Lisa Shea Forums General Discussion Life, The Universe, and Everything Outside of Canada, recyling?

I was just wondering in light of our new ONE BAG LIMIT what other countries/cities laws are like. I am interested to hear.

From City Hall website.

We also use a compost (green)bin and blue bins(recycling) already. Are most place similar now with the environmental concerns or is everyone at different stages?

I actually have no idea what green bins and blue bins are. It seems extremely odd to me to limit garbage disposal. What if you happen to have more? What happens to it? Putting a sticker on it and leaving it there seems useless to me.

But, I'm an American. Extremely wasteful. No offense to the green Americans out there.

The most I know we are doing is stores are starting to limit plastic bags usage at grocery stores. Some cities will fine you if you put recylables in with the garbage. And... um... Obama's trying to force all cars to be green?

But limiting garbage, no, we do no such thing

This is the Green Cart List Food Waste Paper Products Baked goods/Bone/Bread/Butter and margarine Cake/Candy/Cereal/Cheese/Coffee filters and grounds/Cookies/Corn cobs and husks Dairy products Eggs and eggshells Fish and fish parts/Flour/Fruit Grains/Gravy and sauces/Grease / lard / fat Herbs and spices Jams and jellies Mayonnaise/Meat and meat products Nuts and nut shells Oatmeal Pasta/Peanut butter/Pizza/Popcorn/Pumpkins Rice Salads/Shellfish/Sugar/Syrup Tea bags Vegetables Watermelon Yogurt Paper bags Facial tissues/Freezer paper Greasy pizza boxes Microwave popcorn bags Paper napkins / plates / cups Paper towels Waxed Paper Other Items Dryer lint/Feathers/Hair/Houseplants/Leaf and yard waste/Nail clippings/Pet Hair/Popsicle sticks/Sawdust (in paper bags)/Toothpicks/Wood ashes (cold – in paper bags)/Wood chips But none of these: No glass, metal, or plastic food packaging of any kind! Item-Where It Belongs Aluminum foil-Blue Box Animal Carcasses-look in the phone book Ceramics-Garbage Dead Animals-Look in the phone book Diapers-Garbage Dirt, earth, soil or sod-Look in the phone book Drinking Straws-Garbage Dryer sheets-Garbage Glass jars-Blue Box Hazardous Waste-Hotz or one of the Community Recycling Centres Medical waste-Return to your pharmacy or Hotz Metal-Blue box Pet waste-Garbage Plastic bags & containers-Blue box Rocks-Look in the phone book Sanitary products-Garbage Styrofoam products-Blue box Textiles-Garbage or Green Pages Tree stumps/Wood (treated or large pieces)-Look in the phone book The Blue Boxes: Flatten and squash items when possible All plastic food and beverage containers with #1, 2, 5 & 6 are recyclable You don't need to remove any labels Rinse everything No broken glass or window glass No needles Go topless – Remove all bottle tops! Leave paper material loose in your blue box. Stack them vertically instead of horizontally so they don't blow away. Cardboard must be flattened and tied in bundles no larger than 76cm x 76cm x 20cm (30” x 30” x 8”) •Cough syrup bottles (#2) •Dry cleaning bags •Over-the-counter medicine and vitamin bottles (#2) •Pop & water bottles (#1)•Pop cans •Boxboard - chocolate boxes, cracker boxes, tissue boxes, medicine packaging, etc. •Computer paper •Shoe boxes •Soft cover books •Cardboard cans •Bakery trays (#6) •Liquor bottles •Shopping bags •Catalogues •Envelopes •Gift wrap (no foil) & packaging •Greeting cards •Tissue boxes •Magazines •Newspapers •Pizza boxes •Telephone books •Empty aerosol cans -deodorant, hairspray, mousse, shaving cream •Empty plastic bottles (#2) -bubble bath, hand cream, hand soap, mouthwash, shampoo and conditioner bottles. Over-the-counter medicine and vitamin bottles (#2). •Aluminum foil & trays •Milk and juice cartons - Gable top containers •Metal food and beverage cans •Plastic bags - grocery bags, sandwich bags no zip locks, frozen vegetable bags, outer milk bags, plastic bread bags •Plastic bottles (#1, #2) •Margarine & yogurt containers - Tubs & Lids (#5) •Bakery trays, coffee cup lids, cookie trays, plastic egg cartons, Styrofoam containers, egg cartons, takeout & meat trays - Polystyrene (#6) •Drinking and soup boxes - Tetra-Pak containers There is more but you get the idea I guess. If you have more garbage you can pay for removal.

High-five to Canada!

But there is still garbage everywhere, it's so embarrassing, you can see people throw empty cups out their car windows and litter the streets.

Although maybe this heavy recycling/composting and one bag limit will help, but it also could lead to illegal dumping.

Tell me there are piggies elsewhere too.

True, good point.

Are you kidding? New York is home of the piggies. I'm actually embarassed to have a friend that is one of these people who throws bottles out the window. Dear friend, horrible habbit.

I've sat and watched people knowingly drop candy wrappers, sandwich wrappers, and their finished soda on the floor at their feet. All, at once, in one bus/subway ride. It's as if where ever they are, the garbage can is their feet. It's sick.

We do have a somewhat similar separation of garbage and recyclables. Few follow it though. In areas like where my parents live, their garbage place actually doesn't have the storage or processing for certain recyclables, so most other than the obvious metal and glass doesn't get recycled but thrown out.

We have wheelie bins & crates:
We have two wheelie bins ~ they are for general household rubbish. They are collected in alternate weeks.
Many also have a wheelie for garden waste, but we chose not to have one of those. They are collected in alternate weeks.
One crate is for bottles (plastic & glass) & cans.
One crate is for paper & card.

My Mum lives two miles away.
She has black bags for household rubbish.
She has a strong plastic bag or a crate for paper.
She also has a crate for cans, bottles, etc.

The milkman recycles milk bottles.

There are recycling centres all over the place, for bottles, paper, clothes, etc.

Actually, I am not at all convinced that the stuff we put for recycling isn't just put in with everything else, and discarded.

Aww.. you guys still have milkmen? That would be so cool... I'm left with the stories of my parents having fresh milk and wondering what it was like.

I wouldn't be convinced though. Unless there's a processing center for each and every recyclable product, and a strict system in place, the majority probably is just thrown out with the garbage...

The house I grew up in had a milk cubby/door, it was so cute. I can't believe you can still get milk like that, that is so very cool.

So basically most places have the wheelies, paper, plastic and yard waste, it's just a matter of if you use it or not.

Then there is the option of drop off centres.

I recently caught the end of some program on tv and it was showing that a certain amount of recycled cans was worth so many dollars, and then showing that due the recession it was worth a lesser amount almost 1/3 of the normal price and that recyclables where being held in these huge lots, as it cost more to recycle the items than the money that could be received.

They also showed the inside of a plant, where men were lined up next to a conveyor feverishly separating water bottles and cans as they rode down the ramp.

Actually maybe it was on the news, I wish i had seen the whole thing, but it was fascinating, as we are all "filing" our garbage, I never really thought of the steps that follow.

It would seem then the UK , USA and Canada are very similar.

RECYCLING

I spelled the word wrong in the topic name, excuse my spellos!

here in most cities recycling is optional, some cities do not have recycling plans at all and its done totally on your own, you keep it and you transport it to a recycling center yourself.

other cities, offer bins from the trash company and are picked up on certain days.

ussually its paper, plastic and glass.

most places, specially suburban areas, have limits on lawn waste. my mom has one day a week thursday) to put out lawn waste, like sticks and trimmed branches and bags of mowed grass. but she pays someone to come mow the yard so they have to deal with it not her so that does not affect her much.

if you do leave bags of grass on a day other than thursday they will leave it there lol ... which i nevr understood because its just going to sit there until thursday, growing mold and stinking and being used as a maggot nest.

growing up i remember having a recycle bin for paper. just regular paper and newspaper only, it was a green bin and we could put it out on mondays. thinking back, that was pretty awesome. that was 20 yrs ago. (gee i feel old now)

i do choose to recycle, paper, plastic and glass. news paper i set aside and take to the animal shelter (my work) as they use it to line kennels with. sadly it then gets thrown away with the trash and not recycled (cant recycle dog/cat poops and pee lol) but at least it got one more good use before it was tossed away.

i live in an apartment so im not aware of the recycle process for homes that have trash services, we just have a big dumpster we throw trash in ...no idea where it goes or when it gets picked up. I take my recycling to a recycling center when the bins are full.

I also recycle soda cans, which get thrown into a machine and money comes out lol ...been doing that since i was a small child. last time i did it i got $7 back. not much but pretty good for price for trash lol

we did a school play once in 2nd grade about the environment and recycling and such, it had a huge impact on me and i drove my family crazy since then about recycle that, dont throw that way and so on ... i used to get mad at my mom and drive her crazy if she went through a drive through and didnt ask for paper wrapping for her sandwich as opposed to those styrofome boxes they used to have haha

I WANT machines that eat soda cans for money!!!!

hahhaa they arent as common as they used to be.

growing up there was one in every grocery store parking lot.

This is such an interesting thread & I've learned a lot.

I've never seen a soda-can-for-money machine (lots of the opposite, though -- lol).

In my town you have to bring your recyclables to these huge containers, divided into plastics (#1 and #2 only), metal & glass, and paper. I bought 3 reasonably attractive bins to keep in our back hall for recyclables; we're fortunate to have a bit of space for them -- it's a pain when you live in an apartment!

Years ago I briefly lived in a small town and volunteered with the once-a-month recycling (collecting and sorting). Believe me when I tell you that on a hot summer day, the bleach bottles, vinegar bottles, and milk jugs combined to make the most astonishingly unpleasant odor imaginable!

I'm always amazed at how few people we know who bother to recycle (not to sound holier-than-thou, but honestly, it's not that much hassle...).

you are supposed to rinse containers out before recycling them LOL

i can imagine that smell would be horrid!! i alwasy rinse containers out with hot water and soap, specially the milk ones yuuuck!!

We have a bin for paper (which includes cardboard) and a bin for plastic containers (#2 only), glass and metal. In MI there is a 10 cent deposit on soda and beer containers (glass, plastic and cans)including fizzy water so all the grocery stores have machines that you put the can in and get an slip to take to the cashier for the money, which is really just a refund of your deposit. People rummage through recycling bins looking for returnables.

LOL I always hear Judge Judy yelling at deadbeats to go collect cans, and i was always thinking" What the in the world will that do?" Haha

Here it will get you a pat on the back.

Someone needs to post a pic of this magical machine, seriously.

I can't believe I haven't seen one, mind you I haven't searched them out , if I'm in the states i am either someones guest drinking up their sodas, or i am out in the middle of nowhere camping.

in states that offer the refund like cetan said, they are pretty common... they still have a few left over where my mom lives ... middle of god forsaken no where in oklahoma lol

also some of the machines were ran by scrap metal companies i know many of the ones in kansas growing up were ran by the scrap metal guys, insert cans, cans get weighed, out comes change lol it was like magic... i made quite a nice living collecting cans as a kid ... my grandmother hated it though she said it made us look homeless HAHA me and my sister would come home with huge bags full of cans LOL

In NYC we have homeless people walk the streets and pick cans out of the garbage cans. It's so common that most grocery stores have a limit of how much people can redeem a day. At our store it was $12, which was a lot of cans. It's amazing how these people found that many cans a day to cash in. They never cleaned them of course either, so it gunked up the machines and was pretty smelly.

Some recycling facilities will offer money for certain metals also. But those can be hard to find. Things like old dumb-bells, copper wires, and tin can be recycled sometimes for a certain price per ounce.

Actually a big problem in Detroit is people stealing copper wire and pipes out of houses, some abandoned and some not as well as from utility company poles

here too, alot of people steal copper wiring.

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