As Costs Skyrocket, More U.S. Cities Stop Recycling

S

Schnellbandit

I see 4 lights!
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/16/business/local-recycling-costs.html

Now, according to State officials, we have another crisis, with no place to send our "recycling" it either gets incinerated or covered up in landfills.

Take a look at the cozy contracts the recycling/waste management companies have with local governments, someone is making a lot of money making you separate your waste but then just putting it into landfills along with the regular waste.

I took some old paint, muratic acid and oil/gasoline that was left behind from the POs of the house to the hazmat recycling center. I asked them what they did with it. They said they send it out to be burned or it gets put into containers and sent elsewhere. I asked what happened it then, "oh, they burn it too".

Other reference: https://www.wired.com/story/the-worlds-recycling-is-in-chaos-heres-what-has-to-happen/
 
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SpeedyCorky

SpeedyCorky

rides minibikes;U should2
"oh, they burn it too" :rofl

we are so fucked. its comical to me at this point. we so deserve it.


my brother worked at a recycle plant for a major city for a bit over a year. he swears up and down that its all a sham. if the cost of aluminum is down that week, they just throw all the cans away; if its up, they melt 'em and recycle 'em. he said the majority of the sorted crap just goes in the land fill. and that the overwhelming majority of food related recyclables get transferred straight to the land fill as well. consequently, he absolutely refuses to make any effort whatsoever to recycle. hard to blame him. i still separate cuz i'm big on the "I can only control what decisions I make" kinda thing. if the man wants to throw away the cans I separate, its on him, not me.
 
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Entoptic

Entoptic

Red Power!
I do agree recycling is a sham. It's about using less not using more with the caveat that we can just recycle it.

Think about Starbucks. How many cups do they go through a day? How long is that cup being used as a cup in it's life cycle before being tossed or recycled?
 
S

Schnellbandit

I see 4 lights!
One thing it seems like a lot of landfills have in common is a good location for future towns and cities. Most have decent views if you move support structures out of the way, rolling hills, access to a steady ground water supply, good winds to move the wafting stench away, lots of dairies close by so you can get that local milk, and easy road access.

Don't worry, give it ten years, go back and someone will be selling prime view lots there for big bucks.
 
mrmarklin

mrmarklin

Well-known member
Schnellbandit said:
One thing it seems like a lot of landfills have in common is a good location for future towns and cities. Most have decent views if you move support structures out of the way, rolling hills, access to a steady ground water supply, good winds to move the wafting stench away, lots of dairies close by so you can get that local milk, and easy road access.

Don't worry, give it ten years, go back and someone will be selling prime view lots there for big bucks.
Click to expand...

The Ritziest part of Mexico City was once a horrible land-fill.
 
FXCLM5

FXCLM5

bombaclaud
They need to follow what that tiny Japan village does, everything gets recycled differently. Even the gallon bottles, the caps and broken plastic lock ring gets recycled differently
 
Butch

Butch

poseur
Staff member
In the future, they will mine the landfills to reclaim all the raw materials there.

Until then, capitalism will reign. It’s not like we can control population growth.

Interesting times.
 
FXCLM5

FXCLM5

bombaclaud
Also local government is a joke.

My town of windsor was like lvl 2 water drought the past few years. Well Cali is outta the drought and my water bill is still avg more then my pge bill.

My retarded town rents some 3log poop art structure in the middle of a roundabout that they rent from the artists for like $12k annually. It seriously is 3logs of poop standing up like stonehedge.

My town also sold the entire waste disposal companies to another unit like 4x towns. The last company I prepaid for the entire year via online to save like 10-20%of total bill vs monthly. They basically shafted me by changing mid year and i lost like 3 months of service.

And the new company divides the recycle bin with a middle divider that breaks every other week and everyone just refuses to fix it currently, cuz everyone hates the new company the prices increase and literally forcing old ppl to cut down cardboard boxes to fit in the recycle bin.

You shoulda seen all the elderly outrages on nextdoor lol

Don't get me started on the multiple Taj mahal firestations we put in this town of 25k. Multiple 4-6 bay red brick massive fire stations.
 
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Reli

Reli

Well-known member
SpeedyCorky said:
"oh, they burn it too" :rofl
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How else do you expect them to deal with thousands of different types of household chemicals? They going to hire a team of chemists to study each and every one of those chemicals to identify a new life for it? No. Are they going to "blend all of them together" to create magic rocket fuel or glue or something? No.

Plus, just because they burn them doesn't mean they let all that smoke run free. They do what they can to do it cleanly. Now obviously if they ship it off to Myanmar or Bangladesh, all bets are off.

Left unspoken in this thread is the fact that most plastic and glass bottles are still profitable to recycle. I doubt much of that is simply being dumped. No, what's being dumped is the shitty plastic that isn't worth recycling, like plastic wrap, yogurt cups, milk jugs, etc. Along with food-contaminated shit, especially if it's greasy, like greasy pizza boxes. Cardboard becomes unrecoverable if it's greasy.

Also, maybe if idiots didn't put so much bullshit in their recycle bins, it would be easier and more profitable for recovery companies to stay in business. I see idiots putting entire garbage bags into their recycle bins. :wtf WTF do you expect the company to do with that? Pick up the bag and open it, to see if there's anything recyclable in it? :rolleyes Yeah right …..Not when a lot of it is probably kitchen waste that should have gone into the trash or the Compost bin.

Also idiots putting shit like pillows, futons, lamps, and styrofoam peanuts in there. :rofl WTF do you expect them to do with that shit?

What makes me laugh is Starbucks.....They have 3-4 different containers: Recycle, Landfill, Compost, and something else I forget. And when you look, they all have the exact same shit in them, because morons are either too lazy or stupid to pick the right container, or the store allowed them to get so full that nobody has a choice of where to put anything.
 
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S

Schnellbandit

I see 4 lights!
Butch said:
In the future, they will mine the landfills to reclaim all the raw materials there.

Until then, capitalism will reign. It’s not like we can control population growth.

Interesting times.
Click to expand...

Why the organ recovery from the deceased alone would be worth the $$$.

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Like laws requiring action with no funding attached, recycling is just another effort where thinking past the initial response was lacking or completely absent. Recycling feels good and is good if done right. We left out the done right part.

Part of the problem is that we pay for recycling that should include the sorting of materials to insure their commercial value. Instead, we paid to become casual labor for the recycling and waste management companies (you sort your trash for them, they sell it) and they just shipped it to other countries who eventually got fed up with taking our trash labeled as recycled.

To top it off, we moved from going to stores to buying things online and every tiny item got it's own plastic bubble wrap or cardboard box not including the wrapping for the product itself.
 
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