Some questions for curbside recyclers

[haapai]

Have any of you recently received a "no want anymore" letter from the operator of your curbside recycling program?  That is a notice that items that were previously accepted for recycling are no longer acceptable.  It differs from the periodic reminders that certain items like hangers and plastic bags and broken windows are unwanted. 

If you have received such a letter recently, what items are no longer wanted?

If you have received such a letter recently do you know who owns the materials reclamation facility (recycling sorting facility or sorter) that processes your recycling?  Specifically, is the facility owned by the same entity that picks up your trash?

I'm somewhat surprised that I haven't received such a letter recently and I haven't heard of any being sent out.  So tell me what I am missing if you have received one. 

[Tiny]

Yes,  last summer the "what can be recycled' changed - but the city and waste management company did a crappy job getting the word out. 

As far as I can tell,  WM (waste management company who's name I can never get right)  only wants glass jars/bottles, aluminum cans, steel cans, and plastic water and pop/soda bottles and milk jugs and paper (as in newspaper and cereal boxes).    They've done away with the using the number stamped on the plastic container.   So, plastic tubs from Cool Whip may no longer be recycleable  and they may not want that Number 1 plastic in shapes other than bottles. (some veggies come in rectangular  containers that are #1 plastic for example.) 

The reason the City and WM gave for the change - was that the other plastic types were no longer of value (no one wanted them).  Antother thing was that plastic bags gummed up the machines that sorted the recycleables.  And finally, that food waste in the recycleables would "contaminate" and make valueless much of the recycleables collected.  (we have a single stream system). 

I've always kind of hated the local recycling - it's single stream so paper is in with all the yucky food covered garbage that people toss in the recycle bins.  And once paper is contaminated - it's not so recycleable.   

Why I think the City and WM did a crappy job?

1.)  City did very little to get the word out.  Even though a quarterly water/trash bill filled with all sorts of other city news goes to EVERY house.  We also have a newspaper that servers several suburbs (with by suburb sections) - not a peep about the changes.    Not a peep at the local schools (ie how hard is it to send home yet another flyer with school kids).   

2.)  The City DID send around the community service brigrade to walk down alleys on trash day and leave NASTY GRAM notices on recycle bins that didn't have the right stuff in them (and the WM company DIDN"T PICK UP the bins with Nasty Grams)   which cause an flood of outrage and anger from citizens who had no idea what was going on - other than their trash didn't get picked up. 

3.)  The City then had some "community meetings" to address the recycle-able issues which had very low attendance (I went to one).   

4.)  The waste management company handed out flyers with microscopic blurry pictures of the things you could  and could not recycle.  There were NO WORDS OR DESCRIPTIONS of the things in the blurry pictures.    So, the picture of Plastic bottles and Jugs - looked like there MIGHT be yogurt and cool whip tubs but you couldn't really tell....  The blurry picture of paper products that could be recycled had things that MIGHT have been a cardboard box and some other unidentifiable objects.  

5.) WM did make it very clear they didn't want plastic bags in the recycle bins. 

I currently put glass jars, aluminum and steel cans  and the occasional plastic pop bottle in my recycle bin.   Every month I have a paper bag filled with paper/cardboard which goes in too.      Everything else goes in the trash bin.   

One other thing.  People are stupid they will put just about anything and everything in a recycle bin.   Back in the day, I was optimistic about the ability of people to NOT put things like the cardboard pizza box (with pizza still in it) into the recycle bin or that people might actually attempt to empty glass jars or atleast drain their beer bottles/cans before it all went into the bin.  Now I am old and bitter and jaded.  People are indeed stupid and generally useless. 


ADDED:  I've always been kind of "how much trash am I generating conscious" - mostly because generating alot of trash takes up alot of time and costs alot of money.  So, one way to save money and time was to figure out a way to generate LESS trash.   (think about it, you go to the store you buy stuff, you use some or part of it, you throw away the rest, you have to haul the "rest" out to the curb weekly.  Rinse and Repeat into infinity." 

[wvugurl26]

My recycling has not changed. We get the usual reminders about what they do not take. We have 2 bins. I put all the plastic, glass and so on in 1 bin. Paper and cardboard gets collected in a separate box in the kitchen. If we only have 1 bin it gets placed on top of the bin or beside it. Everything is rinsed before being put in bin so no contamination. We would have a lot more trash without recycling.

[Cookies Galore]

Hopefully this has some helpful info about why certain plastics may not be recyclable.
apps.npr.org/plastics-recycling/?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=npr&utm_medium=social&utm_term=nprnews

[bean29]

I always put my shredded paper in the recycle bin in a plastic bag. When I read that they don't want plastic bags in the recycle cart, I saw that this is the exception - if it is shredded paper, it is OK to put it in the bin in the bag. It just made sense to me, b/c it is pure paper with nothing else mixed in, so why it in the cart with other glass and plastic.

Do they still want detergent bottles like Tide and Downy in the recycle carts?

I have started to be more conscious of washing my containers.  I want to recycle as much as possible and do my part to save the environment.

eta:  My recycling info still says Plastics no 1-7 goes in the cart.

[Anne_in_VA]

Our recycling company advertises in the local newspaper on a regular basis what can and cannot be recycled.  They also do demos at office and community events.  

I’m pretty conscious of what should go in the recycling bin and what shouldn’t.   Ours will take plastic bottles like milk jugs, some food containers if they’ve been rinsed and paper products as long as they don’t have any food or food residue in them and are not wax coated. They ask that tops be removed from containers.  They used to take just about anything, but have tightened up the restrictions in the past couple of years.

ETA:  we take our newspapers to the local SPCA to use for the animals.

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

Our recycling all went to shit two years ago. It’s a statewide issue and each county and the municipalities are dealing differently with it. It has to do with China not buying our trash anymore. Our county doesn’t want to recycle anything anymore.

[happyhoix]

Sept 1, 2019 15:46:03 GMT -5 Knee Deep in Water Chloe said:

Our recycling all went to shit two years ago. It’s a statewide issue and each county and the municipalities are dealing differently with it. It has to do with China not buying our trash anymore. Our county doesn’t want to recycle anything anymore.

Yes this is what caused the problem. Some unscrupulous American waste companies would fill a shipping container with regular trash, or trash mixed with some recycling, and then to hide the fact, stacked the end of the shipping container with bales of legitimate recycling. China would accept the shippers, open them up, and out the unusable stuff in mountains around their recycling centers (since they have to few environmental laws in China, this wasn't prohibited). China got pissed about it and said they wouldn't accept any more shipping containers of 'recycling' from the States anymore. That sent the value of recyclables in the US in a tailspin.

The recycling center where I live still collects glass and various types of plastic, but if they can't sell it, they stick it in with the material they're sending to the landfill. Where I work, we recycle about 80% of our 'trash' - but our main recycler won't take glass, which is useless, or any 'mixed' plastics - plastics with several different types of plastics comingled, or plastics mixed with metal or glass. They've gotten a whole lot more picky since the whole China thing.

[teen persuasion]

So far, I haven't heard about any new restrictions. If anything, they've expanded the list - now pizza boxes are ok (previously they were forbidden because of the grease contamination).

Pop/beer cans and bottles, as well as water bottles have deposits on them here, so they get returned for the deposits instead of putting them in recycling. All those other plastic drink bottles, though, get recycled, along with glass bottles, cans, paperboard and cardboard and paper. Stores take back plastic bags, so I've never put those in our recycling. As the state is banning plastic bags next year, many people are hoarding a supply before it runs out.

The biggest issue we have with recycling is that we have to slice the covers off hardcover books and toss the covers in the trash; paperbacks are ok to recycle as-is. We try to sell/give away all the weeded books we can at work, but people "donate" old, crappy condition books to us, so we end up recycling them. We try to refuse those we can't sell, but boxes of them show up on our doorstep like foundling children. Put them in your own recycling bin, ours is full!

[resolution]

My parents' city still picks up recycling but then they it all into the same landfill as the trash. They are dumping it on the other side of the landfill so that if someone starts accepting it again they can dig it up and recycle it.

[TheOtherMe]

Ours still uses two separate trucks to pick up trash and recycling.  I don't know what happens after that.

[justme]

My HOA just did away with recycling. They were getting fined too often for idiots putting non-recyclables in it. One night I saw an entire freaking LAMP in it!!!