Submitted by Elvish_Rebellion t3_ycthu2 in RhodeIsland
There’s just trucks that pick up inorganic trash every other week. Everything is dumped in the same lot. Plastic, cardboard, glass all dumped into the same truck. Who is sorting that out? I doubt someone is. Are we just deluding ourselves? I never understood it.
Huh. Didn’t know this was a thing. Thanks for the info.
> Everything is dumped in the same lot. Plastic, cardboard, glass all dumped into the same truck.
It's called single stream
> Who is sorting that out?
Rhode Island Resource Recovery. I think they have a virtual tour on the website. I did one in person years ago and it was really interesting.
To answer your questions
> We’re not really recycling anything are we?
Based on what I see going into the bins here in East Providence, not much. It's mostly trash. I think the MEGA drivers got tired of people losing their shit when their bins got an orange tag and looked the other way when they see trash in the bins. Personally witnessed literal breakdowns from people being told their recycling bin was full of trash.
> Are we just deluding ourselves?
Yup. I put my recyclables in the bin but honestly I don't it's doing any good.
Compost your food scraps tho!
A Shocking Amount of US "Recycling" Goes Straight to the Landfill - "According to a scathing new Greenpeace USA report, only five percent of plastic waste generated by US households actually gets recycled."
I’m all for composting, and I do what I can but the fruit flies are gnats that gather can be a real pain in the ass so I had to cut down.
I read this before I posted.
Waste Management dumps nearly all recycling as waste. Food container in the recycling bin? Contaminated, dump as waste. Someone throw a plastic bag in the bin? Contaminated, dump as waste. Etc. In the years I worked in facilities at a large RI employer, I don’t remember seeing one monthly invoice where WM actually dumped a load of recycling as actual recycling. Not one single time.
So it IS a façade.
I assume most recycling goes to the landfill
At least in East Providence, the recycling is for real. This facility has a high rating.
It's a shame we switched to it honestly. I'll have to find the paper, but there was a good study done about the results of switching to single stream. While the amount of goods being put in recycling bins went way up, the amount of goods being successfully recycled actually went down because of the contamination.
A lot of places had to stop their recycling programs entirely after China banned imported recycling material, as it turned out most of our 'recycling' was just being shipped to China or other countries and dumped in rivers after valuable metals were sifted out.
Literally both "luxury" living communities I've lived in have done away with recycling claiming the trash is getting sorted, yeah ok pal. I honestly can't blame them when I've literally seen people throw couches in recycling dumpsters. "Cardboard only" seems like a perfectly great place to throw out those lamps and coffee table you're not taking to your new place....
Put your food scraps in the freezer until it's time for the compost to be picked up.
My employer had a director in charge of renewable this or that, and she even told me once restrictions on China came into play, RI just started warehousing the recycling that didn't end up in the landfill. I don't know if there's been any resolution to that, but when I was involved, it had been going on for years.
Think about your curbside recycling. You do your best, rinse out everything, only put in approved recycling items. Your neighbor came from someplace where they recycle a lot more kinds of items, so they put several things not approved in RI into their recycling. The next neighbor down throws dirty food containers in there. The same truck picks it all up. The whole truckload is contaminated and goes in the landfill. No one is paying to have individuals pick through truckloads of recycling to remove the non-recycling, it's just too time-consuming and expensive.
Do you have an indoor or outdoor bin? Make sure the actual food scraps are covered and it helps keep the bugs down. Get yourself some red wrigglers to eat everything up faster
> At least in East Providence, the recycling is for real.
No, it isn't. And I believe the mayor has been vocal how much the constant stream of contaminated loads are costing the city. I'd say 9 out of 10 bins here in EP have not just trash, but visible trash and it still gets picked up.
It does. Where there is a recycling facility on site.
AMA. I’m a garbage man.
Can’t find the article but a study came out yesterday that only about 5% recycled plastics actually made it back into circulation.
I wouldn't say I'm surprised. Disappointed certainly. It's just that most packaging is made as cheaply as possible and economically it doesn't make fiscal sense to recycle generally. That leaves you competing between making money and protecting the environment, we know where that usually goes.
Here's the 2021 annual report from RIRRC who handles all waste and recycling for the state.
Bottom-line figures, statewide totals for the year:
Solid waste: 374,818 tons
Recycling (including cans and bottles, compost, scrap metal): 185,111 tons
Rejected recycling: 18,744 tons
Presumably, that means that 185,111-18,744=166,367 tons actually gets recycled, but I am not finding data specifically about how much recyclable waste actually gets recycled. We seem to have state laws requiring recyclable material to actually be recycled, but I am far from a legal expert and there are surely loopholes; § 23-18.8-2 (3) "All solid waste capable of being recycled should be recycled".
Here's a story from the ASRI, which includes a description and picture of the sorting facility you were curious/skeptical about: https://asri.org/news-events/articles-2020-01/the-truth-about-your-recycling-bin.html
I meant that I read that the facility is well-run, not that the citizens are properly rinsing and flattening and only putting acceptable recyclables in the bin. I’ve only lived here one year so all I know is based on what I read when I looked online. We need mandatory recycling like in Japan… Thanks for letting me know more about it.
The recycling rules are extremely easy. So what you’re saying is you didn’t follow them and got discouraged when you realized you’re part of the problem people complain about contaminating the loads and costing taxpayers significantly more money and now you’re just going to dig your heels in instead of learning how to actually do it. Cool.
I was in elementary school when they pushed the whole recycling thing. We spent time in class learning what could be recycled and why. So spent my whole adult life separating into the color specific bins only to watch them dump them both into the truck and mix them up. I felt like a real dumb dumb for putting in so much effort for so many years.
"Recycling" as we are currently doing it is basically greenwashing bs. It's sad. We produce so much trash as a species I honestly don't see how we have much chance of turning the tide. The momentum is in the wrong direction.
Followed them for years. Even if you follow them, it’s a wasted effort. This isn’t a consumer problem.
Yeah we just send all our recycling to china who dumps it in the ocean
You aren't dumb, you've just been let down by a broken system.
What do you waste by following the very simple rules? Besides taxpayer dollars, I mean. What do you gain by being one of these people who purposely contaminate the recycling loads?
How am I not following them technically? I said I put everything with a symbol in?
You print a symbol on your package, it goes in the blue bin.
What I meant by not even trying was that I used to research to figure out which crap doesn’t get recycled even though it has a symbol.
I can’t be bothered anymore.
No! Who told you that? Those symbols just mean what kind of plastic they are, they have NOTHING to do with recycling them. So no, you haven’t followed the recycling rules from RIRRC.
https://www.rirrc.org/recycling-composting-disposal/what-to-recycle-in-your-bin-cart
There’s videos, there’s lists, there’s charts, there’s a Facebook page where you can literally message someone and a person gets back to you quickly, you can tag them in comments and a person gets back to within a day or so with an answer. You could take five minutes to figure out how to recycle properly.
Everyone complaining about how hard it is… it’s not hard. You just haven’t tried. When I moved here from a different state that did it differently the first thing I figured out where to find the trash and recycling pickup schedule and the second thing was what goes in the bins, what kind of trash bags like if I had to pay for special bags like other towns do, etc etc. It’d all right on their website and they’re very easy to get a hold of to ask a live person for something that’s maybe somehow not on that very long list.
I mean that’s the stuff I throw in. I’m not an idiot. But some stuff is labeled recyclable but isn’t. Any cardboard that’s been treated for moisture resistance is a great example. If it goes in your freezer, you can’t recycle it due to the wax coating.
Obviously, you don’t put in random plastics like coat hangers.
In Johnston we have a separate truck for recyclables. But the green waste goes in the garbage truck. So I guess my leaf bags and sticks are getting sorted to compost??
Work downtown in an office bldg. There are dumpsters for cardboard. Everything else is garbage, no recyclables. And since bags go in the dumpster there’s no sorting that.
We, as a society concentrate way too much on recycle vs reduce and reuse.
Iirc only like 10% of plastic gets recycled
You’re right. It’s hard living in a capitalist society where companies like amazon have a hand in our wallets waiting for a click to collect in the exchange for “stuff” that ultimately becomes garbage. Mostly items targeted at children are the most useless within a year. Also, you’re constantly bombarded by targeted ads whenever you look at a digital screen pushing you, training you, to buy all the time. Companies love a depressed country with money to burn, they’re easy prey. Thanks for your input, I’m just gonna focus on not buying things I don’t need. This way of thinking should help with my impulse spending. Ultimately we can only really trust ourselves to do better.
Lol right? When I first saw how this was being handled I fully called bullshit. No way the city hires enough people to sort through all that. The scale of work it would take is massive and would be nigh impossible based on today’s rampant consumerism.
That article is the reason I posted this.
I live in an apt building. I compost because I recently got into gardening. I started with sealed jars under my sink starting small because I wasn’t sure how much compost I need for the plants I’d be growing in pots. I also have a small tub with a lid outside in the back yard area that contains soil leaves sticks and rotting vegetables and fruit. it’s in the far corner under some weeds and I keep it cracked open so flies and other insects can help compost it on top of adding extra nitrates.
I’ve really leaned on my local but nothing group too, I usually have something someone can use or repurpose, and vice versa. But yeah, we don’t talk about reduce and reuse anymore… late stage capitalism buy buy buy
I’ve gotten into some urban gardening recently and it does help me reuse a lot of my plastic bottles and glass jars into small planters for my growing collection. Paper and cardboard I try to compost what I can.
For a long time it was actually shipped to China - wasn't until like 2018 that they stopped buying it. Seems ridiculous.
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A lot of what you recycle doesnt get recycled. They pick out what they can. Some parts of the country stopped recycling entirely. There's no demand for a mixed up recylcable garbage
Oh… my neighborhood doesn’t have a compost pickup…
It’s funny, I sent a question to RIRRC yesterday and this is what they sent me this morning:
Hi, thanks for reaching out and great question! This can certainly be a bit confusing. Wet-strength cardboard is either made of fibers held together by a binding compound to repel water (frozen food boxes, kitty litter boxes, etc.) or the cardboard itself is lined with plastic (such as coffee cups). Fiber recycler add water to re pulp the fiber, so when the fibers are designed to repel water they don't break down in the re pulping process making them not recyclable through this process. Cartons on the other hand are constructed using a layering system. Some are a layering system of wax-paper-wax (like a milk carton) and other are a layering system of paper-plastic-aluminum-plastic-paper (like broth cartons). The buyer is able to separate our the good fibers from the other materials and recycle those good fibers. We hope this helps provide a bit more clarity to the topic!
There’s a reason for why they do what they do, just follow the rules and if you’re not just sure ask them. It’s not a big deal. Should it be easier? Absolutely. No doubt about it. But it’s not for right now, and for whatever reason you’re assuming that just because something SAYS it’s recyclable means it is, it isn’t. I don’t know how else to tell you that, it’s just marketing/greenwashing. Everyone needs to listen to their local recycling company since they’re who dictates what they can and can’t recycle, and I’m sure in the future things will change but it’s been like this for 10+ years here so nobody really has an excuse to not “get it” yet.
I had a lot of cardboard from moving boxes, took it to the Coventry transfer station and they had a specific dumpster just for cardboard so :shrug:
You did YOUR part!
Lol so true
If you have the outdoor space, I highly suggest a tumbling composter.
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If I had an award to give, I would. Just wanted to come back to say thank you. I'm looking this stuff up and will try to change my nonchalance toward it. I appreciate being challenged.
Though I must admit, Nibbles needs a new campaign manager because he's not even on the ballot..or maybe he just hasn't announced yet?
You’re welcome. And Our Lord and Savior Nibbles Woodaway is going to do whatever she’s going to do, campaign or no campaign, she deserves it.
OMG. She!! I love it!
2xth t1_itoa9ml wrote
https://www.liveabout.com/an-overview-of-single-stream-recycling-2877728