The weekend and I want to touch on something I was proud of in the past……my recycling efforts.
I am one of those tree huggers that recycles…..in my region it is voluntary which I do not agree with….it should be mandatory…..
When my city started a recycling program about 20 years ago we had a company that separated the different items paper, glass, metal…….then we changed the companies and the new companies just throw it all in a truck together with the exception of glass…it is NO longer recycled but sent to a landfill……
I wonder what was up….did they separate it at the site or just bundle it up and sell to another company…..
I got my answer (sort of)…..
“People think that when they put something in their recycling bin, it’s actually going to be recycled. But this is not the case.”
You may be tossing your recyclables into a blue bin supplied by a municipal recycling program, but the municipal government’s responsibility ends once the blue bin contents are sold to a recycling company. Waste and recycling is for the most part handled by private industry in the US.
“[Municipalities] are only responsible for that first contract,” said Hird. They need to know where the recycling and the waste first goes. After that, they’re not responsible for knowing the rest of that chain.”
Seriously? Then who buys it?
Overseas companies buy the waste and then dump it on a 3rd world country……
Now these countries shave had enough and some are demanding that countries take back their crap…..
Malaysia will send back some 3,000 metric tons (3,300 tons) of non-recyclable plastic waste to countries such as the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia in a move to avoid becoming a dumping ground for rich nations, Environment Minister Yeo Bee Yin said Tuesday.
Yeo said Malaysia and many developing countries have become new targets after China banned the import of plastic waste last year.
Last week, the Philippines said it would ship back dozens of containers of garbage which Filipino officials were illegally shipped to the country from Canada in 2013 to 2014
http://amp.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/may/28/malaysia-to-send-back-plastic-waste-to-foreign-nat/
Now I do not feel so good about my recycling. Leave it to capitalist to piss up something as noble as a recycling program.
How do you feel about this?
The UK used to send its waste to China by ship, before they stopped accepting so much garbage from other countries. Much of it is now burned here. So much for reducing the carbon footprint…
I wrote about this back in 2013.
https://beetleypete.com/2013/01/08/recycling-my-arse/
Best wishes, Pete.
This is just sad…..recycling should not make things worse…..chuq
I think a lot of packaging can be made from hemp which is cheap and biodegradable.
I agree even a plastic can be made from hemp……but since plastic is a oil product we know who has all the power there, right? chuq
I agree that what we discard as recyclable – should be done so.
Once again like everything…it is about the most profit….chuq
My county takes paper and plastic from the blue bin. They tell us separating it saves space in the local landfill and that saved the county space and money. Where the paper and plastic go is unknown to me. Could be buried somewhere else.
Sounds like the supply of paper and plastic to recycle is much greater than the demand, and more than the existing recycling facilities can process. Building more plants has to be economically feasible or subsidized by the government. We could tax the money we take in for the new tariffs and use that money to subsidize recycling plants. That would work.
We might as well tax people the recycle….for they are the ones that will be paying the tariffs….chuq