And have also wondered if it's really getting recycled or just tossed in a landfill with the rest.

It keeps the pickup costs lower and also keeps raw materials out of the landfills and incinerators.

I remember very clearly doing some work lat at night in a university building when I was an undergrad (late 90's), and seeing the trash guy coming around. He took the lids off of the trash cans and dumped their contents into the bigger trash bag he was carrying. The he went to the recycling bin - same thing.

There's also the fact that so many people spoil recycling for others by putting non-recyclables into their recycling bins. I had a months-long war with some roommates about not putting oily pizza boxes in our recycling bin. They'd actually take them out of the trash, where I'd put them, and put them in the bin. I would then return them to the trash, etc. The thing is, depending on where someone catches something like that determines how much recycling gets thrown away. If our trash guy sees it, it's just our recycling that gets dumped, but if that crap goes into a bigger load and it's caught when it's a bigger load, then even more might have to get dumped.

Yes, there are many methods companies have for separating trash from recycling, but I wouldn't count on them always being available and/or employed.

They've got a huge sorting center and what they make from the recyclables keeps our trash pickup cost down. It works for the trash company on two levels - money from recyclables, and reduced tipping costs. The more they can keep out of the trash that gets tipped the better, especially since the incinerator tipping fees keep going up to cover the maintenance on the debt (also the reason Harrisburg is bankrupt).

Metals in useable form are a finite material. Without recycling, we would have run out of some of them long ego. Something like 95% of aluminum that's been extracted is still in use and recycling takes about 5% of the power of original extraction. It's worth twice as much as steel at the recycling yard.

What I hate to see is a sink by the trash bins when I don't have time to snag it. The faucet alone has a huge chunk of brass in it and a good bit of copper piping too. Then there's the stainless for the neck and for kitchen sinks the entire body. Damn near every part of a kitchen sink is worth money. But even a bathroom sink can score a few bucks if you take the time to disassemble it. Fortunately, I'm not the only scavenger. The pickups start cruising the night before trash day and are back at it throughout the morning. If I don't score something, someone else most likely will. That's how some guys make their livings. At least it keeps the metals out of the furnace and landfills.

I get cash. Brass is really good right now, so if you see a sink with a faucet in the trash, pick it up, rip out the metals, and put the porcelain back out on your curb. It takes a little work, but it's worth it not from the monetary perspective but also because you're preventing a limited supply of raw materials from getting buried in with McFood and other useless shit.

But I put out at least one large can of recyclable material on the curb every week, and the garbage can only goes out to the curb every 6 weeks or so.

And I'm happy to pay for the ability to do that.

buy in bulk, avoid processed packaged products, eat real food, REUSE things instead of throwing away or recycling. Oh yeah you can hardly buy anything in glass jars anymore. sigh

for its cleanness (aside from cleanliness). But these old days, thinks like glass pitchers and bowls seem to be heavier and more dropable even moreso with their contents. I had the dickens finding a lightweight plastic bowl with handle for cold cereal and finally settled on a 2 1/2 plastic measuring cup: Handle and light weight.

I simply will not give up my wooden cutting board, but I only use it for vegetables and I spray it down with vinegar after I use it. I also treat it with mineral oil a couple times per month to keep it from developing cracks that would necessitate throwing it away. I've had the same one for over 10 years and it's still going strong. For meats I use polyethylene cutting boards that can be effectively sterilized in the dishwasher.

It kind of sucks because we have 4 of their small bins and we fill all of them up to overflowing each week. I wish I could swap my trash bin for the recycling bins because I always have a much bigger volume of recycling.

I have a friend in France I stay with and I really like how they do it. They have 3 bins of equal size that are larger roll around ones. One is for garden waste, one is for trash, and the other is for recyclables. They pick up each one on different days.

I highly recommend it. I'd move there if I could.

re: recycling. When I was in Strasbourg, we didn't have individualized bins, but there were large recycling bins a block or two away. There were some for different kinds of glass, plastic, and cardboard/paper, I think. We had some bags in the hall that we'd take down there whenever they got full. I thought it was a good method for a crowded city center. I know that some places in Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic have similar systems.

We have it here, although it all gets picked up on the same day.

Hell just a couple of years ago my city used to charge us extra if you recycled.

lol

I would love it if they actually charged us for what we threw away. I would have such a small bill.

I bring home little plastic wrappers from fast food and other places to recycle.

They charge to haul away garbage (in order to be able to meet dumping fees), but they take away recyclables for free. That encourages people to increase their recycling volume, which reduces their garbage bill. And the sanitation companies make up for free recyclable-hauling with profits from selling the raw materials. It's a good system.

The city dump filled up years ago so now we have to export garbage. Because of this the city instituted a fairly aggressive recycling program. We're charged for trash pickup by the size of our garbage can. We use the smallest container, which is twenty gallons

We also get a regular sized container for recycling, and a jumbo sized container for yard waste.

At the transfer station the recycling gets dumped onto a conveyor belt and any stuff the automated sorting machines can't deal with is removed by hand. Sorting recycling is not the greatest job, but maybe better than picking strawberries.

We rarely fill the garbage can because most anything that's not sticky or gross is accepted for recycling -- dry cardboard and paper, glass and metal containers, metal scrap, and any plastic with a recycling triangle on it.

We compost all of our food waste, and much of our yard waste. Our garden and landscaping is organic. We only use the yard waste can for the more noxious weeds and woodier sorts of yard trimmings.

My wife is more obsessive about recycling than I am, but only slightly. I'll throw an entire paper container that's sticky in the garbage, but she'll tear off any part that's not sticky and put it in the recycling.

In my fantasy utopia everything could be composted. Things like cell phones and cameras would grow on trees and when they broke you'd toss them onto the compost heap along with the orange peels, apple cores, and other food waste.

I take my "rigid plastic" (like take-out clamshell containers) to a recycling center. Everything else gets picked up. Since Portland started curbside composting, we have weekly recycling but trash pick up only every other week. We put a compostable bag of food scraps, used paper towels, etc. into the yard debris bin almost every day. You can even put in meat scraps and bones, etc.