Too Much of a Good Thing?

then they get fed up with that crap and have a 10th, with the 10th being the recycle recycle bin pick-up

Sounds like a classic example of a political policy that was passed despite complete lack of planning or input from experts in the field. Your policy makers who were terrified of having a negative political ad say that they "voted against recycling" decided to pass these laws regardless of the fact that there was no funding to design and purchase technology that could sort the waste more efficiently. On the bright side, you can now look forward to an inevitable tax hike to pay for all of the extra trucks and garbage men - the cost of which could have paid for a pretty nice waste sorting plant or two.

do not know the full info but if its politician's usual.....We gotta do something....lets throw money at it....

As brought forth, it's all about the political and the offsets in lining their pockets. In the early '80's recycling was introduced and incouraged by our city and county gov't here in FL and to participate. The attention grabber was that it was said to reduce our refuse collection fees. Never happened, only to continue to climb. An indicator was where the collection contract was given to another firm, and the previous made off with the trucks WE had paid for! Something wrong with that contract! The "Madeoff's" have been around for a long time. I've heard some yak that we have too much recyclables and are having to just dump it. Something wrong with that!

Looks like it's time they took a look at what is being recycled the most and then speak to the producers about finding a way to redice the amount of packaging or material that people end up with at home.

I would then look at the things that can not be recycled and be asking why can't they be recycled.

You know that people are being killed by armed gangs so others can take control over the (forgot the name of it)mineral they use to make cell phones. So recycle it could save a life.

Does anyone know roughly what percentage of these recycling schemes break even or better?

I suspect the percentage is low probably mainly due to poorly conceived schemes which were brought in so the politicians could be seen to be "doing something".

About 25-30 years ago, wish I can remember the source.....I think it was my professor in physical metallurgy in school.

He was saying that it takes more energy to recycle aluminium cans that it does to mine it.

I believe it was my professor because at the same lecture he went on to say aluminium is the most common/plentiful metal to be mined

that is one of the points of recycling. for the consumsers to realize the high cost of raw materials , the enviormental damage done by both landfills and mining togeather.

Look at China now more coal under ground than any country in the world but they import it because they need it now not next year or next month but Now.

Highly contaminaed water from landfills, mning site will be a problem for the USA for man years to come leaching into stream and rivers. even the old buildings they drop with a blast loaded with abestoes and the dust washed down the drain to the rivers and lakes by the fire department.

While living in Melbourne (Aussie) they introduced a new waste management system that shredded all the waste, ran it down a belt and used optical detection and compressed air to separate the colurs and types of plastic. Why can't that system be universal? It is crazy to expect people to separate it, it is corrupted by mistakes and laziness.

In the Daily Mail today:

"This is the moment binmen were caught on camera emptying a recycling bin and one with ordinary rubbish into the SAME lorry.

Residents could not believe their eyes when they saw council employees wheeling the refuse containers towards the dump truck.

One person had time to grab their camera and took this image of a brown and a green bin being emptied into the vehicle.

And residents claim the practice has now been going on in Plymouth, Devon, for six weeks."

So much for theory.