new curbside recycling rules

kittyloo · ‎03-11-2010

i am just floored at the new curbside recycling restrictions.

The state i live in, just raised the deposit on aluminum and ALL drink bottles to 10 cents.

ok, i'm ok with that. I just received a notice after the garbage/recycle pick up, that they will no longer be picking up ANY plastic. this includes soda bottles with a deposit. WHAT??? They are only taking tin cans, sodapop cans, and corrugated cardboard. that's it.

so if i don't want my plastic to go into a landfill, i have to make a extra trip to the "recycling center" for all my recyclable plastic. does this sound crazy to anyone else besides me? i am super irritated over this.

QVCkitty1 · ‎05-23-2015

That's pretty strict. So far my curbside recycling only prohibits plastic bags.

" You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts."
Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Daysdee · ‎03-09-2010

Here we were notified they cannot recycle plastic bags (like from produce, etc.). We are to put them in the regular trash can. For a few years now plastic bags are not given/used at grocery stores or even department stores, etc. We have to bring our own reusable bags.

spiderw · ‎06-14-2010

I feel a town, city, borough, village, suburb rural areas should do as much as possible to recycle and encourage people to do the same. As far as not taking plastics and leaving it up to residents to do so is not a good thing. You are right, why should you have to make a trip when it is so much easier for the town to pick up the plastic.

What bothers me is that some people may not go along with this and who knows where the plastic will end up. I do not understand why everyone everywhere aren't doing all they can to keep this planet clean and alleviate pollution of all kinds. To me it is irresponsible and harming health and well being in the long run and that isn't acceptable.

mimomof4 · ‎03-08-2018

I could understand not picking up soda bottles but I don't understand not picking up any plastic at all. That seems crazy. I go through 7 jugs of milk in my household every week. What would I do with all of those not to mention other plastic containers a normal household could go through.

What logical reasoning would there be for not picking up plastic? We even have platic recycling containers where I work.

CoffeeNut · ‎03-15-2010

Ours went from taking almost anything to now being very restrictive.

Here is a part of a local news article as to why:

"China used to take the majority of the material, and they would sort through it," Wall said.

At the turn of the year, China stopped accepting recyclable materials from western countries, including U.S. companies, largely due to the lack of quality materials coming in. Essentially, the cost was outweighing the benefit of having to sort through America's garbage.

"They got tired of being a secondary landfill for the United States, so they cut all recycling coming into the country out," Wall explained. "It's shifted the market to only the stuff that has the highest value is recyclable now."

Our curbside recycle container used to be completely full on pick up days. Now it's about a third full.

They will now only pick up plastics labeled #1 and #2, tin cans, aluminum and cardboard. Everything else is banned. So sad.

Mom2Dogs · ‎03-09-2010

Our city recycling takes news paper, plastic, some glass, pop cans, and food cans. No plastic bags.

Mominohio · ‎08-08-2010

Those of you who have any kind of curbside recycling consider yourselves lucky. We have to load every kind of recycling into the car and drive at least three miles (for us, for many people it can be 10 or more) to the nearest recycle dumpster.

I live very rural and even the towns around us don't seem to have curbside recycling from what I can see.

This is one reason people throw such things in the trash, it's just too much work for many and impossible for others (those with no transportation, or the elderly or disabled).

I still question what the actual impact of all the steps of recycling is. My guess is the environmental footprint of recycling is huge and we may be not gaining environmentally at all. I still do it, but I question it.

mimomof4 · ‎03-08-2018

@CoffeeNut wrote:
Ours went from taking almost anything to now being very restrictive.

Here is a part of a local news article as to why:

"China used to take the majority of the material, and they would sort through it," Wall said.
At the turn of the year, China stopped accepting recyclable materials from western countries, including U.S. companies, largely due to the lack of quality materials coming in. Essentially, the cost was outweighing the benefit of having to sort through America's garbage.
"They got tired of being a secondary landfill for the United States, so they cut all recycling coming into the country out," Wall explained. "It's shifted the market to only the stuff that has the highest value is recyclable now."

I didn't realize that items were sent to China for recycling. Imagine how much that much cost to ship all of that over. Although I feel its only fair after the amount of cheap junk they send our way. In Michigan we have been fighting similar battles with Canada. There are some municipalities in Michigan who receive garbage from Canada.

Lipstickdiva · ‎03-10-2010

Our city has been recycling for years but we just were issued trash bins about a year ago. We have one large bin for garbage and 1 large bin for recycling. However, different cities have different restrictions on what can and cannot be recycled. When we were issued the bins, we also received a pamphlet with what can and cannot be put into the bins.

I recently became aware that if you put something into the bin that cannot be recycled, it contaminates the entire bin and nothing will be recycled.