Indianapolis plans a single stream trash/recycling effort

[CathyA]

This sounds awful to me. It's saying that you can put all your recyclables in with your other garbage and it will be sorted. Glass will be thrown out.
This sounds really bad to me. And why would you discard glass? Can you imagine how gross all the recyclables would be? Too bad people can't just deal with putting their recyclables out, separate from their trash.
Have any of you heard of this method of retrieving recyclables?

http://www.indystar.com/story/news/p...tics/10303495/

[pinkytoe]

Hmm...I can't see mixing the two. Here in Austin, we are required to separate by three categories - household trash (gross stuff), recyclables (single stream) and compost (including yard waste). A separate can is provided for each. I am amazed at the amount that ends up in the recycling container. With this effort, our household trash has been reduced to one small bag a week.

[creaker]

Hmm...I can't see mixing the two. Here in Austin, we are required to separate by three categories - household trash (gross stuff), recyclables (single stream) and compost (including yard waste). A separate can is provided for each. I am amazed at the amount that ends up in the recycling container. With this effort, our household trash has been reduced to one small bag a week.

This is how it is in Boston as well. Although we don't have a can for yard waste - most people bag it. We have a huge thing on wheels for recyclables, it's made so the truck can pick it up and dump it.

[iris lilies]

I love our garbage service. We have huge cans, ones that you could sleep in comfortably, for
1) recyclables
2) compostables
3) regular garbage

I am a regular user of the city's compost service. Having, as I do a "community garden.*" I have it delivered right to my space. It does not get better than that.

The city gets 3 lots maintained by us (Mr. iris lily is germanic/obsessive about keeping things neat and mowed) and the neighborhood benefits becuase it looks nice and sometimes, like now it lily season, looks spectacular, and I am made happy by lots of space where I can grow stuff.


* it's the community of iris lily and Mr. iris lily

[Gardenarian]

Yes, my college does single stream recycling, and it has been very successful.

I don't know why they would be throwing out glass; it is the most easily recyclable product. Weird.

[catherine]

I did a market research study on recycling for a large container manufacturer and most progressive cities are striving for single stream, because it's always like fighting a losing battle to get people to sort properly. It's better to get them to just throw it all out and then pay someone to sort it for them. I'm thinking more actually gets recycled that way, rather than less.

[CathyA]

But what a gross job! ........sorting through people's rotten/smelly trash!

[bae]

Our local hair-shirt environmentalists attach some sort of religious significance to personally sorting their recycling stream into 45 different bins. A few years back they almost had an uprising when our waste transfer station went to a *single* recycling bin, which went to a processor with some sort of Dr. Seuss machine to sort out the recycleables, though the claim was made that it would increase recycling effectiveness. However, the moral virtue of hand-sorting was lost...

Then last year the transfer station started charging to drop off recycleables, as it turns out with current commodity prices and transportation costs, recycling is a money-loser for them.

They are now floating the idea of a single garbage/recycle stream, to be machine-sorted at the other end, to reduce costs and increase efficiency.

I don't terribly mind recycleables ending up in landfills, as long as we keep track of where the landfills are. I figure in 100 years, people will be mining the sites with improved technology.

[Spartana]

I have heard of single stream, and the rationale behind it is that even when just sorting recyclables, there is so much other junk in there and it requires the same energy and water usage to sort recycles and trash together as it would recyclables alone. I don't think that can be true but that's what I heard.

In my city we are given 2 trash cans - one for regular trash and one for recyclables. They are suppose to be picked up by 2 separate trucks. However I often notice that instead of the 2 different trucks that are suppose to collect the cans, sometimes only one does and, unless they have separate compartments, stuff seems to get mixed together. I initially though that this was just for my little 4-house cul-de-sac (me at the end) because it's hard for the trucks to maneuver here, but I see them do that with other houses too. Will have to call the city to see what's up. For myself I have almost zero trash or even recycling , so would cut the service if I could and save $300 a year but the city won't let me do that.

[Rogar]

I have to pay extra for curbside recycling, so instead take it to a local drop off about a mile or two away. I end up going once or twice a month and it is single stream. The operators hire mostly disabled people and seem to really care about their service, which is nice, and they keep people from bringing food waste and other unusable trash by having someone around all the time. They take things like junk mail and paper products, and even clean cardboard food containers. Most people could theoretically end up with little real trash if they composted and recycled. It would be interesting to follow the single stream through the sorting and recycling process.

I still sort my recyclables-glass, paper goods and plastics- just because it's an easy way to do it, but it all ends up in the same bins.