grass clippings?

Hi Guys

Living in ZA we are years away from any formal recycling initiatives, there are a number of bins placed strategically, however there is no drive to recycle. Most houses here have at least 1 wheely bin, many have 2 for the average family. The principle is everything goes into one bin and straight to the landfill. To the point on my post. I was in New Zealand a few years back and what i saw really impressed me. Basically the refuse removal is a 'franchise' with an owner/driver principle. The truck was compartmentalised. What would happen is the home owners would seperate glass / metal / plastic etc and put them out on the sidewalk, up the road comes the refuse guy and pick up and sort as required. I was very impressed. I presume that the owner /driver got to on-sell the recyclables.

Yeah, I've seen those trucks in the States. But the general problem of recycling (at least here) is that you can't get a lot of people to do it reliably. I was dropping stuff off at the recycling center a few weeks ago (our curbside pickup doesn't take everything) and in the plastics/glass bin someone had put a FULL glass jar of rotten pickles.

If we had rules about packaging our landfills could BE the recycling areas and there might be no need for individuals to separate.

Mike

we have our own composts its logic you need to put it back into the garden why send it away when you can put it to good use ?

Yes, I agree, the logic makes sense, but a lot of Americans don't want the hassle of a compost bin or just wouldn't use it. I think this is one of the problems that we need to learn...that we need to become part of the environmental system instead of doing whatever we want and thinking that it'll all just disappear.

well they better hurry up about it before they have no homes let alone gardens

upand_at_them said:

I was dropping stuff off at the recycling center a few weeks ago (our curbside pickup doesn't take everything) and in the plastics/glass bin someone had put a FULL glass jar of rotten pickles.

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Glass doesn't have to be clean at all when its recycled as it all gets heated to a high temperature and any dirt is skimmed off the top.

In Seattle, it is a law you must recycle. In fact, they have inspectors that actually will spot check trash cans for recyclables. You can actually get a citation though I'm not sure any have actually been written. Still, I think it's over the top.

I live just outside of Seattle and our recycling doesn't require separation of paper, plastics or metal. It still feels weird to me. Yard waste is picked up in a separate container like the rest of the semi-civilized world...