Thursday, February 21, 2008

What I Saw The Recycle Pick Up Guys Do This Morning


At my last green committee meeting for my community, it was mentioned that glass/plastic/aluminum and paper were going to be picked up by the same truck simultaneously from now on. It was more cost effective and more environmentally friendly because instead of two separate trucks driving around all day, only one truck needed to be used. 

I was wondering, is the truck divided so that paper goes on one side and glass/plastics on the other? How will this work? So today, I watched. The guys took everything I had placed outside to be recycled and threw it all into the back of the truck together. I was surprised.

In our community newspaper there had been an article about the two being picked up together, but I didn't bother to read it. So I hunted it down and here is what I found out:

There is new technology at the recycling plant that our town uses that allows for all items to be mixed together. That was as technical as the explanation got. I'm going to have to ask at our next green committee meeting how it really works because I'm confused.

Something else that was pointed out in the article is that now all the items to be recycled can be placed into one receptacle - no separation is necessary. Apparently, when this is allowed the percentage of items recycled goes up because people don't need to take the time and effort to put the things in separate containers.

Seriously? It's too much effort for people to separate their paper from glass/plastic so they just throw it in the trash can? 

Its good that my community has made this change. If it gets more people to recycle its even better. I just can't believe that people had trouble separating in the first place.

My next green committee meeting is the first week in March, so I'll have more to say about all the efforts that are going on to turn our little town green. Until then, if you live in my town - throw caution to the wind and mix those paper with your plastics/glass. Have a ball. 
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1 comment:

Chuck said...

Our town does the same where they have provided us with one big trash can and we throw all of our recycling into it. Please let us know what happened at your next meeting. I would interested to see if this way of recycling is really helping.