goodness featherlou, that’s a bit much of them to ask of people. Our city doesn’t expect anything more than seperating trash into two different bins. Apartments don’t even do that much, just all into one dumpster. Well, except for the idjits who live close to the dumpster and think they don’t have to pick up the bag when they throw it from their balcony and miss.

I seperate out my recyclables and leave them for people to collect, but it’s amazing how many people don’t. How hard is it to put them in a bag and tote it down every so often, since you’re going there anyway?

Well, I feel better about giving up on part of recycling now. We don’t even have recycling pick-up; we have to pack it in the car and drive it to the bins that are located in mall parking lots and such. My dining room is currently full of boxes and boxes of recyclables. If it was just toss all the recyclables in a separate bin and stick it in the back alley, I would be all over that. I’m pretty environmentally-conscious and all that crap, but it does feel like they’re asking a lot of us here.

My housekeeping skills may be somewhat Stygian, but at least I haven’t descended to the depths of some of my building-mates.

We used to have a recycling bin in the lobby for flyers and the like. It has since been removed; people insisted on throwing their household trash – of any kind – into it. Sometimes there were enormous piles. The stench was unbearable.

How can people be this irresponsible?

They’re not irresponsible as much as they are lazy and unaccountable for their actions.

My old building had a policy of having the janitor open bags of trash left in public spaces to find identifying information (like on an envelope or something) and then leaving a notice with the offending party. Three notices meant a financial penalty of about $25 or so, although I don’t remember the exact amount. A few people were such egregious and repeat offenders that the janitor would put the trash in front of their door.

The best part? It’s perfectly legal for the management to do this; once you leave your trash out for collection, anyone can take it.

Robin

Our suburb’s contractor used to have these trucks with separate bins for glass,paper, plastic and workers would sort the stuff from homeowners’ "blue bins"at curbside.

The garbage trucks and recycling trucks generally come by when it’s past my morning bedtime, but one day I had to stay up past 9 to make a phone call and noticed my blue bin being dumped into a regular garbage truck.

When I called the city administrator’s office to complain, the then-acting administrator ( a spineless,lazy female asskisser who lost out on the permanent appointment to a male spineless, lazy asskisser and was too spineless or too lazy to file an EEOC complaint) told me that the contractor asked the City Council to amend the garbage contract in midterm because they weren’t making any money doing it the more labor-intensive way.( Gee, I wish that I could get out of long-term commitments that easily).

Ms. Spineless did assure me that the recyclables were being picked up in trucks not ever used for garbage and that they were indeed being carefully sorted and sold to recycling firms. She knew this because the City Council’s bought and paid-for shills for the garbage contractor had been told this by the garbage contractor, not that she’d ever bothered to look into the matter personally.

I asked how the garbage contractor could get top dollar from the glass buyer if the glass was contaminated with paper and plastic or how the paper buyer could give top dollar for stuff contaminated with broken glass and just got a nervous laugh.

BTW, the whole recycling program was sold as a way to extend the life of the landfill, but the County is currently looking for ways to buy our former Mayor’s big tract of ground for a new landfill and make it look like they actually shopped around a bit first.

I’m actually pleased to say our community seems to be doing very, very well. We have one of the top recycling programs in Pennsylvania and most folks that I have noticed generally respect it.

I live in a mid/low class neighborhood and every two weeks on recycling day the curb is full of “green bins.” There is also a fairly large community recycling center a few miles away with giant bins for everything from scrap metal to magazines and phone books. Every time I have gone there, no matter the weather or time of day, there have been at least a few other people dropping stuff off.

That being said, I once did collections calls for Waste Management for about a week and it was absolutely awful.