Decided to give recycling another try - nope!

[Tradd]

I’d like to be able to recycle my household plastic, glass, paper, cardboard. My complex used to have recycling bins by the dumpsters, but people filled them with trash, so the bins were removed. I literally cannot find any place local to take my stuff that I can easily access. There are two places but they are only open when I’m at work. Whole Foods and Target may have had bins at one time, but not any longer. When I contacted my town, they didn’t seem to understand that where I live is not serviced by the town’s program and kept referring me to their website.

Guess I’ll just keep trashing everything. Had to run to WF for something today and it’s just effing plastic all over the place. There are more alternatives on Amazon. There weren’t even any bar shampoo options, for example.

[iris lilies]

We are cutting back on what we recycle since we’re getting so many reports that plastic recycling is pretty much a waste of time. So I will recycle cardboard of which we have a lot. Also will recycle glass and aluminum cans.

[gimmethesimplelife]

I am mostly recycling aluminum cans and PETE #1 clear plastic bottles. Given that I live so close in to downtown there are two recycling places close to me and I make a little extra cash doing this. Now that I have a better paying job, it's not really about the money so much as the fact that my take is this - since the recycling centers pay me 70 cents a pound for cans and 25 cents a pound (just went down from 30 cents) for #1 plastic, they are going to move heaven and earth to get this money back and hopefully make a profit. Point being - there's incentive for cans and #1 plastic to actually be recycled.

The City of Phoenix accepts more than the above in our blue recycling bins - but I'm hearing more and more stories that the contents of the blue bins - other than perhaps paper and cardboard - are going straight to the landfill. I don't know that this is true and I don't know that is not true, but I have heard and read that due to China changing it's stance on recyclables in 2018, there are fewer markets for recyclable materials and it's harder to make a profit recycling now.

I have this feeiing that recycling will become less important and start fading away unless new markets are found for recyclables. It was a good idea - but it was dependent on a country (China) accepting so much of our waste. Not such a bright idea to be dependent on China for anything these days, methinks. Rob

[iris lilies]

Wow, that’s great that you can make a little money with number one recyclables. I don’t know what number one type plastic is but I’ll have to go seek it out to see what you’re talking about.

[iris lilies]

DH always has big buckets around here collecting metals. He loads the metals a couple times a year and takes them to the city. We probably made around $300 maybe more last year.

[Rogar]

There is a recycling center near my house that takes large #2 and #5 plastics, cardboard and what they say is "anything with a cord" electronics, plus paint and other odds and ends that are hard to recycle. I drop off aluminum every couple of months to a metals recycler. I can get it for a small fee, but don't trust the curbside single stream recycling. Right now I discard paper products and glass.

[catherine]

My thinking about recycling shifted when I read Bright Green Lies which quantifies the negative environmental impact of recycling as well as the profitable nature of the industry. The authors state that they personally recycle because "it's the right thing to do and isn't more harmful than not recycling," but they make the point that we're fooling ourselves if we think recycling will help save the planet. Is it worse to bury cans in a landfill or pay to have recyclables shipped far away for processing? Refusing and reducing are far more effective in that regard. So I do recycle--DH and I cart our cans to the transfer station or we leave them outside our son's house in town where the homeless are happy to grab them and cash in. But I am trying to consume less plastic and aluminum. Not easy.

[Tradd]

Electronics aren’t an issue. I either give them away or can easily find somewhere to recycle them. When I replaced my Apple Watch with the newest model earlier this year, I passed the older model to a good friend (goddaughter’s mom). Way out of her budget. She loves it. When I get a new phone, I either trade in or give away the old one. Gave away my TV on Buy Nothing group a few months back.

It’s the everyday stuff I’d like to recycle. I have a lot of cardboard from online shopping. Goes straight into the trash. I know there’s a lot of box making in the US. I suspect cardboard is easier to recycle and make into new stuff. The online shopping isn’t going away. I went to Whole Foods yesterday looking for a certain Dr Bronners balm with arnica and menthol that I’ve started using on my bad knees in place of Biofreeze. The balm is in a metal tin. WF didn’t have it, doesn’t even carry it. So back to Amazon to order more.

I grew up in MI. They’ve had a 10 cent deposit on cans and bottles since late 70s, I think.

I’m not looking to get paid for my plastic, glass, and cardboard. I’m just trying to keep it out of the trash.

[Tradd]

My thinking about recycling shifted when I read Bright Green Lies which quantifies the negative environmental impact of recycling as well as the profitable nature of the industry. The authors state that they personally recycle because "it's the right thing to do and isn't more harmful than not recycling," but they make the point that we're fooling ourselves if we think recycling will help save the planet. Is it worse to bury cans in a landfill or pay to have recyclables shipped far away for processing? Refusing and reducing are far more effective in that regard. So I do recycle--DH and I cart our cans to the transfer station or we leave them outside our son's house in town where the homeless are happy to grab them and cash in. But I am trying to consume less plastic and aluminum. Not easy.

The problem is that packaging alternatives just aren’t offered. When I was at WF yesterday, I went over the toiletries aisles with a fine tooth comb looking for the item I wanted. There were NO bar shampoo, conditioner, or lotions offered. Tons of plastic.

I use a beeswax lotion bar that comes in a tin. I also use Nivea cream that comes in a tin. Plastic yogurt containers are probably the most plastic I generate, besides bread/bagel plastic bags. I do try to buy the quart pots, but I still eat a ton of it. Guess I should investigate making my own.

[Tradd]

Then there’s Aldi with about all the produce wrapped in plastic.