My city has drop off recycling from Ecomaine not curbside pickup. I have been hearing things about plastic not being recycled and such. Does anyone have the inside scoop? I will happily keep sorting and driving my recycling to the drop off bin if it’s really happening but if not would rather save my time for other endeavors.
Comments
bluestargreentree t1_ixg6kvy wrote
Not sure how true this is but it is true that china has pretty much stopped buying a lot of plastics, making it way more expensive, if not impossible, to recycle compared to incinerate/landfill.
nedasherman283 t1_ixh0ezn wrote
Waste to energy is the new term
Yourbubblestink t1_ixifq1c wrote
Or Lol ‘energy recovery’.
bwma t1_ixpznns wrote
I read that only 5-6% of recycling actually gets recycled
Eccentrically_loaded t1_ixfncnj wrote
I just scanned a bunch of articles online. It looks like Maine is near the top (#6) of states recycling rates.
A while ago I was told recycling is pointless because it all just gets landfilled or incinerated anyway. I looked into it and found that some recycling gets wasted if a batch is contaminated or in a period when there isn't enough demand for any particular type of recyclable material.
It is worth recycling. Reducing and reusing are more important, but recycling is still good.
icey8 t1_ixfjxl8 wrote
I work as a contractor at eco Maine frequently and they do separate recyclables and have separate trucks come and get it. Not sure where it goes from there (possibly china) but they’re doing their part.
sassafrasfruit t1_ixfmsg8 wrote
REDUCE. REUSE. RECYCLE. COMPOST. If nothing else sorting your own waste keeps you aware of it. As far as the industry goes...
FormerlyPrettyNeat t1_ixgxbqg wrote
With the exception of compost, the old “reduce, reuse, recycle” is also sorted from best to worst, in terms of impact on the planet. Reduce waste first, reuse things that might otherwise get tossed second, and finally recycle if you can’t do either.
Adding compost is tricky – I feel like that should be at the top of the list for food waste.
sassafrasfruit t1_ixhj3az wrote
I totally agree with you about being efficient about it. That logic applies to food waste as well. Reduce your food waste by eating what you buy/cook, recycle it by making a broth stock/supplementing your livestock feed, then compost it. Food waste is generally your wettest, heaviest and stinkiest waste.
lukatuh t1_ixg05ge wrote
Just toured their facility today, actually! All according to an environmental educator I spoke with there, they have a recycle success rate of 36%, which seems low from a standerby's POV. Compared to a lot of states, they are actually very efficient with the innovation they do have, especially as they accept from 75 Maine towns/cities as well as waste from other states as well. Their technology is German made. They separate different plastics, from hard plastics to softer plastics using Bühler PET plastic optical sorters. That part is sick to me, it's really amazing technology- I believe it's new as well. Finally it's hand sorted. They do what they can and sell bales of recycled waste (cardboard, aluminum, different plastics) to companies interested in reusing the material. As people have said, it's ultimately best to do what you can to reduce and reuse above all else. We just can't get rid of waste.
Prestigious_Clue145 t1_ixfhfx0 wrote
Do you pay to recycle? Probably not. Do you pay for your trash? Probably yes.
It's more economical for a household to recycle all that can be recycled, as you will produce less trash and spend less money.
Whether or not it actually gets recycled is not really our problem, it's sad if it doesn't, but we should do our part to the best of our ability and communicate to our elected officials that we feel it's important that our plastic is properly recycled and not just turned into trash with extra steps
sassafrasfruit t1_ixhkhho wrote
The old hit them in the wallet technique. Paying for trash bags was enough for the general resident to consider how to use/pay for less trash bags. When this gets scaled up to the municipal level the impact can be profound.
Maine_Detailer-IM t1_ixfkpai wrote
I run a business and bring my recycling into the local transfer station every week. Requires a sticker from the town office you pay for. Have a dumpster I could just throw everything in, but I make the effort to recycle every week. Lived in Florida for a bit and where I lived everything went in the trash, never again
north_canadian_ice t1_ixfvks1 wrote
As a former Mass resident now living in Maine, the transfer station setup is straight forward like you say.
biggersausage t1_ixfmj1k wrote
A very close relative of mine works in management for Casella here in ME and they said on average, approx 60% of recycling is tossed (read: burned) due to contamination or not being recyclable at all. People throw some absurd shit in the recycling I guess
anisleateher t1_ixfq9re wrote
Metal and glass, probably. Plastic? Basically no way. Only #1 and #2 plastics can be reused and only a few times at that. The likelihood they're actually being recycled and reused is very low.
FatRedDragons t1_ixfkrux wrote
Just metal and paper being recycled, really. Plastic recycling has always been a bit of a grey area. I wish the human race would just stop using plastic as much as possible. It’s killing the planet. But greedy corps and lazy humans will just keep making and using more 🤷
mmaalex t1_ixh2ex0 wrote
Not sure about your specific municipality, but generally speaking nationwide recycling has gone backwards signifigantly in the last few years.
Generally speaking there is a market for cardboard, and metals. Plastic used to mostly get shipped to China, and around mid 2020 they more or less stopped buying it so a lot of it is being landfilled today. Glass is heavy and is cheaper to landfill, sometimes it is smashed and mixed into "fill" for construction.
Obviously this varies by location significantly. If you're anywhere near Bangor waste has in the pastbbeen burned at PERC, and was supposed to be getting turned into natural gas before that company went bankrupt (different towns signed different agreements on where waste went). Now PERC is handling a lot less volume and most of it is going to the landfill.
BrewDevilicious t1_ixht46l wrote
I wish that the towns served by Ecomaine would send their middle school students on a tour of the facility annually. There is nothing more effective in changing a family’s recycling habits than a pre-teen with more information than the rest of the household.
Guygan t1_ixfdm6d wrote
Why not ask your town this question?
Majestic-Feedback541 t1_ixg05g6 wrote
Honestly, it all depends how your area has recouped from all the COVID shut downs. My town has only just begun opening up their recycling building again. It was shut down due to COVID.
Koboldsftw t1_ixg6401 wrote
I’m in Bar Harbor and the word here is that absolutely nothing gets recycled
RealMainer t1_ixhw1x6 wrote
Most of what you throw in the recycling bin ends up shipped to China and then burned or dumped into the ocean. The only thing that actually gets recycled is metal.
On top of that, from what I read, the process of recycling creates more pollution than just making new plastic.
threedogdad t1_ixhfh0v wrote
last stat I saw was something like only 5% of recycling gets recycled.
joeydokes t1_iximlzp wrote
I recycled diligently for ages, only to discover that barely 1/5 of the contents actually ever being re-processed. Feeling scammed for all my efforts to be green(er) :(
Ok-Eggplant-1649 t1_ixlv9p2 wrote
Might want to do some research into your local recycling program. Ours was literal trash. Had a friend who worked there. We had "zero sort" recycling containers. Those containers then went to the processing plant where they were all dumped onto a conveyor belt and through a shredder. Everything was contaminated so nothing could be recycled.
biffingtonjones t1_ixftxt8 wrote
if the product is cleaned out before recycling its most likely being reused in some way. if it was just chucked in the bin right after usage it is trash. since most people don’t rinse out every container before recycling most of it is just garbage with extra steps
costabius t1_ixg297i wrote
That's not how it works.
Glass and metal, it doesn't matter how dirty it is, it gets ground to pieces and melted.
Plastic recycling is complicated, but how dirty the plastic is has no bearing on whether it will be recycled or not.
The only item it does matter for is paper. One greasy pizza box will ruin a ton of cardboard and make it useless. Oil and grease is very hard to separate from paper pulp.
biffingtonjones t1_ixgx7ad wrote
oh weird, guess i’ve been misled. thanks for the correction
nhrunner87 t1_ixh6mdb wrote
It really bothers me when I see pizza places put “recycle me!” on their boxes because in most cases the grease makes it ineligible for recycling. But they don’t clarify that.
sassafrasfruit t1_ixhhw0h wrote
You can compost that greasey cardboard
nhrunner87 t1_ixhkp3k wrote
Yeah good point. Could probably just cut out the section with the grease on it, compost it, and recycle the rest.
UrHumbleNarr8or t1_ixhjida wrote
I wonder if there is a better container to use for pizza?
Yourbubblestink t1_ixfhoub wrote
The recycling industry has collapsed. There is not any real recycling going on unless you consider burning trash for energy a form of recycling.