How does recycling work exactly? #ExplainThis?

Question

What should I throw out? Which bins? Good question! The environment is important but what to do with our wastes? So in today's question we are asking about recycling!

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Answer 1

A LOT depends on how your recycling company works. For many years, my municipal recycling co. only took plastics with certain PET (something like that) numbers on them, newspapers had to be bound by twine or in a paper grocery bag, glossy magazine (including those that came in the Sunday papers) went into a separate paper bag, all glass went into another, cans went into another. Now, we just dump them all into the bin and the recycling co. does the sorting. Food stuff goes into the compost bin (and you can also put plain, non-adulterated paper, paper egg cartons--anything that will compost. Everything else goes into landfill trash. At the plant, the recycling collected goes onto conveyor belts and the employees sort through real fast picking out plastics, picking out glass, etc. and making big piles (kind of forklift trucks come by when the piles get high and haul it away. If you rent a dumpster, you just dump anything (except toxins like paint or oils or acids or like that) in the box and the trash company sorts through it all, any clothing or housewears that are still usable get sent to charities, etc. Way back when we had to the sorting, the trash company would actually rebate money each month to the subscribers (we who paid for trash pick up), it wasn't more than a few bucks but it encouraged us. Now though, you pay for the trash bin pick up, the compost pick up, the recycling pick up--a minimum of 3 cans no matter what, even if you don't make any garbage you have to pay. Kind of monopoly and it feels very...Mafia. Of course, no one who decided about all this trash stuff didn't take into consideration that it increases the vermin problems. We've never had so many flies in the warmer weather. We also had to install doors so the raccoons, opossums and other critters. I think all this recycling is good and right, but someone(s) is making a lot of money off our backs and that feels all wrong.

Answer 2

How Does Recycling Work

Answer 3

. U.S. lags FAR behind. The don 't teach the kids squat and they don 't give a rats *ss whether we recycle or not. It only became available in our community a few months ago - pathetic. We could have paid $45 per month just for recycle picks in the last year or so but, that is abusive and I did not buy into. I think few people did because only recently, they realized people were not that stupid and stopped charging us. After all, they are paid when they sell it. The waste company (or city) supplies you with a box and they tell you what they accept for recycling. The basics are glass, paper, cardboard and tin cans (aluminum cans, etc), You put all that stuff in the recycle bin, as opposed to the garbage bin. They pick it up and they sell it to a recycling company that separates the glass from the paper, etc. They process it and we have done our part. Instead of glass going into a huge dumping ground, it is recycled into counter tops, bottles, jars, etc. Recycled paper goes back into paper products. It means fewer trees need to be cut down. Why fill up the ground with glass and paper, etc. when it can easily and profitably be recycled.

Answer 4

I go to a private skl with huge fees but they said recycling was too expensive. The classes complained for years and after a new teacher took on getting recycling as a personal project she found that the council will actually pay to take away recycling. Our skl recycling bins now fill up quick and the skl gains money in the process. Maybe this is an idea for the hospital?

Answer 5

There is a great penn and teller episode on recycling. I highly suggest you look for it on youtube. Basically recycling does not work well at all. Unless you are recycling cans.
Reusing is a better concept, but when it comes to stuff like recycling paper or plastic or glass, we end up using more resourced to recycle them then we actually save.

Answer 6

recycling is basically stuff get a second life and does notend up in a landfill or not floating away in theocean or river. Making new things requires lots of energy and pollutes. generally most thing recycled generates less of a carbon footprint. Recycling clothes and appliances via donating through thrift shops is pollution free and cheaper for the next person buying that item.

Lastly, recycling is a 7/24 job and every bit helps in today's throw away society

Answer 7

"exactly" depends on the material, and what facilities are available in your location.
Scrap steel and other metals can be melted down and used in the manufacture of new steel. Scrap paper can be de-inked and used in the production of new pulp. Plastics can be ground up and used as pellet feedstock for new materials, such as some fabrics, or crudely shredded and melted into items such as industrial picnic tables. Electronic items are often disassembled and processed to extract gold (often in unsafe and polluting conditions in third-world countries).
One problem is that the quality of recyclate tends to degrade on successive passes, so can not be used to manufacture items of the original quality. Fibres in paper get shorter, metals become contaminated with impurities, the costs of separating plastics are too great so the recycled mixture cannot be used for structural elements.
Recycling is usually more about controlling waste rather than saving resources - cities may have to pay a lot of money to move trash to a landfill miles away, which has to be carefully constructed to avoid environmental contamination, so reducing the amount of waste by recycling becomes economic, even if it costs more than the recycled material is worth.

Answer 8

There is a huge amount of debate and a lot of false hype information.
There is recycle, reuse, and re-purpose
Mixed plastics are a nightmare for plastics companies to deal with. A non-homogeneous mixture of varying melting points causes any error in the feedstock to yield a large amount of scrap and poor quality finished products. The only way to successfully recycle plastics is a separation. Further, dirt and even some foodstuffs like the calcium in bones also causes severe issues in plastics production. It is cheaper and higher quality results to use new raw materials.
There is a huge benefit for aluminum cans, but note that today's cans are much lighter and thinner than in the past.
Paper is a renewable resource and costs as much to recycle as dispose of it properly.
Glass also has an issue about mixed versus clear in color.

The labor of consumer sorting may be considered free if it was consistent. The problem then is in the collection process of keeping everything separate.

In Las Vegas, where I live, is a 200 year landfill north of the city. Recycling where land is at a huge premium and landfills are not available makes some sense as nowhere to put the waste.

Reuse when possible is a 100% win, and re-purposing materials such as composting and creative art or reusing glass for storage and drinking is a fine idea also.

The water to clean glass bottles is more energy intensive than creating new glass bottles.

Most recycling programs end up costing more than standard waste disposal. If one has to drive 50 miles to bring in paper and consider its storage, there is waste in the energy use of transport.

There are incinerators hooked to generators. Plastic soda bottles held separately make great patio decking in the recycle process. Certainly, reusing bags is environmentally friendly. There are many many things that are truly environmental saving concepts and actions.

In general, one has to weed through political information and mis-information to understand the situation. That which applies to New York City or anywhere in Japan is not the same as that in Arizona or Nevada or desert where land is freely available. I worked through many environmental activities as a scientist and leader, but found a lot was politically motivated with no scientific justification.

Certainly, water in bottles from Fuji is completely ridiculous. There are enough serious actions going on that are nightmarish when you evaluate them that letting politics and uneducated groups rule causes a loss of focus from what is really important.

Answer 9

As a child in Los Angeles, CA during the '40s; I recall a man coming through the neighborhood with a horse drawn cart. He would buy our old rags, papers, glass, plastic and metal. One of four children, our family of 6 put out a garbage can each week that only held about 10 gallons if full, but it was never actually full. Fiber, in the form of rags. cardboard or paper could be made into new paper. Glass could be melted down and re-used as could plastics and metals. Wood could be shredded and composted along with food waste and used in the garden. Very little actually went into the trash. Actually what did go into the trash could probably have been used somewhere if we had really thought about it.

The concept is really very simple. Waste nothing. Find a way to reuse everything or to turn it into something else that is useful.

Answer 10

It's a huge scam............where I live in Italy.......they supply 5 different recycling bins.........which, in the first place, most can't be bothered with and don't seperate, at all.....and just chuck bags of mixed garbage in all 5 bins. Then the truck comes, and dumps all 5 dumpsters in the same truck.
Then some tv show, exposes where these trucks take the stuff out to some dump........and then just dumps in a landfill. But if they catch me not sorting........they give me a fine and ticket , of coursre.

It's all rubbish.