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Smart Trash Carts Tell If You Haven't Been Recycling
Starting next year Cleveland residents face paying a $100 fine if they don't recycle, and the city's new high-tech trash cans will keep track if they don't. The new cans are embedded with radio frequency identification chips and bar codes which keep track of how often residents take them to the curb. If the chip shows you haven't brought your recycle can out in a while, a lucky trash supervisor will go through your can looking for recyclables. From the article: "Trash carts containing more than 10 percent recyclable material could lead to a $100 fine, according to Waste Collection Commissioner Ronnie Owens. Recyclables include glass, metal cans, plastic bottles, paper and cardboard."
From TFA:
I wouldn't think Cleveland would spend money on "smart trash carts" unless there were some truth to this claim.
Your god may be dead, but mine aren't!
Ticket for not taking out trash, ticket for taking out trash too early, ticket for not taking containers in early enough, ticket for too much weight in trash. Is this really helping out the environment or just a hidden way to increase taxes? I do note that their metric of success is how many tickets they issue.
Alles in ordnung
Excessive regulation http://www.freedomworks.org/publications/the-danger-of-over-regulation
When it becomes naturally profitable to recycle people will do so themselves. Right now I don't throw away aluminum, stainless steel, brass, copper, lead, steel, some types of glass and several plastics plus newspapers. I use the glass, plastic and newspapers myself. I've found two places that will compete for the stainless, copper, lead and brass which I happen to come across and make my collection and transport costs worthwhile. The steel and aluminum go to another salvager which is reasonably close and pays well. I do this for my own benefit and will keep doing it regardless of the states insistence I line their pockets.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
That show (in general, and that episode in particular) are about as much proof of that assertion as something your cousin's friend's older brother said. Penn and Teller don't give you evidence, they insult things instead. (Check out their argument about subsidies. There are many pros and cons to be stated for such things, but they don't really do either. They give Teller a gun to rob Penn and then throw the cash around. Logic in action, Bullshit style!)
Seriously, I wanted to like this show, but it's total crap. It's entertainment rather than education. It's bullshit itself.
On the other hand, a quick Google search yielded this: http://environment.about.com/od/recycling/a/benefit_vs_cost.htm (and many other links). A balanced view. Recycling isn't always the answer and it's certainly not the only answer, but it's not bullshit, either.
Oh, get over your entitlement mentality already. You use the waste disposal service, you play by their rules. Don't like it? Buy your own damn landfill. It's not your God-given right to fill ours' up with recyclables.
Of course, lots of resources on the web about this as well as "garbage recycling deniers" but a good summary page is here: http://www.uos.harvard.edu/fmo/recycling/myths.shtml
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Recycling, in limited forms, is reasonable. But for the most part it is a PR game and has no real impact on anything.
Post-consumer materials, like plastic, is almost never recycled because of the contamination issues. A water bottle can be recycled but if one neck ring from a cap gets into the mix the entire batch is worthless. As of yet, this level of sorting and handling removing neck rings and caps can only be done by hand - at union wages for the most part. This eliminates any reason for recycling water bottles or milk containers - it costs maybe 100x what the recycled materials would be worth to sort them to that level.
Paper is one of those iffy items. If you have a source of clean paper and can sort out coated papers from uncoated (magazines from newspapers, for example) recycling it makes sense and the pulp from processing uncoated paper can be used in a large variety of materials. Unfortunately, getting coated paper into the mix changes things enough that it can only be used in a few applications. So we are back to a very complicated sorting scheme if it is post-consumer. Another problem with post-consumer is "dirty" paper. Food waste mixed in or other contaminates again seriously limits the utility of recycled materials, so much so that it is almost always just dumped.
So anyone talking about post-consumer paper recycing is almost always dealing with clean products like newspapers that can be sorted or office materials that often do not need to be. They aren't talking about taking a mix of papers from curbside recycling efforts because the costs to process that are large and the markets for the output very restricted.
Metals, especially aluminum, have been profitable for quite a while. So much so that there are machines that can sort out the metal containers - by type - quickly. Glass containers can be cleaned and sorted but the value is far less there because of different types of glass being mixed in and the general impracticality of sorting it.
So what happens to curbside recycling materials? I seriously doubt anyone is hand-sorting and dealing with contamination issues like neck rings. A sorting machine to pick out the metal bits is easy and should be a part of any recycling effort. Glass is probably a big question mark. Paper? Almost certainly it is dumped.
When people had to sort their own stuff it gave the impression of it being more valuable, but the contamination issues were still there preventing most of the stuff from being used.
While Penn and Teller's presentation on this may be a bit dated, from everything I see they are still mostly right. It is a feel-good program for both people recycling and for municipalities. The limited amount of materials that are recovered from the recycling stream do earn enough to make it almost - but not quite - worth doing. But the PR value is priceless.
In the little town where I live, we pay $2 per bag of garbage picked up at the curb (kerb). Recycle is collected free. The more aggressively I recycle, the less I pay in "bag tags" to the slimy city council, who spend it on new pickup trucks for their greasy-haired hillbilly workers to drive around in all day just doing nothing at all ... oh, was I going on a bit? Anyway, we compost for the same reason -- it costs us less in garbage fees and also garners some nice greenie points and a pat on the back.
Beer, liquor and wine containers all have refundable deposits where I live, so they don't go into the recycle anyway.
If we could reduce the amount of bloody tim-horton cups littering the streets of Ontario, it would be a better place to live.
Doh.
In England it is quite rare (but not unusual) to see little collections of black refuse bags by the roadside in residential areas. Each bag has a small white ticket affixed to it, notifying the owner that their rubbish won't be collected unless it fits completely within the approved bin on the right day, which is once every two weeks. If the approved bin is overflowing, if its lid will not close, then the bags will be pulled out of it and left behind, each with a ticket attached. Sometimes they will remain there for weeks. Ironically, this is done "to help the environment". It certainly helps the local rat population; other parts of the environment may not be so lucky. The usual response is to put your rubbish in other people's bins, minus identifying documents, so they will have to deal with the mess that's left outside their houses when the city doesn't collect it (I don't do this, but it has happened to me a few times).
You're an immobile computer, remember?
I'm fairly sure that an unrestricted anonymous waste disposal service wasn't guaranteed in the constitution.
The Constitution does not "guarantee" what you and I may do. It only restricts what the government may do. Do you understand that?
The 10th Amendment:
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
Therefore, I have the power and the right to create unrestricted anonymous waste disposal. It's a guaranteed right of mine and I may provide that service.
The Constitution does not have to give me that power. I have it.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Why is it we insist upon such complicated schemes for getting people to recycle? A good old fashion deposit scheme seems a much more effective alternative, although it does require something be done at the state or federal level, and a whole lot less intrusive. It works like this...
Require any store that sell beverage containers to accept them in return for cash or credit.
Require any large store that sells them provide automated reverse vending machines (Tomra) at the front of the store and they must pay out cash.
Barcodes must be attached to the product and intact for there to be a refund.
Raise the deposit on various items until you meet specific recycling rate targets.
Make defrauding the machine a felony.
This is hardly an original idea, but it works. You can easily achieve 80+% recycling rates for bottles and cans.
Downside - the usual bitching from the usual people that either hate the idea that they might be helping out their fellow man or vested interests like bottlers that think it will impact sales.
Yes, and the people running the disposal service have rights too, including the right to run their service they way they wish.
It's funny how the people who claim oppression are always so willing to tread on the rights of others. "Everyone has to give me what I want, how I want, when I want, for the price I want, because I have rights!"
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
I think you mean the 9th Amendment...
The 9th Amendment:
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
Visit the Arcade Restoration Workshop @ http://www.arcaderestoration.com
I don't know about the GP, but where I live some of the cities mandate that all homeowners buy garbage pickup service from a single private company (if there is more than one contracted, they have "territories"). If you do not buy garbage service from this company, you get fined.
In the case of my particular city, you can haul your own garbage, but the city requires that the garbage company report anyone whose garbage service is discontinued. If you are on that list, your property is subject to inspection for compliance by the public works office.
This garbage company only picks up recyclables once every two weeks, which is not often enough given the amount of recyclables I have. So, I put overflow recyclables into the trash can that is emptied weekly once my recycle bin is full. I'd rather have them recycled. Further, according to the city ordinances it is illegal to possess garbage on your property for more than 7 days. My recyclable waste is "garbage"... so the city's contracted service doesn't even allow me to meet the letter of the law.
I see other posts mentioning how waste companies break (or nearly break) even or even make a profit selling the recyclables. Why the hell don't they pick up weekly, then?
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
non-Recycling fines sound like a great revenue opportunity for the city