>Read again what I said. I did not ask if you presumed that they were not >recycling. I asked if you might have been presuming their reason or >motivation for not recycling. As I pointed out, there are others besides not >wanting to deal with the hassle of it.
Ok, I read it again. When I asked them why they were not recycling they told me that it is to much of a hassle for them to separate it. >*sigh* >Apparently I did not do an adequate job of explaining this before, so I'll >try again, using an example. > >Let's say you're going to the market to shop for produce. You come upon the >apple bin. You look them over and you see some that look absolutely >wonderful and you see others that a bruised, maybe scraped, whatever. They >look like crap. Which are you going to choose? The good-looking ones. As is >everyone else. What ends up happening to the cruddy-looking ones? They end >up out back in a dumpster or a compost pile because nobody wants them. > >Recycling works kind of the same way. The reason we separate out recyclable >stuff is because we can use it again to make something else. However, no >matter what that material happens to be, paper, glass, or whatever, it >competes with other collected materials as well as never-before-used >materials (called virgin materials in the solid waste and manufacturing >industries). > >Now - if we don't place enough emphasis on achieving a high quality with our >recyclables, they're not going to compete very well with the cities that do >make that effort. They're also not going to compete well with virgin >materials. The result is nobody's going to want them. And when that happens, >guess where the stuff ends up? In a landfill. Even though you had your big >single-sort cart and you separated your cans, bottles and paper from your >trash, nobody wants your cluttered mix of cans, bottles and paper because >the quality is so poor. And while there are laws that mandate collection of >recyclables, there are few laws that mandate using those collected >materials. So competition is something we have to worry about when we look >at the whole picture of how recycling works and not just our little role in >how we separate our trash. > >That's why when Dee Long mentioned what her husband was told about >Minneapolis only does separation for the feel-good aspect, I said that was >backwards. Cities and counties that take the single-sort shortcut are doing >so because they're not paying attention to the whole recycling picture. >They're just looking at providing an easy way for their residents to feel >good because they're "recycling." They're not recycling. They're playing a >part in the whole recycling process - which involves collecting the >materials, using the materials to make new stuff and then buying the new >stuff made from those recycled materials. You cannot have recycling without >all three of these parts. I see your point, that by separating we make the material more marketable, however my point is, as you say laws mandate recycling and the reason for that is to keep these materials out of landfills. If we switch to single sort the process becomes much simpler, this results in an increase in participation, which will decrease the amount of recyclables that enter the solid waste stream at the point of origin. The following is excerpted from waste managements web site, as you can see they are claiming as much as a 300% increase in recycled material. http://www.wm.com/NewWM/navigation/fs.asp?topic=Services&page=recycling Single-stream - Waste Management is focused on making it easier for people to recycle - whether at home or at work. In 2001, Waste Management became the first major solid waste company to focus on residential single-stream recycling, which allows customers to mix recyclable paper, plastic and glass in one bin. Residential single stream programs have greatly increased the recycling rates, recovering as much as three times the amount of recyclable materials. Single-stream is made possible through the use of various mechanized screens and optical sorting technologies used in many of Waste Management's Material Recovery Facilities (MRFs) or recycling plants. With single-stream well under way in residential applications, Waste Management is testing and pioneering the same easy recycling programs for office buildings and other commercial applications. Dan McConnell Longfellow REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
