What's in your trash can

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In response to all the environmental vs economical/convenient debate we have on the plastic bag thread, I would like to ask people what do you usually have in your trash can, and kind of get an idea of what is in our trash. I'll start first:

Kitchen trash can, each load contains:

-2 plastic bags, outer one being Target/Walmart and inner one being Safeway/Ranch99, etc, to prevent leaks that they usually have.
-about 10-20% facial tissue and paper towel
-about 20% waste vegetable and other food items
-about 30% plastic packaging that are not recyclable
-about 20% juice containers that are not recyclable
-about 20% misc non-recyclable junk like thermal (fax) paper, wrappers, more plastics, hybrid metal/plastic junk.


Bathroom:
-1 Safeway/Ranch99 plastic bag, no liquid
-100% paper products (used tissue, paper towel, maxipad, etc)


Recycle bin:
-paper bag that get replaced every 2 months
-everything that can be recycled including the #1 to #6
-metal pieces that I chopped out of old electronics
-it is usually 2x the size of our trash every load
-engine oil container
-magazine
-anything non-bio-hazard



Yard-waste: anything that is from the yard except fruit, which could attract ants and roaches.




What about you guys?
 
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Yes, litter box residuals

Food packaging (non-can/jar)that includes direct contact with the food (meat packages, etc)

Styrofoam

Motor oil containers (specifically prohibited in recycle container)

Same deal with the bathroom trash can.

We have a trash compactor.

My recycles, due to a recent shift in collector and policy, outpaces my trash volume several times over.

Garbage disposal handles most food residuals.
 
From the too much information booth
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Not much because up here where I live we have municipal recycling which takes virtually everything, and then we have Organic Recycling from the municipality as well which takes things like coffee grounds, paper towels, food waste etc. So for the 4 of us living here we put out about a half a bag of trash each week along with 3 bins of recycling!
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Originally Posted By: moribundman
Originally Posted By: PandaBear
rubbers


Uhm, okay. Thanks for that info.


Not that kind of rubber, more like valve cover gasket, eraser pieces, medical gloves, etc.
 
Originally Posted By: PandaBear
Originally Posted By: moribundman
Originally Posted By: PandaBear
rubbers


Uhm, okay. Thanks for that info.


Not that kind of rubber, more like valve cover gasket, eraser pieces, medical gloves, etc.


Killjoy.
 
Similar except we compost vegetable waste etc. Local Chevron takes empty oil bottles; metals are taken to work and thrown in metal recycling. Try to minimize the non-recyclable plastics purchases ... of plastics #1 - #7, we can only recycle #1,#2, #4 and #5. Even a local company that makes plastic lumber products doesn't take #3 (PVC).

I've even recycled the steel in old boots.
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In my trash can.....um.....trash?

What really trips my trigger is when I open the dumpster and see recyclables like cardboard, aluminum cans, beer bottles, etc when the recycling collection bin is 3 FEET AWAY.

We have recycling bins at work in the shop, yet I always see pop cans in the garbage. Wow, really? Especially when aluminum is HIGHLY recyclable.
 
The only problem with recycling garbage these days is it takes more resources to recycle most things than the resources that are being recycled, and you end up increasing overall resource depletion. Most of the time, it's just another Ethanol. Steel cans cost many times more to recycle than the value of steel contained in them. An aluminium can is worth about two seconds of minimum wage labour, and it takes longer then that to divert and collect one can.
 
Except there's entropy involved.

You are taking a concentrated resource/ore, processing it at huge energy input, and then distributing it to oxidise in a non reclaimable manner.

Forcing you to try to use ever decreasing qualities of ores, at greater energy cost of digging up/transporting ore, reducing etc.

Your Al can is a strange one...yep, heaps of energy in going to collect one can...versus dropping 10Kg of them off at the metal merchant.

Same bloke who offers $400 for 20L of crushed Cat Converters, $3/Kg of copper, a little less for range scrap.

One baddy for recycling is the cross contamination issue.

In theory, steel can be perpetual...but eventually it's contaminated with copper and junk, reducing it's utility
 
Originally Posted By: PandaBear
Originally Posted By: moribundman
Originally Posted By: PandaBear
rubbers


Uhm, okay. Thanks for that info.


Not that kind of rubber, more like valve cover gasket, eraser pieces, medical gloves, etc.


Anyone notice that Mori wasn't the only one who seemed to use the "interesting" interpretation? No offense intended to anyone...
 
Originally Posted By: rshunter
Originally Posted By: PandaBear
Originally Posted By: moribundman
Originally Posted By: PandaBear
rubbers


Uhm, okay. Thanks for that info.


Not that kind of rubber, more like valve cover gasket, eraser pieces, medical gloves, etc.


Anyone notice that Mori wasn't the only one who seemed to use the "mind in the gutter" interpretation? No offense intended to anyone...


There should be no interpretation required! Had Pander Bear said "rubber," I wouldn't have felt the need to teach him the difference between the meaning of the word in its singular versus its plural form.
 
We only have plastic bags (all tied in a knot) and food containers that can't be recycled.All scraps go to the garden,paper is burned,and the waste to the garden (not safe to go into the ground and it's in the bin).Tins and recyclable plastic go in a recycle bin we put out with the rubbish bag.

At work it's a mess - but all components are stripped down to separate alloy from steel if possible,copper too.We cleaned our floors today,and that all goes into the river.....
 
They have an insane garbage bin system in Toronto now, where you have to pay an annual fee to have a bin, and larger bins cost more per cubic foot. This makes people rent small bins, but they have to put out garbage every time (two weeks). Using a large bin, you could put it out only once a month and save the garbage truck twelve stops per year.
 
Originally Posted By: oilyriser
They have an insane garbage bin system in Toronto now, where you have to pay an annual fee to have a bin, and larger bins cost more per cubic foot. This makes people rent small bins, but they have to put out garbage every time (two weeks). Using a large bin, you could have put it out only once a month and save the garbage truck twelve stops per year.
Toronto is the Canadian version of California.

Tax people up the arse and have insane laws... I think Miller is from there.
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