About two months ago, my county (in south central PA) informed us that we can no longer recycle newspapers, office paper, food cartons, and most plastics. The only items accepted are metal cans, glass jars, and plastic containers with necks. Their new motto is “When in doubt, throw it out”. This change has added a considerable amount to the trash, so now every resident is being charged a “sustainability” fee to cover their added costs.
We’re being told that the changes to recycling are due to China no longer accepting contaminated recyclables. That’s believable to me since I’ve read about the issue on national news sites.
But what’s confusing to me is that residents in neighboring counties have not had any changes to their recycle habits. My daughter in California has not had any changes.
So I’m curious. Have any of you had recent changes/limits to the items you may recycle?
No changes. Our trash is picked up by one vendor, recycle by another - but we have large cans to separate both.
They have been periodically literally checking recycle cans to make sure people are recycling appropriate stuff. If they see unappropriate stuff (like the plastic grocery bags) they are leaving a note with a reminder of what IS recyclable.
It is probably the wrong question, the real question is whether any of it was/is ever actually recycled. The areas still offering unrestricted recycling bins are not magically recycling it either. Paying for it is the real answer, as the reality is waste costs a lot, and we are pandered by green bins that mean nothing, When the true charges are passed on the us as consumers, we will pay attention.
Still wondering if others have had changes. It just seems curious that our little county out in the country seems to be the only area that is affected.
I do know that what we were recycling before was making it to the recycle center. My neighbor is friends with the owner of our trash hauler, and the owner has shared the increase in cost since the restriction were put on what we may recycle. It’s also taking longer for the trash hauler to run our route, since there is so much more trash.
Everyone is affected by the ban, but it’s handled differently in each community. Basically, China stopped accepting our plastics (and other scrap) because it produces enough waste of its own to be used in its factories, and because we did a terrible job sorting usable plastic from stuff that contained food waste or toxins.
Some communities still accept all plastics, but they’re not always being recycled. In Camden, Maine, for example, people can still take all plastics to their local transfer facility, while in my town, they can’t, but all of this plastic ends up in Portland, where it is trashed.
Some communities, like San Francisco, have massive, high quality recycling (less contamination), so they’ve been able to find new markets in other Asian countries to take them.
We haven’t had any recent changes. But, for as long as I can remember, we can not put the following in our recycling bin: plastic bags of any type (so no bagged recyclables either), food cartons/pizza boxes or anything contaminated with food, and styrofoam (even if clean, such as packing peanuts). Our town does it make it pretty easy to recycle other items (paint cans, small electronics) by allowing people to drop this stuff off at Village Hall, for free, on certain days/hours.
Lastly, a local middle schooler (along with mom or dad) picks up people’s styrofoam, plastic bags and small electronics at their houses once per month, for free, and takes it to the appropriate recycling centers. He signs his reminder emails: “Thanks for helping me save the earth.”
In our area, the bill shows value of recyclables. We get a slight refund based on that. Our bill has been going up since they are selling less, probably due to limited China market. They still accept all recycles. As for us, we are practicing the Reduce/Reuse mantra and try to lessen our waste instead.
Some jurisdictions around here don’t want to change the list of what can be recycled. They are probably hoping that new markets for the recycling can be found before accepting unusable recycleables becomes a problem.
I’ve started diverting some scrap paper from the recycling bin. I have hens. The henhouse has a poop board under the roost. I used to use straw but that means I’d have to haul in and store a bale somewhere. Now I just shred scrap paper in the paper shredder. It takes a few extra seconds to sort (I avoid glossy paper, heavy ink, glassine windows etc.) I also shred toilet paper and paper towel tubes, some newspaper if I have it, paper feed bags, paper grocery bags that have failed in some way, and even those green cardboard berry baskets. The chickens poop on the shreds and I scoop them out once or twice a week and throw on the current compost pile. It’s a great mix of green and brown material for my compost system (which sits and finishes for a year after the bin is full.)
We don’t have glass pickup, but that has been the case for years. It makes me sad because glass is so useful, but the city needs to find a local market for it.
I realized recently that a local package/mail store accepts used styrofoam peanuts and other packing materials. You can’t recycle styrofoam, and it never biodegrades (there are estimates it might take 2+ million years) but you can at least reuse it. If I were in charge, I would make styrofoam illegal. Cellulose peanuts work just as well and you can compost them after they’ve been reused many times. I wish I knew when ordering something how it would be packed so I could avoid styrofoam.
Many restaurants in our city recycle used oyster shells. Old oyster shells are the best thing to grow new reefs!
Our community is accepting all types of recyclables until the end of this year. After that, it will be a list similar to the OP. We too are trying to reduce/reuse where we can and do informal composting - like a big bin in the back corner of the yard for veg. peelings etc.
Our city hasn’t changed. We still have 3 bins—green, recyclable and everything else. We can put newsprint, paper, metal, glass and #1 & #2 plastics in recycle. I haven’t heard anything about desire to switch from the 3 bin system.
Wow @FlyMeToTheMoon , that’s interesting…it does seem like a step backwards. Although I think @Sybylla is on to something, they are probably just writing the guidelines to reflect the reality of what is actually recycled at the center.
Our guidelines haven’t changed, and we have what I consider a GREAT recycling…mixed, accepts a lot of items. That said, I’ve been on a tour of the recycling plant, and it is true that much of what goes there gets sorted/diverted and isn’t recyclable after all.
No changes here. We can’t recycle plastic grocery bags or styrofoam, but that’s about it. Mixed recycling here, too.
We have a composting bin that we’ve been throwing scraps in for years. It seems like the bin is always half full!
We also have a trash compactor that I love, since our town makes us buy special trash bags that cost a lot. We need only one trash bag a week with the compactor.
On a separate note, my in-laws on Long Island use their own personal garbage cans and each garbage truck has 2 people collecting trash, its a manual process. Is this because of the unions?
Where I live, all residents get three bins: a) green bin for compose/grass clippings/tree trimmings b) blue bin for all recyclables such as glass, aluminum cans, and paper products; c) black bin for all other garbage. There is only one driver whose truck uses an electronic arm to grab and dump each can. He never gets out of the truck.
@socaldad2002, are there three separate trucks that pick up?
Our trash hauler is the only local outfit that still allows residents to use their own cans. All others have moved to supplying toters. But in the past year our trash hauler has used multiple excuses to postpone pickup. If the forecast is for snow, suspend, if it’s really cold, suspend, if it’s really hot, suspend. We’ve used them for 28 years and this practice only started in the last year. I’ve suspected it’s because our guys don’t like lifting the cans when other guys can attach the toter to the truck and the truck does the work.
@FlyMeToTheMoon " are there three separate trucks that pick up?"
Yes, three different trucks, once picked up they go to the local recycling center; landfill/dump, or green waste sites as appropriate. The goal is to reduce waste at the landfill/dumps by recycling material not specifically refuse/trash.
Just wanted to add that they pick-up on all the same day, weekly. And they have bulky item pick-up if you have items that don’t fit in the bins.
In our city, trash is picked up weekly. Mid-week, the alternate picking up recycled one week and green the waste the next. They use trucks that have mechanical arm with just one worker, the driver and you have to use the large, color-coded rolling heavy-duty bins you were issued.
If you need more space, ask a neighbor if they have extra space or if you are always short of space you can request to be issued additional rolling bins.
