Why are we separating our recyclables?

[casaguy]

I was bringing down my recycling this morning and happened to get to the bins at the same time as the recycling truck arrived (although it was configured in the same way as a standard garbage truck).

I had one bag full of plastic/tin etc and another bag full of newpapers and paper.

They told me to just throw it all into the back of the truck.

"But, " I said, "I've separated it."

"It doesn't matter," said one of the workers. "It all gets mixed up again now and then someone else sorts it all out later."

Huh?

So what's the point of having blue bins and grey bins?

Can someone on this forum help me understand this logic.

 

[Admiral Beez]

There is no need anymore for the separate blue and grey bins. All recyclable material is now mixed together and sorted at the plant. IIRC, they don't even give out grey bins anymore.

BTW, I really like the green food waste bin. I'm amazed how much food waste, cat litter, diapers, etc. I was throwing into landfill before.

Of course, why they had to have the food waste bin and the garden cuttings bin both green is beyond me. When they call for green bin day, which is it? Surely they could have use purple or something else for the food waste bin.

 

[Hipster Duck]

How do they separate the different grades of plastic at these plants? What about coloured glass? I'm no expert on this, but I remember reading somewhere that the best we can do with our recycled glass and plastic is use them in low-grade consumer products (eg: adding crushed glass to asphalt to make it sparkly; turning used plastic of all varieties into picnic benches).

 

[BobBob]

Not sure why people are still encouraged to pre-sort stuff (we have separate bins for paper and plastic/glass/tin at my building too), but it makes sense that they'd have to re-sort it at the plant. They can't count on every last person to do a perfect job and not screw everything up.

 

[junctionist]

I stopped sorting when I got a message from the city about it. I think it was on one of the collection calendars.

 

[casaguy]

I had no idea we didn't have to separate... Everyone in my building is quite religious about it.

But still, wouldn't it be much more efficient for the sorters to sort out the odd pop can from the paper pile then sort out a complete mish mash of everything?

 

[AndreaPalladio]

Possibly it is easier to handle the blue and grey bins if the newspapers are not mixed up with the bottles and cans?

 

[Urban Shocker]

We've been allowed to commingle our grey and blue box contents for a couple of years now, but I never bother. Stacking paper and cardboard in the one, and nestling glass jars, yogurt pots, pie trays etc. in the other, is a neater and more efficient use of the box space.

 

[khris]

Ya Mississauga stopped sorting early this year/late last year. It's nice to not have to seperate. But I think more people recycle now, as the big blue bins at my building are almost always full and/or overflowing.

 

[dt_toronto_geek]

I've been noticing for a few years that the waste trucks at night toss all three bins from inside the sidewalk garbage receptacles into the side loader of the truck. I guess that's why. Made me nuts whenever I saw that.

 

[Admiral Beez]

How do they separate the different grades of plastic at these plants?

By hand, as they had to when we put all our plastics together in the blue bin.

In Kitchener-Waterloo, they send most of their plastics to China for recycling there. Makes sense, since that's where most of the plastic orginated, and that' where the toys, packaging and nit-nacks will again be made.

 

[allabootmatt]

In Kitchener-Waterloo, they send most of their plastics to China for recycling there. Makes sense, since that's where most of the plastic orginated, and that' where the toys, packaging and nit-nacks will again be made.

That would be one of those maddening factoids that makes me wonder whether recycling has much of a net environmental benefit...imagine the carbon footprint of sending bulk recyclables to China and back again. There was an interesting article in the FT about this awhile back, which concluded that the case for recycling is at best arguable if I remember correctly. Nonetheless I sort dutifully. Feels good, I guess.

 

[junctionist]

It's also a matter of building habits and attitudes in our society, which takes some time.

 

[Skeezix]

Not sure why people are still encouraged to pre-sort stuff (we have separate bins for paper and plastic/glass/tin at my building too), but it makes sense that they'd have to re-sort it at the plant. They can't count on every last person to do a perfect job and not screw everything up.

As already stated, the City isn't encouraging pre-sorting anymore. Either your building is slow to get the news, or your building has some sort of private recycling pick-up that still requires pre-sorting.

 

[Long Island Mike]

Recycling: Should we separate?

Everyone: I have noticed myself that certain places now collect recyclables together-not split apart like done previously. Where I live-Islip Town in Suffolk County,LI we have our WRAP (We Recycle America Proudly-quite a name) pickup WRAP-SPLIT whereas each week on Wednesday we either place paper or comingled recyclables (Plastic,Glass,Metal) out for collection. This is a paper pickup day. Participation is supposedly mandatory-this was one of the results of the 1987 Garbage Barge fiasco. In a township of about 300,000 residents I feel that every little bit helps!
LI MIKE