Glass not being taken as recyclable anymore

[Kira]

With all the trash around you'd think the "clean nest mindset" would kick in....but NOOOOOO, many gotta be all macho and annoyed over a common good.
People are (can be) the biggest garbage.

 

[Snagglefoot]

Aluminum can recycling and wine and liquor bottle recycling is well established up here. In our small community the Lions Club accepts it all and a volunteer ( God bless him) takes it in to the bottle depot for cash. We use the money to grant college scholarships for local kids. The scholarships are in the thousands of dollars. It’s been going on for years.

 

[opus1]

I agree.
I have looked in other peoples Recycle Bins and they are filthy.
People DO NOT wash out the containers.
I will not waste resources to clean a Peanut Butter OR Butter container, BUT every thing else gets rinsed (and is clean).

^This.

The combination of they way my house sits on the property and the neighbors' fences creates a situation where I get a lot of stuff blown into the yard on garbage day which then becomes heavier than lead and I have to remove it. I've thrown away actual garbage that was cleaner than the allegedly rinsed containers my neighbors toss.

 

[walterjay]

I was at my waste disposal center last week and noticed that they no longer recycle glass. I found it odd.

 

[97prizm]

It's not that China broke recycling, it's that as they've accepted a more open free ( To an extent) market they're not wanting our trash nor are their people wanting to sift through it. As their wages have increased and education Chinese citizens are taking fewer menial jobs. Foxconn is freaking out because people are taking higher paying jobs elsewhere. The usa Europe etc would just ship hard to recycle plastic bags etc to China.
How China broke recycling

 

[PandaBear]

Our center dropped newspaper first, then glass, then plastic … now only takes cardboard
There is a scrap dealer who buys/sells metals (aluminum cans) …

Old clunker pickups roll slow on the weekend looking for scrap … we sat out a gorgeous wooden baby bed years ago and one of these guys took the metal support frame only

I found posting Free stuff ad on Facebook marketplace is the best way to get people to come pick up good stuff. Now if they re broken or obsoleted then nobody would even come for those, trash or ewaste only.

 

[PandaBear]

It's not that China broke recycling, it's that as they've accepted a more open free ( To an extent) market they're not wanting our trash nor are their people wanting to sift through it. As their wages have increased and education Chinese citizens are taking fewer menial jobs. Foxconn is freaking out because people are taking higher paying jobs elsewhere. The usa Europe etc would just ship hard to recycle plastic bags etc to China.
How China broke recycling

That's a Karen entitlement clickbait Title.

If one day your local homeless stopped picking up your soda cans to bring it to the recycle center for cash because he found a job at McDonalds, do you call McDonalds or the homeless guy "broke" your recycle?

 

[97prizm]

No but people in China are taking higher paying jobs and leaving lower lay behind. I tried to figure out a good title. It's not that China broke recycling it's that they were tired of taking our trash.

 

[wpod]

Girlfriend and I watched something about the “plastic ocean”. Made me real angry and disgusted. When will people truly wake the heck up?

I’m barely middle class, yeah I cut apart old oil filters, filters in general and like doing the right thing. Even if oil is truly cheap; gas ain’t depending on your state. Rant over

Who throws the garbage into the ocean?

 

[Jarlaxle]

I think what you may be referring to is that Recycling is often cited as a horribly inefficient process?

I am Mr. Earth Day all day long, and I first scoffed when someone suggested Recycling was "a waste of time." Upstate NY, take your two-liters to Grand Union, put in the machine, get nickels back. No more, times they are a-changin?

We are wrechlking this planet so fast.

NY still has a bottle deposit-and not just beer & soda.

 

[Jarlaxle]

We still take ours but our recycling facility is next to sewage treatment plant, so maybe they clean them very well and has customers for them, even tetrapak juice boxes.

They do warn people not to recycle black plastic and clamshells plastic boxes, or paper egg cartons.

I was told that egg cartons go with the newspaper and boxes-they're just cardboard.

 

[Jarlaxle]

Glass hasn’t been “recycled” for 8-10 years. It’s just whoever has been taking it has been lying. In fact, most of the crap you put in your cute recycle bin goes to the landfill eventually.
Aluminum, some vegetable cans, some plastic is recycled. 10% of the paper in most areas.
The rest gets loaded in a dumpster and goes to the landfill.

Glass ABSOLUTELY IS recycled. I have seen the dump trucks going out, I have talked to the drivers. (Most goes to a place than makes bottles for Budweiser.)

 

[Jarlaxle]

I still throw glass(Beer bottles) in the recycle container, but they don't want pizza boxes thrown in. , throw them in anyways.

Please don't. Pizza boxes are greasy and contaminate the process-if one gets into the processor, the entire bale usually has to be thrown away. (No oil boxes for the same reason.)

 

[PandaBear]

I was told that egg cartons go with the newspaper and boxes-they're just cardboard.

Every place is different, I guess the one that don't take cartons are selling their paper as premium grade and the one that takes everything might just burn them or for compost.

 

[SeaJay]

I recall decades ago working in a grocery store. We crushed the several tons of carboard we got each week and bundled it. For a while, it was sent back to the warehouse on the trucks that delivered our products. The bosses thought it could be sold. When they figured out it was worthless and in fact would cost them $$$ to send it to a landfill, they stopped. At the store, it was collected and sent to a local landfill.

I'd like to think things have changed in the subsequent decades, but I do not believe it has changed much.

 

[Kuato]

I'll just leave this here and have contributed. These folks are doing some good work:

The Ocean Cleanup

The Ocean Cleanup is a non-profit organization developing advanced technologies to rid the oceans of plastic. We aim to remove 90% of the floating plastic with the help of ocean cleanup systems and river interception technologies.

theoceancleanup.com

 

[IndyIan]

I guess there needs to be a serious look at packaging, and how the waste can be streamed into easily recyclable chunks, incinerated or re-used. Way back in 2001 we were visiting a friend in Germany and they were collecting glass jars for re-use in the grocery store. Most people were using reusable bags and you'd just bring your washed jars back when you went shopping for groceries again. Worked pretty well.
I think it boils down to either strong regulations on how packaging is made, so its easy to recycle. And/or taxing packaging made with new materials enough that it makes economic sense to recycle or re-use packaging.

 

[ecotourist]

We get refunds on beer cans or bottles, wine and liquor bottles. The homeless collect these, but ironically the 1.5 litre wine bottles pay the same refund as the 750ml so the smart homeless leave the heavy & bulky bottles alone.

Cans or glass bottles of soda pop, or any plastic pop bottle don't have a deposit on them in Ontario, goes into the blue bins or slobs toss them out the window.

In BC we pay a refundable deposit on aluminum cans and beer or liquor bottles. I have the impression that returning these for recycling is quite effective. You almost never see a discarded can or bottle having a refundable deposit.

In the Greater Victoria, BC area we also have a "no direct cost to the homeowner" collection process for paper, cardboard, glass jars and food containers having a recycle label. And most food containers have one. We pay a contractor for garbage collection (and have to pay more for a bigger volume) so the "free" recyclable process reduces the volume (and therefore the cost) of garbage collection. Organic materials are collected separately at the same time as garbage collection and are composted.

 

[PandaBear]

The "CRV" deposit on containers helps you collect them, but it doesn't really help you figure out how to sell it after you collect them, they are making assumption that once you collect them they would be valuable and someone would buy them as they are cheaper than brand new material made from virgin plastic or refined aluminum.

The reality is we have too much dirty plastic and soda cans that we cannot sell. If we cannot solve this they will still go back to the landfill or incinerated.

 

[Jarlaxle]

The "CRV" deposit on containers helps you collect them, but it doesn't really help you figure out how to sell it after you collect them, they are making assumption that once you collect them they would be valuable and someone would buy them as they are cheaper than brand new material made from virgin plastic or refined aluminum.

The reality is we have too much dirty plastic and soda cans that we cannot sell. If we cannot solve this they will still go back to the landfill or incinerated.

There is always a buyer for scrap aluminum.