When the council took up the proposed recycling ordinance, the vote was close, but Sanderson won. It was 1980, and Woodbury became a pioneer in recycling. The city claims to be the first in the United States to adopt a mandatory curbside recycling program.But we'll keep paying extra for a second garbage truck to come pick up the so-called recycling bin--because we have to, because someone else has a religious belief that in doing so we're "saving the environment".
Woodbury even started making money by selling its trash to companies that would recycle it.
That was nearly 40 years ago. More and more, that scenario has flipped: Communities are now having to pay to get rid of their rubbish. It's happening in Woodbury and in places all over the country...
Now plastic has become the biggest thorn in the side of the recycling industry and one for which taxpayers are more often footing the bill...
Materials recovery facilities in the U.S. used to sell a lot of plastic waste to China, which was willing to sort through it. But the nonrecyclables ended up making a huge mess both on land and in the ocean. So last year, China stopped buying most of it, and now materials recovery facilities in the U.S. are left holding the bag, literally...
According to the recycling industry, only about 9% of plastic waste in the U.S. gets recycled every year (and probably less now, since China is no longer importing as much of it).
Meanwhile, it's nearly as cheap for towns like Woodbury just to dump plastic waste into landfills as it is to send plastic waste off for recycling.
Education, politics, and anything else that catches my attention.
Wednesday, August 21, 2019
Plastic Recycling
About a month ago I posted about the religious manner in which we separate plastics for recycling--except they're not necessarily being recycled. If you didn't like the source of that of the information in that post, maybe you'll believe NPR:
Late to this, but it all drives me crazy. I love those ICE drinks, and had so many bottles that one day, as an amusement, I went to the local Replanet trailer and turned them back in. I made about $3, enough to buy 3 ice drinks! So I began saving them in bags, more as an amusement factor.
ReplyDeleteBut for the last two or three months, as I went to the trailer in the nearby plaza, with my three grocery bags full of bottles, I was in line behind 9 people, usually spanish-only, with *tens* of *thousands* bottles and cans. They'd be getting payouts of $1000 plus. So the Replanet was basically making tons of money and allowing small business owners to make a ton of money, by planting a trailer, free of rent, in a plaza that was supposed to be for the layfolk, like me, to make a few bucks and encourage recycling. This bugged me--just one more way in which laws are ignored and services taken over. I know a lot of people are like oh, it's fine, look! people can make a living. Sure. Just go pay rent in a building somewhere.
Anyway, when REplanet went under, they took the trailer away and there's a lot more parking. And a bunch of immigrants, legal or otherwise, lost income because this informal method of business didn't take them into account.
Not sure if I had a point--oh, wait, I did: this is all feel good nonsense, but it also shows how effective some people are at taking advantage of the religiousity.