A well done presentation for Saskatoon residents.
(The survey is here if you have the time.)
40 Replies to “Recycling Myths Of Saskatoon”
Guessing it is a youtube vid since I can’t see it at the moment.
I actually use my green bin. Handy spot for the grass clippings. Of course that is the only thing it gets used for. Real garbage like bones, left over taters, plastic, cans, boxes etc goes into the nice black plastic bags.
We got stuck with curbside recycling in Calgary. Now we have tens of thousands of big ugly blue carts littering the streets and alleys. I am obliged pay the city 8 bucks a month (and sure to go higher) to empty my cart. While they come by every week, I manage to fill my bin only every 4 or 5 weeks. What I used to do voluntarily at a drop-off site, now costs me $8 a month. And it also happened to put several private recyclers out of business – without compensation. Now, if they picked up garden waste for recycling, I’d get my money’s worth. I fail to understand why Calgary and other supposedly forward-thinking cities can’t get their heads out of that dark place and look at alternatives. Have a look at http://www.startech.net. Maybe it will open some eyes or change some minds.
I don’t recycle. Unless a multitude of people are outside of my door bidding to PAY me for my trash, then recycling is a waste of time and money.
BTW the survey does not accept the response “I don’t recycle” or “would not likely recycle more after the implementation of a given policy”
I was living in Toronto when they started the program with recycling/garbage bins on almost every street corner. These were touted as being great for recycling, with one bin for garbage, one for plastics, and one for paper (or some such logical separation). They were all self-contained in these big boxes with advertising on the sides, which was paying for all the efforts. “Self funded recycling” was the tag line.
I was walking home from the pub late one night as they were emptying them out. The one by my condo was open and the guy was dragging one giant container from the inside. No matter which slot you used, it all went in one bin, which then went in the garbage truck.
Now I can’t say for sure what happened to it after that, but I thought that was funniest thing I’d seen in a while. As long as everyone thinks they’re recycling, I guess we’re good.
How I wish someone had given a presentation like this in Halifax 15 years ago. We have curbside, garbage cops AND depots. Just recently the Council voted against a proposed by-law change that would have had us put garbage in clear bags… so the garbage cops could write more tickets.
Why do I live in NS again?
Daryl, they actually emptied it? When I was there in ’05 you couldn’t get a cup of water in any of those bins if you threw it.
And zorgon, you are exactly right. If it is worth recycling, as plastics and metals are, then it is worth paying the owner a reasonable price for it.
AtlanticJim, yes they were emptied fairly regularly there at the beginning. That would have been 2000-ish I think. I remember what you’re talking about tho, especially during some of those strikes. Used to be piles of stuff all around them. Lovely.
Actually, canuck66, Calgary already increased the recycling fee by 5% for 2010 and you can bet it will be increased again in 2011.
Saskatoon will be getting a curbside program. That’s what the city administration full of enviro-whackos and your “betters’ want. The only way you won’t is if you can put massive numbers of people in the street.
sarc/ It’ll be a good money-maker for the city, if you don’t count the bureaucracy created and the union jobs you will have to pay for or the cost of all those fancy trucks. /sarc
There is nothing beter than the government creating a solution for a problem that does not even exist. These schemes are just a way for people to feel better about their enviromental ‘guilt’. The reality is that putting all this stuff in a landfill creates no significant environmantal impact other that additional landfill space which we will never run out of.
If there is a non-government subsidized market for these materials let the private companies collect it. If you want to discourage solid waste how about sell bag tags for solid waste. If you want to dump all your recyling materials in the regular garbage go ahead but you will pay through the nose for it.
‘it also happened to put several private recyclers out of business – without compensation.’
SWEEP, a government created/sponsored ewaste monopoly is doing the same to a small private company like Second Time Office Equipment. Looks like all governments, even business friendly ones like the Sask Party, can only expand government with poorly designed programs at the expense of private for profit ones. Let governments govern and get the hell out of free enterprise.
When can we start recyling the leeches(polis) who dream up these ideas? As several have said here,if its worth bucks,then you pay the owner for it!
Oh my.In my campfire last night I must have burned a whole .25 cents worth of 3R crap.
So if it is recycable,then won’t the land fill do that,like it has for at least 10,000 years?
canuck66: “I am obliged pay the city 8 bucks a month (and sure to go higher) to empty my cart.”
Of course it’s going to go higher as they originally wanted to charge $21/month.
I recycle all my cans and plastic bottles by accumulating them and handing them over to the first minor sports team or charity that comes to the door. I drop unused clothing at the local Salvation Army depot. I haul metallic junk to the local scrap metal dealer. And finally, I haul branches and grass clippings to the city compost depot simply because it’s more convenient than travelling to the landfill, waiting at the scales while lazy city workers half-heartedly weigh an endless line of city garbage trucks and then digging my wallet out to pay for the honour of hauling my own garbage.
I don’t need any stinkin’ mandatory, job-creating curbside recycling bureaucracy.
Saskatoon city councillors Pat Lorje and Charlie Clark are incorrigible left-wing fanatics who are kept awake at night worrying that someone, somewhere might be making a buck performing a service that government could do at ten times the cost.
My motto around where I live is: reduce, reuse, recycle and if all else fails, BURN IT!
All of those “private” recycling companies, the ones people pay for themselves, are getting government subsidies.
All of them.
They couldn’t operate without them.
Those juice boxes, tetrapacks, have had a deposit fee to recycle them for decades and they go into the landfill.
Same with colored glass.
Most “recycled” materials end up in the landfills, and why not?
There is no market for them but the “recycling” people who pick them up get government subsidies.
Your taxes, which you are already paying for garbage disposal, gets to increase to pay for the recycling program too. (whether any recycling takes place or not, mostly NOT)
Waste disposal is a core civic government infrastructure responsibility and has been for about a century.(if not longer)
The whole environmental movement is just one scam after another.
When the “private”(secretly government subsidized) aspect of the “recycling” program at your municipality is replaced by an openly government managed, operated, funded and enforced program, you can look forward to the Unionization of those who work in that program and then you’ll get all the lovely things that come along with public sector Unions,… strikes for higher pay and benefits included.
The Environmental Movement: Destroying Your way of life and forcing YOU to pay for it.
Being a country boy, we always composted. For the brief time I lived in a city I had a compost box in the back yard – it makes wonderful mulch. Now I’m back in the country and my Municipality had a truckload sale of compost boxes – $5.00. I bought two. I watch in amazement the folks in big cities with their green boxes, black boxes, blue boxes etc. Each picked up on a separate day or week. The latest green box scam in Ottawa gave a long term contract to the recycling co. and guaranteed the volumes – naturally the greenies vastly overestimated the volumes, but they pay the co. the full amount – I think the volume is less than 1/2.
We have the green compostable bins now for lawn clippings etc. You pay extra for it and there are not too many around. The City of Saskatoon KNOWS we don’t want to pay more. We aren’t supposed to put in lawn clippings etc. and everything is to be in a plastic bag. Rules most people ignore entirely. We bag our garbage not our leaves and lawn clippings. I don’t charge them for mulching so they can generate more gas to sell, we’re even in my books.
That our population of “homeless recyclers” make their way into residential neighborhoods to collect cans and bottles from the blue bins is one of the more interesting consequences of the Calgary program.
The question, what are you currently doing with your organic waste, it doesn’t allow you to choose “other”. So I said I composted in my yard, meaning the grass clippings stay where they land after they’re cut. Hope they get it.
I don’t need Nanny to tell me to compost or recycle but it’s gotten so bad where I live that we have garbage Nazis who dig through our regular trash looking for contraband cardboard or a piece of metal. I’m sick to death of the recycling zealots, freaking nuts the lot of them.
where I live that we have garbage Nazis who dig through our regular trash looking for contraband cardboard or a piece of metal
Fight back.
Select random neighbourhoods and put small slits on the bottom of some of the occasional full trashbags you see at the curb, and -OOPS!- the Enviro-KGB will be too busy cleaning up garbage, which is their actual job, to bother harassing you on your output.
Encourage like minded people to do the same.
This eco-totalitarianism has to end.
I stopped recycling. I came to the conclusion its now a Religious act. From the Church of environmentalism.
Thus it would be idolatry, to follow their tenets.
Suzuki or Gore are no prophets to me, only themselves do profit.
JMO
There is absolutely no argument for not recycling…you are a complete moron if you argue that throwing material into the ground and burying it is better than recycling it into a useful product again.
BTJ
Have to watch yourself there bud.
You sound like your proclaiming an absolute?
“You sound like your proclaiming an absolute?”
Good on ya…I am proclaiming an absolute.
I challenge anyone to argue how throwing perfectly good materials into the ground and burying them is a better action than recycling them into a usable product again.
BTJ Recycling your grandma into hamburger. Challenge won.
If curbside recycling were truely profitable, taxpayers should have seen a noticable drop in their overall municipal tax bill.
Recycling was supposed to reduce the cost of garbage removal to zero.
But it hasn’t worked out that way.
In fact costs for garbage pick-up have gone through the roof, there have been NO measurable tax savings for the taxpayer nor have there been any benefits for the environment.!
There are no real recycling plans in america, they are really DIVERSION plans, meaning, it’s NOT how much gets recycled but how much gets diverted from landfill.
Ask any municipality…how much gets recycled and how much gets diverted?
The numbers would surprise most.
“BTJ Recycling your grandma into hamburger. Challenge won.”
Wow…so you say that building a mosque at ground zero is immoral, but you don’t refrain from stating the above…quite the squiggly line of morality you live by.
That aside, you could have at least thought of something that made sense…you proved MY point dumbass…that recycling is an intelligent, rational action and burying this is not.
“If curbside recycling were truely profitable, taxpayers should have seen a noticable drop in their overall municipal tax bill.”
Not a very in-depth analysis I must say…what if the waste per capita were increasing? That would negate any savings from recycling.
“Recycling was supposed to reduce the cost of garbage removal to zero.”
Says who? If you still throw garbage out it’ll still cost money…recycling saves people money on garbage disposal because it reduces the amount of garbage. Garbage – Recycling = less Garbage
“In fact costs for garbage pick-up have gone through the roof”
Partly because landfills are filling up, partly because governments have tried to influence people towards recycling…by making if more costly to throw it in the garbage.
“they are really DIVERSION plans, meaning, it’s NOT how much gets recycled but how much gets diverted from landfill.”
And the problem with that is….? It’s gotta be going SOMEWHERE! ‘Diversion’ doesn’t mean it enters a black hole and disappears.
“The numbers would surprise most.”
Please, surprise us.
BTJ, here are some numbers which are featured on the web site recyclingfacts.ca which may or may not surprise you but you should find disturbing. Proponents of single-stream systems, like option 4 in Saskatoon, point to how much more material they collect however, “…even though the single-stream systems showed a 20.8% increase in tonnage collected, they also showed a net decrease of 12.2% in overall tons recycled.” (Container Recycling Institute)
A little secret about waste diversion rates, municipalities consider 100% of what they give to a processor as diverted. If the processor winds up putting 15 or 20% of that back into the landfill because it’s contaminated material, the municipality doesn’t lower their stated diversion rates at all.
Another little secret. Tin cans in the garbage stream get buried all over the landfill. In many places, tin cans in the recycling stream get buried in the landfill in one specific spot just in case there is eventually a viable market for that tin. However, we have a name for a buried tin can after a few years. We don’t call it a recyclable, we call it an expensive way to create a lot of rusty old cans.
Here in the Comox Valley waste disposal and recycling are part of our property tax structure.
Garbage once a week, yard waste once a week and recycling (no glass) every two weeks. I’ve often wondered how much carbon and soot is expelled in the air. They have standard diesel powered trucks that drive 80 – 100 feet, stop pick up recycling and repeat till the truck is full and then to the recycling depot. There it is sorted and trucked and shipped to wherever it gets recycled. These trucks are operating at their most inefficient manner using up copious amounts of fuel and burning it in surges as they move the short distances. Terribly hard on the engines and brakes and must be higher than what would be normal maintenance costs. Burn more energy to truck it down the highway, sort it, load it on ships so that countries like Bangladesh, China, India etc can recycle it where there are no regulations and they can pollute to their hearts content and make money. And we foolishly feel good that we have done something to save Gaia.
Fools aren’t we.
mike
I challenge anyone to argue how throwing perfectly good materials into the ground and burying them is a better action than recycling them into a usable product again.
~BTJ
False dichotomy presented above.
The burden is on you to show that the environmental impact of recycling is less than not recycling.(assuming that these “recycling” collections don’t end up in landfills, which in most cases they do)
Putting garbage into a landfill isn’t as good as incineration, but the option to incinerate, just like the option to use nuclear power instead of coal or hydro dams as an alternate energy source over coal, has been removed by Enviro-Nazis such as yourself.
Bjørn Lomborg, an adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School, director of the Copenhagen Consensus Centre and a former director of the Environmental Assessment Institute in Copenhagen wrote a book titled ‘The Skeptical Environmentalist’.
In his book, Lomberg demonstrates that incineration is a better choice for the environment than recycling.
“The burden is on you to show that the environmental impact of recycling is less than not recycling.”
Why do I have to stay within the narrow bounds of ‘environmental impact’? It’s easy, because it’s the rational thing to do period. It saves work, money, time, energy, space, environmental impact (materials enter into the ‘production’ chain at an earlier level than with raw materials), and promotes local jobs. Throwing it in hole in the ground promotes local jobs…that’s it.
“A little secret about waste diversion rates, municipalities consider 100% of what they give to a processor as diverted. If the processor winds up putting 15 or 20% of that back into the landfill because it’s contaminated material, the municipality doesn’t lower their stated diversion rates at all.”
I think we’ve misunderstood each other. My statement refers to the concept of recycling and waste diversion as well as the actual action of doing so. Your beef is with the horrendously poor and misleading method by which the government tracks and measures their performance, which shouldn’t surprise anybody.
“Putting garbage into a landfill isn’t as good as incineration,”
It’s not ‘good’ at all, it takes absolutely no ingenuity to think of the idea, in fact, it’s hardly even an idea. Getting anything out of materials is better than spending something to bury it and get nothing.
“the option to incinerate….has been removed by Enviro-Nazis such as yourself.”
I’m not sure where you live, but where I live the local government is in the process of deciding just how big to build and many hundreds of millions of dollars to spend on a waste-to-energy incineration facility. They are trying to decide just how many million…5,6, maybe 7…on efforts to promote recycling.
“Lomberg demonstrates that incineration is a better choice for the environment than recycling.”
An evaluation of recycling isn’t something that can just be nailed down like a science…it involves human behavior. How well recycling programs perform depends on the local infrastructure, people’s knowledge and behavior regarding source separation and material identification, material market variables, local landfill variables, regional and local energy variables, etc.
“I’m not sure where you live, but where I live the local government is in the process of deciding just how big to build and many hundreds of millions of dollars to spend on a waste-to-energy incineration facility.”
I’m not sure how old you are, but “deciding how big to build” facilities that ought to have been built 20 years ago but haven’t because of environmentalist interference is the defining argument.
The fact that there isn’t a market where the recyclers pay ME to get these used materials sums up the unsustainable nature of recycling quite clearly.
Cut out the government subsidies and punitive charges for not recycling, then show how it’s profitable for the recyclers and for me to recycle and you’ve got an argument. If you want to discourage solid waste how about sell bag tags for solid waste. If you want to dump all your recyling materials in the regular garbage go ahead but you will pay through the nose for it.
~mapleleafparty.ca
How about instead of “paying through the nose” I and a host of others surrepticiously dump our solid waste all over the municipality, which has a duty to give us value for the taxes we already pay and dispose of it for us?
Punitive taxation or fees help how exactly?
When will Leftists try to understand human behaviour instead of trying to manipulate it through coercion?
I’m sick of the punitive methods of the State, encouraged by small minds such as yourself.
If “good” behaviour doesn’t pay for itself how can you tout it as being “good behaviour”?
“I’m not sure how old you are, but “deciding how big to build” facilities that ought to have been built 20 years ago but haven’t because of environmentalist interference is the defining argument.”
Huh? What makes you so sure that 20 years ago an incinerator in my city was up blocked by environmentalists? Quite the assumption.
The reason for this current incinerator plan is that local landfills are past capacity.
“The fact that there isn’t a market where the recyclers pay ME to get these used materials sums up the unsustainable nature of recycling quite clearly.”
I’m sorry, you expect someone to come by, pick up your waste, AND pay you for it? What do you think this is!? You already PAY for people to pick up your garbage, why would they pay you to pick up your recycling? Is your recycling covered in a thin layer of gold? You CAN get paid for recyclable material, but you need enough of it to make it worth someone’s time to come pick it up and process it…it needs to be compacted and bailed, and weigh at least a hundred pounds, if not more.
“Cut out the government subsidies and punitive charges for not recycling, then show how it’s profitable for the recyclers and for me to recycle and you’ve got an argument.”
How is it NOT profitable?! What costs money is paying people to drive around collecting it for people and then having to sort it because people are too lazy and ignorant to do it themselves. The only other option is to bury it…you get NOTHING out of that…burning it is another option, but you’re still left with some super nasty toxic stuff that you have to bury and you get a bit of energy. Don’t you find it a little strange that we value something one day, and the next we deem it completely worthless, worthy only of being burnt or buried?
“I and a host of others surrepticiously dump our solid waste all over the municipality”
Well you could do that if your first reaction to something you don’t fully understand and don’t agree with is to act like a child and throw a tantrum. Of course you and your friends will likely be fined if not jailed.
Take away the subsidies and the punitive measures forcing compliance and recycling isn’t profitable nor is it environmentally friendly(Skeptical Environmentalist -Bjorn Lomberg-if it can’t be done profitably in Denmark, recycling just can’t be done profitably or environment friendly) . Don’t you find it a little strange that we value something one day, and the next we deem it completely worthless, worthy only of being burnt or buried?
No.
Explain the strangeness of disposing of an object that has lost it’s value to the owner and become a liability instead of valued. Of course you and your friends will likely be fined if not jailed.
Not likely.
Resistance to totalitarianism is patriotism.
There is already more trash and litter all over then ever before.
Why?
Because the cost of disposal has gone up and the convenience of disposal has been removed.
People have better things to do with their limited valuable time while they’re alive than to wash and sort trash.
They are already working half of the year to pay taxes.
In England, where they placed a punitive tax on disposing of refrigerators, refrigerators can be found in ditches all over the countryside.
It’s human nature to want convenience and resist tyranny.
“Explain the strangeness of disposing of an object that has lost it’s value to the owner and become a liability instead of valued.”
How has a piece of plastic lost it’s value once the contents are gone? It’s the perception of ‘value lost’ that you’ve glossed over and assumed.
“There is already more trash and litter all over then ever before.
Why?
Because the cost of disposal has gone up and the convenience of disposal has been removed.”
Huh? No, it’s because there are more people, each producing more trash and litter than ever before, simple as that. Both population and waste per capita have increased.
“People have better things to do with their limited valuable time while they’re alive than to wash and sort trash.”
Right, like sit in front of the boob-tube and get dumber.
“Not likely.
Resistance to totalitarianism is patriotism.”
Very likely, if I saw a bunch of clowns dumping garbage everywhere I’d likely report it. Acting like children throwing a tantrum is hardly ‘patriotism’.
Guessing it is a youtube vid since I can’t see it at the moment.
I actually use my green bin. Handy spot for the grass clippings. Of course that is the only thing it gets used for. Real garbage like bones, left over taters, plastic, cans, boxes etc goes into the nice black plastic bags.
We got stuck with curbside recycling in Calgary. Now we have tens of thousands of big ugly blue carts littering the streets and alleys. I am obliged pay the city 8 bucks a month (and sure to go higher) to empty my cart. While they come by every week, I manage to fill my bin only every 4 or 5 weeks. What I used to do voluntarily at a drop-off site, now costs me $8 a month. And it also happened to put several private recyclers out of business – without compensation. Now, if they picked up garden waste for recycling, I’d get my money’s worth. I fail to understand why Calgary and other supposedly forward-thinking cities can’t get their heads out of that dark place and look at alternatives. Have a look at http://www.startech.net. Maybe it will open some eyes or change some minds.
I don’t recycle. Unless a multitude of people are outside of my door bidding to PAY me for my trash, then recycling is a waste of time and money.
BTW the survey does not accept the response “I don’t recycle” or “would not likely recycle more after the implementation of a given policy”
I was living in Toronto when they started the program with recycling/garbage bins on almost every street corner. These were touted as being great for recycling, with one bin for garbage, one for plastics, and one for paper (or some such logical separation). They were all self-contained in these big boxes with advertising on the sides, which was paying for all the efforts. “Self funded recycling” was the tag line.
I was walking home from the pub late one night as they were emptying them out. The one by my condo was open and the guy was dragging one giant container from the inside. No matter which slot you used, it all went in one bin, which then went in the garbage truck.
Now I can’t say for sure what happened to it after that, but I thought that was funniest thing I’d seen in a while. As long as everyone thinks they’re recycling, I guess we’re good.
How I wish someone had given a presentation like this in Halifax 15 years ago. We have curbside, garbage cops AND depots. Just recently the Council voted against a proposed by-law change that would have had us put garbage in clear bags… so the garbage cops could write more tickets.
Why do I live in NS again?
Daryl, they actually emptied it? When I was there in ’05 you couldn’t get a cup of water in any of those bins if you threw it.
And zorgon, you are exactly right. If it is worth recycling, as plastics and metals are, then it is worth paying the owner a reasonable price for it.
AtlanticJim, yes they were emptied fairly regularly there at the beginning. That would have been 2000-ish I think. I remember what you’re talking about tho, especially during some of those strikes. Used to be piles of stuff all around them. Lovely.
Actually, canuck66, Calgary already increased the recycling fee by 5% for 2010 and you can bet it will be increased again in 2011.
Saskatoon will be getting a curbside program. That’s what the city administration full of enviro-whackos and your “betters’ want. The only way you won’t is if you can put massive numbers of people in the street.
sarc/ It’ll be a good money-maker for the city, if you don’t count the bureaucracy created and the union jobs you will have to pay for or the cost of all those fancy trucks. /sarc
There is nothing beter than the government creating a solution for a problem that does not even exist. These schemes are just a way for people to feel better about their enviromental ‘guilt’. The reality is that putting all this stuff in a landfill creates no significant environmantal impact other that additional landfill space which we will never run out of.
If there is a non-government subsidized market for these materials let the private companies collect it. If you want to discourage solid waste how about sell bag tags for solid waste. If you want to dump all your recyling materials in the regular garbage go ahead but you will pay through the nose for it.
Penn & Teller have the best presentation on recycling here http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1444391672891013193#
Every politician should watch this episode of their show before adopting any public initiative promoting recycling.
‘it also happened to put several private recyclers out of business – without compensation.’
SWEEP, a government created/sponsored ewaste monopoly is doing the same to a small private company like Second Time Office Equipment. Looks like all governments, even business friendly ones like the Sask Party, can only expand government with poorly designed programs at the expense of private for profit ones. Let governments govern and get the hell out of free enterprise.
When can we start recyling the leeches(polis) who dream up these ideas? As several have said here,if its worth bucks,then you pay the owner for it!
Oh my.In my campfire last night I must have burned a whole .25 cents worth of 3R crap.
So if it is recycable,then won’t the land fill do that,like it has for at least 10,000 years?
canuck66: “I am obliged pay the city 8 bucks a month (and sure to go higher) to empty my cart.”
Of course it’s going to go higher as they originally wanted to charge $21/month.
I recycle all my cans and plastic bottles by accumulating them and handing them over to the first minor sports team or charity that comes to the door. I drop unused clothing at the local Salvation Army depot. I haul metallic junk to the local scrap metal dealer. And finally, I haul branches and grass clippings to the city compost depot simply because it’s more convenient than travelling to the landfill, waiting at the scales while lazy city workers half-heartedly weigh an endless line of city garbage trucks and then digging my wallet out to pay for the honour of hauling my own garbage.
I don’t need any stinkin’ mandatory, job-creating curbside recycling bureaucracy.
Saskatoon city councillors Pat Lorje and Charlie Clark are incorrigible left-wing fanatics who are kept awake at night worrying that someone, somewhere might be making a buck performing a service that government could do at ten times the cost.
My motto around where I live is: reduce, reuse, recycle and if all else fails, BURN IT!
All of those “private” recycling companies, the ones people pay for themselves, are getting government subsidies.
All of them.
They couldn’t operate without them.
Those juice boxes, tetrapacks, have had a deposit fee to recycle them for decades and they go into the landfill.
Same with colored glass.
Most “recycled” materials end up in the landfills, and why not?
There is no market for them but the “recycling” people who pick them up get government subsidies.
Your taxes, which you are already paying for garbage disposal, gets to increase to pay for the recycling program too. (whether any recycling takes place or not, mostly NOT)
Waste disposal is a core civic government infrastructure responsibility and has been for about a century.(if not longer)
The whole environmental movement is just one scam after another.
When the “private”(secretly government subsidized) aspect of the “recycling” program at your municipality is replaced by an openly government managed, operated, funded and enforced program, you can look forward to the Unionization of those who work in that program and then you’ll get all the lovely things that come along with public sector Unions,… strikes for higher pay and benefits included.
The Environmental Movement: Destroying Your way of life and forcing YOU to pay for it.
Being a country boy, we always composted. For the brief time I lived in a city I had a compost box in the back yard – it makes wonderful mulch. Now I’m back in the country and my Municipality had a truckload sale of compost boxes – $5.00. I bought two. I watch in amazement the folks in big cities with their green boxes, black boxes, blue boxes etc. Each picked up on a separate day or week. The latest green box scam in Ottawa gave a long term contract to the recycling co. and guaranteed the volumes – naturally the greenies vastly overestimated the volumes, but they pay the co. the full amount – I think the volume is less than 1/2.
We have the green compostable bins now for lawn clippings etc. You pay extra for it and there are not too many around. The City of Saskatoon KNOWS we don’t want to pay more. We aren’t supposed to put in lawn clippings etc. and everything is to be in a plastic bag. Rules most people ignore entirely. We bag our garbage not our leaves and lawn clippings. I don’t charge them for mulching so they can generate more gas to sell, we’re even in my books.
That our population of “homeless recyclers” make their way into residential neighborhoods to collect cans and bottles from the blue bins is one of the more interesting consequences of the Calgary program.
The question, what are you currently doing with your organic waste, it doesn’t allow you to choose “other”. So I said I composted in my yard, meaning the grass clippings stay where they land after they’re cut. Hope they get it.
I don’t need Nanny to tell me to compost or recycle but it’s gotten so bad where I live that we have garbage Nazis who dig through our regular trash looking for contraband cardboard or a piece of metal. I’m sick to death of the recycling zealots, freaking nuts the lot of them.
where I live that we have garbage Nazis who dig through our regular trash looking for contraband cardboard or a piece of metal
Fight back.
Select random neighbourhoods and put small slits on the bottom of some of the occasional full trashbags you see at the curb, and -OOPS!- the Enviro-KGB will be too busy cleaning up garbage, which is their actual job, to bother harassing you on your output.
Encourage like minded people to do the same.
This eco-totalitarianism has to end.
I stopped recycling. I came to the conclusion its now a Religious act. From the Church of environmentalism.
Thus it would be idolatry, to follow their tenets.
Suzuki or Gore are no prophets to me, only themselves do profit.
JMO
There is absolutely no argument for not recycling…you are a complete moron if you argue that throwing material into the ground and burying it is better than recycling it into a useful product again.
BTJ
Have to watch yourself there bud.
You sound like your proclaiming an absolute?
“You sound like your proclaiming an absolute?”
Good on ya…I am proclaiming an absolute.
I challenge anyone to argue how throwing perfectly good materials into the ground and burying them is a better action than recycling them into a usable product again.
A garbage can that rats you out.
http://www.buzzbox.com/news/2010-08-23/cleveland:smart/
BTJ Recycling your grandma into hamburger. Challenge won.
If curbside recycling were truely profitable, taxpayers should have seen a noticable drop in their overall municipal tax bill.
Recycling was supposed to reduce the cost of garbage removal to zero.
But it hasn’t worked out that way.
In fact costs for garbage pick-up have gone through the roof, there have been NO measurable tax savings for the taxpayer nor have there been any benefits for the environment.!
There are no real recycling plans in america, they are really DIVERSION plans, meaning, it’s NOT how much gets recycled but how much gets diverted from landfill.
Ask any municipality…how much gets recycled and how much gets diverted?
The numbers would surprise most.
“BTJ Recycling your grandma into hamburger. Challenge won.”
Wow…so you say that building a mosque at ground zero is immoral, but you don’t refrain from stating the above…quite the squiggly line of morality you live by.
That aside, you could have at least thought of something that made sense…you proved MY point dumbass…that recycling is an intelligent, rational action and burying this is not.
“If curbside recycling were truely profitable, taxpayers should have seen a noticable drop in their overall municipal tax bill.”
Not a very in-depth analysis I must say…what if the waste per capita were increasing? That would negate any savings from recycling.
“Recycling was supposed to reduce the cost of garbage removal to zero.”
Says who? If you still throw garbage out it’ll still cost money…recycling saves people money on garbage disposal because it reduces the amount of garbage. Garbage – Recycling = less Garbage
“In fact costs for garbage pick-up have gone through the roof”
Partly because landfills are filling up, partly because governments have tried to influence people towards recycling…by making if more costly to throw it in the garbage.
“they are really DIVERSION plans, meaning, it’s NOT how much gets recycled but how much gets diverted from landfill.”
And the problem with that is….? It’s gotta be going SOMEWHERE! ‘Diversion’ doesn’t mean it enters a black hole and disappears.
“The numbers would surprise most.”
Please, surprise us.
BTJ, here are some numbers which are featured on the web site recyclingfacts.ca which may or may not surprise you but you should find disturbing. Proponents of single-stream systems, like option 4 in Saskatoon, point to how much more material they collect however, “…even though the single-stream systems showed a 20.8% increase in tonnage collected, they also showed a net decrease of 12.2% in overall tons recycled.” (Container Recycling Institute)
A little secret about waste diversion rates, municipalities consider 100% of what they give to a processor as diverted. If the processor winds up putting 15 or 20% of that back into the landfill because it’s contaminated material, the municipality doesn’t lower their stated diversion rates at all.
Another little secret. Tin cans in the garbage stream get buried all over the landfill. In many places, tin cans in the recycling stream get buried in the landfill in one specific spot just in case there is eventually a viable market for that tin. However, we have a name for a buried tin can after a few years. We don’t call it a recyclable, we call it an expensive way to create a lot of rusty old cans.
Here in the Comox Valley waste disposal and recycling are part of our property tax structure.
Garbage once a week, yard waste once a week and recycling (no glass) every two weeks. I’ve often wondered how much carbon and soot is expelled in the air. They have standard diesel powered trucks that drive 80 – 100 feet, stop pick up recycling and repeat till the truck is full and then to the recycling depot. There it is sorted and trucked and shipped to wherever it gets recycled. These trucks are operating at their most inefficient manner using up copious amounts of fuel and burning it in surges as they move the short distances. Terribly hard on the engines and brakes and must be higher than what would be normal maintenance costs. Burn more energy to truck it down the highway, sort it, load it on ships so that countries like Bangladesh, China, India etc can recycle it where there are no regulations and they can pollute to their hearts content and make money. And we foolishly feel good that we have done something to save Gaia.
Fools aren’t we.
mike
I challenge anyone to argue how throwing perfectly good materials into the ground and burying them is a better action than recycling them into a usable product again.
~BTJ
False dichotomy presented above.
The burden is on you to show that the environmental impact of recycling is less than not recycling.(assuming that these “recycling” collections don’t end up in landfills, which in most cases they do)
Putting garbage into a landfill isn’t as good as incineration, but the option to incinerate, just like the option to use nuclear power instead of coal or hydro dams as an alternate energy source over coal, has been removed by Enviro-Nazis such as yourself.
Bjørn Lomborg, an adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School, director of the Copenhagen Consensus Centre and a former director of the Environmental Assessment Institute in Copenhagen wrote a book titled ‘The Skeptical Environmentalist’.
In his book, Lomberg demonstrates that incineration is a better choice for the environment than recycling.
“The burden is on you to show that the environmental impact of recycling is less than not recycling.”
Why do I have to stay within the narrow bounds of ‘environmental impact’? It’s easy, because it’s the rational thing to do period. It saves work, money, time, energy, space, environmental impact (materials enter into the ‘production’ chain at an earlier level than with raw materials), and promotes local jobs. Throwing it in hole in the ground promotes local jobs…that’s it.
“A little secret about waste diversion rates, municipalities consider 100% of what they give to a processor as diverted. If the processor winds up putting 15 or 20% of that back into the landfill because it’s contaminated material, the municipality doesn’t lower their stated diversion rates at all.”
I think we’ve misunderstood each other. My statement refers to the concept of recycling and waste diversion as well as the actual action of doing so. Your beef is with the horrendously poor and misleading method by which the government tracks and measures their performance, which shouldn’t surprise anybody.
“Putting garbage into a landfill isn’t as good as incineration,”
It’s not ‘good’ at all, it takes absolutely no ingenuity to think of the idea, in fact, it’s hardly even an idea. Getting anything out of materials is better than spending something to bury it and get nothing.
“the option to incinerate….has been removed by Enviro-Nazis such as yourself.”
I’m not sure where you live, but where I live the local government is in the process of deciding just how big to build and many hundreds of millions of dollars to spend on a waste-to-energy incineration facility. They are trying to decide just how many million…5,6, maybe 7…on efforts to promote recycling.
“Lomberg demonstrates that incineration is a better choice for the environment than recycling.”
An evaluation of recycling isn’t something that can just be nailed down like a science…it involves human behavior. How well recycling programs perform depends on the local infrastructure, people’s knowledge and behavior regarding source separation and material identification, material market variables, local landfill variables, regional and local energy variables, etc.
“I’m not sure where you live, but where I live the local government is in the process of deciding just how big to build and many hundreds of millions of dollars to spend on a waste-to-energy incineration facility.”
I’m not sure how old you are, but “deciding how big to build” facilities that ought to have been built 20 years ago but haven’t because of environmentalist interference is the defining argument.
The fact that there isn’t a market where the recyclers pay ME to get these used materials sums up the unsustainable nature of recycling quite clearly.
Cut out the government subsidies and punitive charges for not recycling, then show how it’s profitable for the recyclers and for me to recycle and you’ve got an argument.
If you want to discourage solid waste how about sell bag tags for solid waste. If you want to dump all your recyling materials in the regular garbage go ahead but you will pay through the nose for it.
~mapleleafparty.ca
How about instead of “paying through the nose” I and a host of others surrepticiously dump our solid waste all over the municipality, which has a duty to give us value for the taxes we already pay and dispose of it for us?
Punitive taxation or fees help how exactly?
When will Leftists try to understand human behaviour instead of trying to manipulate it through coercion?
I’m sick of the punitive methods of the State, encouraged by small minds such as yourself.
If “good” behaviour doesn’t pay for itself how can you tout it as being “good behaviour”?
“I’m not sure how old you are, but “deciding how big to build” facilities that ought to have been built 20 years ago but haven’t because of environmentalist interference is the defining argument.”
Huh? What makes you so sure that 20 years ago an incinerator in my city was up blocked by environmentalists? Quite the assumption.
The reason for this current incinerator plan is that local landfills are past capacity.
“The fact that there isn’t a market where the recyclers pay ME to get these used materials sums up the unsustainable nature of recycling quite clearly.”
I’m sorry, you expect someone to come by, pick up your waste, AND pay you for it? What do you think this is!? You already PAY for people to pick up your garbage, why would they pay you to pick up your recycling? Is your recycling covered in a thin layer of gold? You CAN get paid for recyclable material, but you need enough of it to make it worth someone’s time to come pick it up and process it…it needs to be compacted and bailed, and weigh at least a hundred pounds, if not more.
“Cut out the government subsidies and punitive charges for not recycling, then show how it’s profitable for the recyclers and for me to recycle and you’ve got an argument.”
How is it NOT profitable?! What costs money is paying people to drive around collecting it for people and then having to sort it because people are too lazy and ignorant to do it themselves. The only other option is to bury it…you get NOTHING out of that…burning it is another option, but you’re still left with some super nasty toxic stuff that you have to bury and you get a bit of energy. Don’t you find it a little strange that we value something one day, and the next we deem it completely worthless, worthy only of being burnt or buried?
“I and a host of others surrepticiously dump our solid waste all over the municipality”
Well you could do that if your first reaction to something you don’t fully understand and don’t agree with is to act like a child and throw a tantrum. Of course you and your friends will likely be fined if not jailed.
Take away the subsidies and the punitive measures forcing compliance and recycling isn’t profitable nor is it environmentally friendly(Skeptical Environmentalist -Bjorn Lomberg-if it can’t be done profitably in Denmark, recycling just can’t be done profitably or environment friendly) .
Don’t you find it a little strange that we value something one day, and the next we deem it completely worthless, worthy only of being burnt or buried?
No.
Explain the strangeness of disposing of an object that has lost it’s value to the owner and become a liability instead of valued.
Of course you and your friends will likely be fined if not jailed.
Not likely.
Resistance to totalitarianism is patriotism.
There is already more trash and litter all over then ever before.
Why?
Because the cost of disposal has gone up and the convenience of disposal has been removed.
People have better things to do with their limited valuable time while they’re alive than to wash and sort trash.
They are already working half of the year to pay taxes.
In England, where they placed a punitive tax on disposing of refrigerators, refrigerators can be found in ditches all over the countryside.
It’s human nature to want convenience and resist tyranny.
“Explain the strangeness of disposing of an object that has lost it’s value to the owner and become a liability instead of valued.”
How has a piece of plastic lost it’s value once the contents are gone? It’s the perception of ‘value lost’ that you’ve glossed over and assumed.
“There is already more trash and litter all over then ever before.
Why?
Because the cost of disposal has gone up and the convenience of disposal has been removed.”
Huh? No, it’s because there are more people, each producing more trash and litter than ever before, simple as that. Both population and waste per capita have increased.
“People have better things to do with their limited valuable time while they’re alive than to wash and sort trash.”
Right, like sit in front of the boob-tube and get dumber.
“Not likely.
Resistance to totalitarianism is patriotism.”
Very likely, if I saw a bunch of clowns dumping garbage everywhere I’d likely report it. Acting like children throwing a tantrum is hardly ‘patriotism’.