Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

Our Recent Essays Behind the Front Page

Much Sorry with Delays
Birth, Death and All That Stuff in Between
How to Honor Labor Day, Every Day
My Yom Kippur Miracle (Repost from 2010)
Good intro to fly casting
Peach update, with pie
NYC update
Easy for you to say: To the elites on mass immigration
For NYC on 9/11, Sailors' Snug Harbor
Pickled Peaches
Water Shoes
Labor Costs in U.S.
Your "identity"
Good news about The Great Courses
Uses of Hot Pepper Jelly/Sauce, Chutneys, and Jams
A Saturday Drive to Litchfield County, CT
How to Pick a Kayak
Civilized: Fruit forks and knives
Loads of kayaking on Cape Cod
Psychology Experiments' Questionable Results

Categories


All categories

Quicksearch

Links

Blog Administration

Open login screen

RSS Readers

Add to Google

Subscribe with Bloglines

Friday, April 24. 2009

A challenge for any interested readers: What happens to your recycled trash?

Does your town do recycling? If so, do you know where that stuff ends up? I mean where your junk really ends up.


I challenge any curious readers to find out what ultimately happens to the paper, plastics, beer cans, and glass that are put out so dutifully and virtuously for the garbagemen or recycling pick-ups in your town.


Two or three phone calls ought to do it. "It gets recycled" is not an adequate answer.


For extra credit: Try to find out what you or your town pays for this service, and who profits, if anyone, from your thoughtful donations of your precious garbage. And for your effort spent, as Roger says, "going through your garbage like a raccoon."


The subject picqued my interest because I have noticed that our garbagemen for the past year have been throwing the "recyling" paper and newspapers into their regular garbage truck. My guess is that most "recycled" stuff in the US ends up in landfills, but I do not know for sure. I do know that recycling glass is an economic absurdity, and that recycling plastics is too expensive to be worthwhile: it is just made from a 1/10 teaspoon of oil.

Posted by The Barrister in Our Essays, The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 11:36 | Comments (25) | Trackbacks (0)

Trackbacks
Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments
Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

I've often wondered this myself. Its something that I am required to pay for, and participate in.

So, I pay to have it taken away (manditorily), the city pays to contract someone to haul it away, and that company sells it to a recycling center.

Why am I not being paid for my "post-consumer content"? I am being required to pay a penaltly and surrender a resource while someone else profits.

Bah!
#1 Sean G (Link) on 2009-04-24 11:39 (Reply)
Check it out. Where does it really end up? That's the question he's asking.
#2 Bird Dog on 2009-04-24 11:45 (Reply)
We were stationed in Germany some years ago and things may have changed. We were at the forefront of recycling; we actually rinsed most of our trash and bagged it for recycling because otherwise the Germans were going to stop picking up our trash at all. Paper went in the Weissacke (white bag) and metal and plastic in the Gelbsacke (yellow bag). I read newspaper articles saying that 80% of the Gelbsacken wound up in the Muldeponie -- the landfill. Maybe the Weissacken also.
(In German (or Austrian) you add an -en to most words to make them plural)
#3 Geoff on 2009-04-24 12:03 (Reply)
I don't know the ultimate destination. However, I do know that plastics and glass are mixed, so I assume they are headed to a landfill.

Paper is separated by the waxy type and regular paper and cardboard. This would imply to me they are going to real recycling centers.

It is mandated by the county so we pay for it in our taxes.

I know for a fact that a large portion of nearby NYC's recycling ends up in landfills.
#4 Rick on 2009-04-24 12:12 (Reply)
I've been in the recycling business for over 30 years, and I can tell you that most curbside residential material goes to the landfill. Well?? Land fills need to eat too!
The haulers get paid to pickup but after that it's pretty much up to them what the most cost effective way to handle it. In today's recessionary times labor costs just don't justify trying to make a sale-able product.
Look for the cost to the homeowner to rise and the actual amount being recycled to decline, all under an Obama (liberal) administration. Of course the MSM will be silent or blame Bush!
#5 Rattso on 2009-04-24 12:12 (Reply)
But we want details!!! Specifics!!!
Or we will be forced to put GPS tracers in our garbage.
#6 Bird Dog on 2009-04-24 12:16 (Reply)
The only thing that gets recycled is plastics and paper and wire (copper) from HUGE firms, industries where it pays to do it. Otherwise, not one thing in your four bins is taken anywhere but to the dump.
`
#7 Meta on 2009-04-24 12:37 (Reply)
BD, I don't know about other recycled commodities, but there is a healthy international market for US waste paper, which is our top containerized seaborne export commodity by volume:

http://community.machinedesign.com/blogs/editordesk/archive/2008/08/11/top-us-export-waste-paper.aspx

http://indexmundi.com/trade/exports/?division=25

This goes largely to China. The current market leader is American Chung Nam at about 200,000 twenty foot containers per year, or about equivalent to the entire cargo volume handled by the ports of Portland, Oregon or Boston, Mass.
#8 Skookumchuk on 2009-04-24 12:38 (Reply)
Most recycling operations are a joke, and while all skunks are animals, not all animals are skunks.

In Wesley Mass they sort the garbage and when you are at the recycling plant it is clear (and neat) the different piles. They then sell the trash on an international stage. This last year the recycling center handed the town a check for somewhere close to a million $$$ after expenses.

I kid you not. The guy that runs it is amazing. His secret is packaging and a broad network of buyers.
#9 Pbop (Link) on 2009-04-24 12:43 (Reply)
This is actually one of my ranty gripes. Most recyclables are not worth the effort. Aluminum probably is, as it is infinitely recyclable and really expensive to make from bauxite. Plastic is really nothing more than a government subsidized industry. The reason we have so much damn plastic in the first place is because the raw materials (i.e. the stuff we are required to recycle) are deemed so "cheap". "Cheap" does not include the cost of the collection, sorting, cleaning. That's paid for by mandatory fees.

IMO, recycling needs to be put to the test of capitalism: if it's worth something, someone will pay you for it. There's all sorts of places you can go to sell your aluminum cans. Try selling your used plastic.

Recycling has taught us that it is somehow a net benefit to spend $100 in diesel fuel to collect $10 worth of raw materials.
#10 Spork (Link) on 2009-04-24 12:47 (Reply)
Spot on spork! Commercial and Industrial recycling have been going on for decades and makes sense, but residential is a waste of time, money and effort. The net effect is an inferior product that costs more. Only when the government sticks it's nose in it and legislates results is the private sector forced to use it. e.g. Federal mandate that require all paper purchased by the government contain a certain amount have recycled fiber. It forced the paper mills to make paper and pass the increased cost to the consumer.

Residential recycling is government mandate feel-good-ism for the left!

It's self perpetuating lunacy.
#10.1 Rattso on 2009-04-24 16:32 (Reply)
The estimable John Tierney, one of the very few New York Times writers witha brain in his head wrote the following some years ago:

February 15, 2002

Rethinking the Rites of Recycling

By JOHN TIERNEY

Environmentalists may not like Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's proposal to suspend the recycling of cans and bottles. But it could be their best chance to save their reputations and do some good for the environment.

The recycling program was sold to New Yorkers nearly a decade ago with the promise that it would save money. It did not. If New York had instead shipped all those recyclables to out-of-state landfills, the city would have saved more than half a billion dollars, and that figure doesn't even include the biggest costs, which are the labor and storage space that citizens are forced to donate to the cause.

Recycling newspapers makes a certain amount of sense, because used newsprint often has economic value and people often have special bins for their newspapers anyway. But why clutter the city with bins for stuff that's less than worthless? The city pays extra to collect and dispose of the bottles and cans, and then 40 percent of the stuff ends up in landfills anyway.
#11 Tom Brewton (Link) on 2009-04-24 12:54 (Reply)
Not so sure about the value of newsprint these days...
#11.1 Bird Dog on 2009-04-24 12:58 (Reply)
I challenge any curious readers to find out what ultimately happens to the paper, plastics, beer cans, and glass that are put out so dutifully and virtuously for the garbagemen or recycling pick-ups in your town.

Not doing it. Because I do not do it 'dutifully and virtuously'.

I do it because if the garbage collector detects paper, glass or cans in my trash he leaves the entire can on the curb.
#12 Brian Dunbar (Link) on 2009-04-24 14:44 (Reply)
Every week a pair of trucks rumble through our neighborhood.

The first rumbles in to pick up the recyclables - which we dutifully separate and dumps it in a common location on the truck.

The second truck thunders up to pick up the yard waste and garbage. In this case it appears to go to two different locations on the truck.

Conclusion. Maybe, just maybe somebody, somewhere has a huge mulch pile, but that's about it.

Penn and Teller have a great thing on recycling search under the common way of saying Bovine Exhuast (show title) on YouTube for Recycling. They point out that most of it indeed is buried and forgotten. They also point out that except for NIMBYism, there is no problem with the bulk which refuse represents.
#13 Rob on 2009-04-24 15:01 (Reply)
The sale price of scrap generated from recycling centers dropped over 70% in October 2008. The lower priced grades just aren't worth processing anymore.
#14 Rattso on 2009-04-24 15:28 (Reply)
I don't know, and do not intend to find out - thanks to a good and kind landlord.

See, he decided some years back that having his tenants - many of well-advanced years and/or in ill health - carry multiple 33gal drums and several smaller bins around might open him to lawsuits. Looking around, weighing alternatives, he ended up going with a "private" (same as the government, but not under contract to City Hall) contractor, Which supplies bins with wheels, whose operatives wheel said bins from the backyard to the truck and back, will basically take anything that fits into the bin, etc.

I suspect some metals are seperated out in some manner, but the rest? Compact/burn/sell/bury.

Acroos the street, the government-contract is used. Barrels and bins of various types, none wheeled: residents responsible for carting to and from curbside. Small bin for cans and glass, one for plastics, newspapers and magazines [supposed to be] stacked and tied seperately, no "yard" trash (leaves in fall, no branches over one foot in length/breadth...) and on and on. All except the cans bin collected by the same truck with a single compartment into which trash is compacted...

Could be worse, of course. There was a story last year about a small town in Japan whse mayor was proud of their re-cycling. Once a week, residents bring their trash to the town center, where they seperate it into over one hundred bins (aluminimum cans vs steel cans vs razor blades...)
#15 teqjack on 2009-04-24 15:29 (Reply)
Here's a hint. I recall that the New York Times, sometime between 1999 and 2000 ran a story about how lots of NYCs trash was not recycled and cost the city millions a year that was useless to spend.

I don't have the time to google but you could.
#16 vanderleun (Link) on 2009-04-24 15:40 (Reply)
Mike Munger on recycling is good
http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2007/07/munger_on_recyc.html
#17 Ron Hardin (Link) on 2009-04-24 17:49 (Reply)
Perhaps the best volume ever on this is now out of print - "Rubbish!: The Archaeology of Garbage"
It still gets "trashed" (sorry 'bout that) by folks who just know sorting works...
J.
#18 Jess on 2009-04-24 22:29 (Reply)
As a Boy Scout 40 years ago we used to have paper drives where we got to sit in the back of pickup trucks and go around to people's houses to get their newspapers and magazines. The Boy Scouts must have made money but I have no idea how much.

We Boy Scouts eagerly participated because a few donors would include Playboys.

That was recycling we approved of....
#19 David on 2009-04-25 01:26 (Reply)
here in the Netherlands paper and glass get recycled. Both are worth it, barely.
Compostables are turned into compost or just go into the landfill depending on the community and whom they contract (whether collected separately or not).
The rest goes to the incinerator or landfill.

They've not yet forced separate bins for glass, metal, paper, etc. etc. on us. One reason is that most people simply don't have the room to store all those bins, another that everyone knows (after a major PR disaster several years ago where a TV crew tracked garbage trucks picking up "recyclables" to incinerators from several cities that claimed to recycle the stuff) the separate collection is a hoax.
#20 J.T. Wenting on 2009-04-25 05:16 (Reply)
Trash collectors in Colorado Springs deposit it at recycling centers where pickers pick throught the trash seperating the goods.
#21 Leag on 2009-04-25 13:45 (Reply)
What a bunch of lazy asses. Not the fine folks here at MsF of course, but all of my neighbors...

Local cost of curbside garbage and recycle = $500+ a year – not to mention the multiple once weekly 150+ foot can lugs to and from the street, sometimes up and down steep grades.

On my property, everything compost-able is composted, everything burnable is burned for heat, everything ‘recyclable’ is accepted by the local mongoloid charity. The remains costs me a grand total of $15 a year to take to the local dump.
#22 commander clopfelter (Link) on 2009-04-25 16:21 (Reply)
I pay old man D. $360/ year to pick up a big ol' rolling can once a week. Now, he'll let you pay him extra to pick up "recyclables" which his workers throw in with my stuff just before they get over to the dump.

D. realizes that some folks want to recycle to feel better 'bout themselves so he doesn't charge 'em too much for the pleasure-- just an extra $120/ year.

BTW, that $360 is up from $324/ year last year. Times is tough.
#23 Mr. Dart (Link) on 2009-04-26 12:11 (Reply)

Add Comment
(Your e-mail will not show in your comment)

By commenting on this site you agree to the site rules listed here. Email
addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for email notifications.

Quick reference guide: [i] italics [/i], [b] bold [/b], [u] underline [/u],
[url] (web address) [/url]. More tips here.

Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (*word*), underscore are made via _word_.
E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications.

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.
CAPTCHA

BBCode format allowed
 
 
A Chris Southern Consulting website.