I live in Chicago and we have one of the worst recycling rates in the country, even for valuable materials like aluminum. I have read about the Oregon bottle bill which has been successful.
Calgary, Canada.
Beverage containers are sold with:
- Deposit: Depending upon the size of the container, your deposit is calculated. You get that deposit back when you submit the container to a recycling facility.
- Recycling fee: Depending upon how easy/difficult it is to recycle a container, you get charged a recycling fee. Metal containers I think charge 0. Plastics charge a little more.
It’s kinda neat I guess. Haven’t researched recycling systems around the world, so don’t know if there are any better approaches than this one.
Calgary also has garbage pickup every other week while recycling and compost is picked up every week. This for me incentivized putting things in the recycling bin so that my black bin wasn’t overflowing. The organics pickup also helped with that a lot because rotting food really can stink so less of it in the black bin the better.
There are several US States that follow a similar model.
Im in the chicago area in a condo and recycling is picked up in a garbage truck like the garbage. Various people put things in the recycling that are not supposed to be in it. Like greasy pizza boxes or other food containers. I keep on bringing it up and have hung signs but like some people think it includes composting or something and will put in like plants. ugh. so pretty much our recyling gets spoiled and if other places are good with their recycling (I sorta doubt) then the truck that picks up our stuff is going to be spoiled. So my guess is a lot of whats picked up as recycling gets tossed like garbage. The only way I can see it getting better is to have clearly marked and colored (our current waste disposal which includes recycling does not use color coded containers and only has a small sticker to indicate the contents) containers where we seperate for paper products and plastic and other (thing with glass and metal is they are not as much as it used to be). Also maybe add one for composting. All the containers need a unique color and should be clearly marked with what should and should not go in them. Im talking condos here so they are dumpsters and there is plenty of room. The vendors used just have to be required to do this.
Yea that’s completely fair to be frustrated. The reality of the problem is deeper than that, because even if you properly separate your materials chances are it’s all put into one truck anyway. What we also need are hubs for people to drop of their recycling where it can be separated an aggregated in bulk. I just learned about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sure_We_Can which is something I think Chicago could do as well. We need the government to implement a bottle bill, but the complexity of getting legislators to make a decision to pass that is something much more difficult and long term.
My town has a 24/7 recycling drop-off location with separated material bins and with sorting rules clearly printed on the sides
the 16 oz coke bottles used to have deposit and oberweiss worked that way. I really would like to see more of that and less plastic. Whats funny with the coke was it was actually the cheapest per oz usually compared to other containers. you just had the large up front cost but if your regularly picking it up you get it back and did a new one. It was like having a few buck retainer to get a less costly soda price.
IDK but part of the problem in Chicago is that the companies are only really incentivized to recycle metal; glass and paper break about even for them, and plastic is a loss — a lot of times they just throw it out. And of course there’s crooked contracts mandating that the recycling must have a certain percentage of metal in it or penalties apply; which is complicated by the scrappers who prowl the alleys taking anything metal for private recycling.
The conclusion I’ve come to is location and space. Basically we need tight local hubs where people can drop off their recyclables at no cost. Then volunteers can sort these recyclables. You take the efforts of scrappers who prowl the alleys, and the efforts of people who want to recycle their materials and have a synergistic solution which costs nearly nothing if the government cooperates.
People are barely willing to take their recycling to the alley, I doubt they’ll schlep it to a pickup site for free, especially since so many Chicagoans don’t have cars or wheelbarrows or bike trailers.
And getting volunteers to sort it? That’s another no-sell.
We need solutions, and I’m glad you’re thinking about it, but keep thinking.
I just emailed House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, Majority Leader Robyn Gabel, and Representative Maurice A. West, II about Release HB 1089 (Illinois Container Fee and Deposit Act) from Rules Committee. 😂
My area has a two stream recycling system: one for paper/cardboard, and another for “co-mingled” "plastic, glass, metal. It’s all picked up the same as garbage every week. The biggest problem with zero sort recycling is that it’s hard to separate paper and plastics with automated machines based on their physical properties. So our central recycling facility has two independent factory lines to sort the components of each stream. The co-mingled line also has more humans who help make things easier for the machines and visually identify materials.
Ultimately, you need to have the materials purified as much as possible to be attractive to buyers who will then turn the sorted recycling into new products. Package it up on pallets and then it can be shipped by train or truck to the production factory.
Our central facility also has manual drop off for e-waste, appliances, bulk metal, and hazardous materials that have their unique recycling streams.
The Retail Store Semi Related to Archery, has a policy for how we send stuff back to corporate.
The stuff that costs the most to send back and process; returned merchandise that can’t be restocked, or products that aren’t being sold anymore, but can’t be donated.
At least at my store* We can’t send a truck back without at least one Gaylord (seriously what they are called, a large cardboard bin) full of recycle plastic, one bail of compressed cardboard, and one compost bin. They absolutely love it when we send back a bin full of clothes hangers, almost enough to pay for the truck.
There are also special cardboard boxes, called repacks™ that can be folded down flat and returned to the distribution center.
So for us at least, it’s almost completely a cost covering tactic, with a side benefit of being a fairly decent recycling policy.
We put kitchen/organic waste into brown bins (it is used to create gas), packaging materials, plastics and paper into the green bin, non-refundable glass into the blue bin, metal is collected separately, and the little that is left over in the grey bin.
All plastic, aluminium, glass, anything compostable including meat (they have special facilities for that), paper. Plastic and glass bottles are often reused.
And yeah, you can recycle plastic. It’s used to make benches, walkways, clothing, shoes, etc.
I hope the “plastic recycling is a con” myth doesn’t arrive in Germany but you never know with Merz.
Im not sure people believe plastic recycling does not happen. Just that it does not get done and that it can’t be used for many common products. I have never seen clothing or shoes advertised with recycled content but playground equipment and benches and alternatives to wood planks for some things yes. I think its one of those things where the us does it poorly but like I assume its done well in like japan.
