And if you mix enough trash in with legitimate recycling you’re likely to have the entire contents dumped in the landfill. Stuff You Should Know did an interesting episode on recycling, which is a good place to start.
I'm not a baby boomer, "Gen X", but baby boomers really started the emphasis of recycling, made it mainstream, got it into the classroom. It was baby boomers (my parents) that taught me to recycle.
It's always interesting when a younger generation thinks they came up with something.
RE: A lot of stuff that gets put in recycling is actually trash Â
And if you mix enough trash in with legitimate recycling you’re likely to have the entire contents dumped in the landfill. Stuff You Should Know did an interesting episode on recycling, which is a good place to start.
This is true. And “the entire contents dumped in the landfill” doesn’t mean your can, it means several tons. Only throw in the recycling what you’re 100% sure belongs there.
Last night and they said China took most of our recycling but now takes less. They fear that most of the recycling (Plastics) are ending up in the ocean, rivers and creeks.
Is that because of recycling or because people put that stuff in their trash?
...I'm a Baby Boomer and I can tell you that in the mid-1970s we were recycling a lot of shit up at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. So, at least for this Baby Boomer, I didn't have to change my behavior. It was ingrained in me at a fairly young age.
Now be prepared to pay more Social Security to fund my retirement! {:-)
My parents lived through the depression, when most people who weren't millionaires needed anything and everything of any value to get by, and the war which was an all-out struggle for the future of the human race and we needed everything we could muster for raw materials to build what we needed to win. Plus, my father's people were farmers, and farmers have pretty much always been good recyclers. So recycling was ingrained in me at an early age.
I hate to throw out anything that might be useable again for something (like repair parts or supplies or storage containers or protection of other things), and I try to recycle properly knowing that assets like paper and cardboard, most metals, and pretty much all thermoplastics are eminently recyclable - if there is a market for them.
Although I think a lot of the environmental movement is now moronic bullshit from myopic people who don't understand much and can't see the big picture, I was very pleased to see recycling go mainstream.
Unfortunately as a society, we are doing a shit job of recycling. And most other countries don't even try.
This has to stop. The earth will be the only home we have for another several generations, and trashing it as humans are doing now is just plain stupid.
Affects less than 3% of the waste and then when you add in all the pollution from the recycling industry, it does not do that much
It’s like climate accords. Global warming is caused by the fact the world has 8 billion people and the third world is rapidly industrializing, and becoming big time polluters just like the so called first world. Nothing anyone can do about it short of population control but it feels good to pretend with some BS agreements
no but I use to when I lived in Monterey California you had no choice but when I moved to the Midwest I watch the garbage guys just throw the recycling in with rest of the garbage then they ran a heavy duty magnate over it anything that was not high in metal they toss so I stop wasting my time.
No!! who recycles? We don't care, we'll be long gone by the time it all takes effect. We've done our part, its up to you and "your" generations now. Good Luck!!
Just kidding, but really, "do you baby boomers recycle"?? Maybe the answer is, "we're so old, we forgot how to recycle" Is that what you're looking for?
Last night and they said China took most of our recycling but now takes less. They fear that most of the recycling (Plastics) are ending up in the ocean, rivers and creeks.
Is that because of recycling or because people put that stuff in their trash?
China stopped accepting a lot of it because too much of it has unrecyclable items in it. Even though 95% of a batch is recyclable, that 5% of unrecycables mixed in means they have to landfill the entire batch. So they stopped taking most of it.
I don't know about improper stuff causing a full bin to be dumped as trash. There are sorters at Waste Management down here.
Not just a full bin. That would mean the garbageman picking up your bin would have to analyze the contents of individual bins. That rarely happens. They just get dumped in the truck. Then that truckload gets dumped into a large trailer with others. And several trailerloads are processed at a sorting facility at once. If during the presort they find too high a percentage of stuff they can’t process, the whole load goes to the landfill.
The biggest offender is plastic bags. They jam up the sorters and shut the line down.
But I’ve recently started to throw out my plastic and glass recyling in the trash. Mostly because my plastic / glass bin is filled with something else I cleared off of the porch and I’ve been too lazy to deal with that, but also because I read recently that most plastic recycling is a farce. I guess China isn’t even accepting plastic anymore and now we’re scrambling to find other places to ship all our plastic waste. Anyway...
RE: Been recycling for over 20 years. I was shocked when visiting relatives in alabama. There is no recycling there. Some people had never heard of it.
I wasn't aware your relatives represented the entire state... didn't get that memo. I live in Alabama and recycling has been standard practice (2 pickups per week) for the 16 years I've lived here.
I will get off my soap box now (and throw it in my green bin)
It's always interesting when a younger generation thinks they came up with something.
This is true. And “the entire contents dumped in the landfill” doesn’t mean your can, it means several tons. Only throw in the recycling what you’re 100% sure belongs there.
Is that because of recycling or because people put that stuff in their trash?
...I'm a Baby Boomer and I can tell you that in the mid-1970s we were recycling a lot of shit up at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. So, at least for this Baby Boomer, I didn't have to change my behavior. It was ingrained in me at a fairly young age.
Now be prepared to pay more Social Security to fund my retirement! {:-)
I hate to throw out anything that might be useable again for something (like repair parts or supplies or storage containers or protection of other things), and I try to recycle properly knowing that assets like paper and cardboard, most metals, and pretty much all thermoplastics are eminently recyclable - if there is a market for them.
Although I think a lot of the environmental movement is now moronic bullshit from myopic people who don't understand much and can't see the big picture, I was very pleased to see recycling go mainstream.
Unfortunately as a society, we are doing a shit job of recycling. And most other countries don't even try.
This has to stop. The earth will be the only home we have for another several generations, and trashing it as humans are doing now is just plain stupid.
It’s like climate accords. Global warming is caused by the fact the world has 8 billion people and the third world is rapidly industrializing, and becoming big time polluters just like the so called first world. Nothing anyone can do about it short of population control but it feels good to pretend with some BS agreements
Just kidding, but really, "do you baby boomers recycle"?? Maybe the answer is, "we're so old, we forgot how to recycle" Is that what you're looking for?
Our county actually takes the yard clippings, trees, brush, etc and sells it to a vendor that turns it into ethanol.
And I also put out as much recycling as trash. Amazing how much papers, plastics and cans there are in a week.
I don't know about improper stuff causing a full bin to be dumped as trash. There are sorters at Waste Management down here.
Is that because of recycling or because people put that stuff in their trash?
China stopped accepting a lot of it because too much of it has unrecyclable items in it. Even though 95% of a batch is recyclable, that 5% of unrecycables mixed in means they have to landfill the entire batch. So they stopped taking most of it.
I don't know about improper stuff causing a full bin to be dumped as trash. There are sorters at Waste Management down here.
Not just a full bin. That would mean the garbageman picking up your bin would have to analyze the contents of individual bins. That rarely happens. They just get dumped in the truck. Then that truckload gets dumped into a large trailer with others. And several trailerloads are processed at a sorting facility at once. If during the presort they find too high a percentage of stuff they can’t process, the whole load goes to the landfill.
The biggest offender is plastic bags. They jam up the sorters and shut the line down.
Please stop that. You’re doing harm, not good.
I wasn't aware your relatives represented the entire state... didn't get that memo. I live in Alabama and recycling has been standard practice (2 pickups per week) for the 16 years I've lived here.