(Untitled)

[sexinstilettoz]

I heard the other day that all these bottles and cans that we "recycle" actually don't get recycled and instead get tossed back and forth between different companies, or end up getting dumped into the ocean and/or other countries due to the fact that recycling costs tons of money to do. Does anyone have any information or articles on this or can

Comments

[hhw]

I don't have any sources on this, but I suspect it varies according to jurisdiction -- how much supervision, committment, and money the municipality puts into recycling -- and the various private companies hired to collect and process the material.

given the increasing news stories (at least here in Portland, OR) about metal theives, I imagine that cans are less likely to end up dumped than plastics.

[d1g17aldr3am3r]

I have also heard this rumor.. Hrm...

[slave_of_fate]

all I know is yes it costs money but in a city recycling paper and metal will pay for recycling the rest of the recyclable stuff. I heard it on NPR from some guy who is an authority on such things.

[daemonaquila]

It's true, though the issues vary from place to place. In my old home town, it was anything but secret that there wasn't enough trash to keep the garbage burner running. Since the city picked up the recycling, they controlled what happened to it. Much of it went to feed the garbage burner so it would run 24/7.

[stainedfeathers]

I'm HIGHLY skeptical about this. Its a rumor I've heard for EVERY recycleable material around and I've found it mostly stems from people who are looking for an excuse not to recycle and to lazy to. The "oh, well, it doesn't matter that I'm throwing this away because it doesn't get recycled anyhow cause our city is lazy/bad government

[xhile]

Metal recycling is pretty good. Plastic recyling on the other hand...

[sexinstilettoz]

Well first of all, I wasn't reffering to metals at all, because it's obvious that metals are precious and can always be recycled. I was more talking about plastics. Second, I have to disagree that the people who believe this are too lazy to recycle. My environmental science teacher told me this, and the people who believe this are people who are also in the environmental fields and have done research, not people who are too lazy to save the environment.

[stainedfeathers]

Actually, I was referring to the people I personally know and have met that believe this. And they ARE too lazy to recycle and use this as an excuse/validation for their not recycling. There are some environmentalist types out there who don't recycle on the basis you speak of, but a lot of people who are not environmentalists, but your everyday Joe Somebody who doesn't much care about environmental issues but wants to do the "right thing" tends to use this excuse to not recycle. They also tend to use the excuse that it "doesn't actually do any good anyway" and "who cares?" (If you can't tell, I've heard way too many BS arguments. I start to want to smack people after hearing this drivel so often. I also tend not to know alot of environmentalists because of where I live, a highly conservative don't give a damn kinda city, so I may hear this side alot more than you do depending on where you are

[xhile]

there's some interesting posts in the antiplastik community about what is ACTUALLY recycled.