Grey wheely bins : proof the Moon Landings happened.

[darren r]

Where I live in the UK (and this is probably true, to some degree, for most parts of it), the local council provides each household with 3 wheely bins - a brown one for garden rubbish, a green one for household waste and a grey one for recyclables (paper, metal, plastic).

We have a basket in the kitchen to collect the recyclable waste before it goes into the bin. I am constantly having to remove items from the basket that don't fall into that category (particularly those foil cat food pouches). When I confronted my housemate about why he keeps putting things in the basket that don't belong, he argued that it doesn't matter which bin the rubbish goes in because recycling is a scam and it all ends up in the same place anyway. I asked him why he believed that,  he just shrugged and told me it was common knowledge. He then asked me why I thought it was true, given that I'd never followed our rubbish to a recycling centre to watch it be recycled. This was a good question. I responded thus :

* We know that the grey wheely bins are emptied, once every 3 weeks, by people different to the ones who collect the other bins, driving a different vehicle. We've seen them.
* We know that recycling is a real thing. It's documented. It happens.
* We know that recycling centres, where recycling happens, exist. Their existence is documented. People are employed in them.
* We know that new products are often made of recycled material. They carry officially certified logos and symbols to authenticate that fact.

Ergo, our recyclable materials are collected, taken to recycling centres, recycled and turned into new products that end up in shops and supermarkets some time later. I don't need to see it happen with my own eyes because every link in the chain has been verified by other, qualified, people who I have no reason to doubt.

Now, of course, this could all be a hoax. The local council could simply be using it as a way to bilk the taxpayer. But given that they have had to provide every household with a separate wheely bin and employ a company to collect them, and are subject to audit by outsiders, how much profit can they actually be making? The council refuse department employs hundreds of people ; some directly, many more as outside contractors. Why has nobody ever been disgruntled or honest enough to reveal the truth (especially as a lot of people have been made redundant in the last few years, so wouldn't really have anything to lose)?

The recycling industry employs thousands more. Wouldn't they know that this hoax was going on? Why would they collude in it? Even if they were getting kickbacks (which wouldn't be much, after the council has spent all that money on grey wheely bins and keeping their own people quiet), or were concerned that exposure would make them look bad for some reason there would still be angry or concerned people willing to blow the whistle. In fact, there would be no reason for the recycling industry to keep their mouths shut - whatever bribes they were getting would be far less than they could actually make by selling recycled material to manufacturers.

Unless, of course, recycling never happens, new products are never made from recycled material and every local and national government, materials scientist, media outlet, manufacturer, recycling company and environmental organisation in the world, thousands upon thousands of people, is involved in a massive, eternal, conspiracy to defraud the public by pretending that recycling is a real thing.....

[Echnaton]

There is no doubt in my mind that municipal recycling is an actual activity, not a hoax.  The rational question is whether it is an economically sound and  environmentally helpful activity or is it an expensive fashion statement.  There is little question that commercial recycling of waste at the source of production is a sound idea. Because the waste occurs in large quantities and is of known quality.  But on a municipal level, the collection and sorting is expensive relative to the value of the product.  And one must account for the energy consumed in recycling in the overall benefit.  In many places, private waste companies charge extra to recycle compared to dumping, an indicator that the extra effort comes at a higher expense than the value it produces.

Perhaps your friend is reacting to unanswered and open concerns about the activity by just fitting them into a conspiracy model that is neat and tidy.   Understanding human motivations and group behavior is a messy business requiring a great deal of thought.   Conspiracism is just intellectual lazy shortcut thinking. 

[AtomicDog]

Your housemate doesn't want to take the effort to recycle and came up with a reason to justify his laziness.

[Sus_pilot]

Your housemate doesn't want to take the effort to recycle and came up with a reason to justify his laziness.

So, to bring this back, the typical hoax believer is too lazy to learn the physics, so they come up with a hoax to justify it.

[smartcooky]

Your housemate doesn't want to take the effort to recycle and came up with a reason to justify his laziness.

So, to bring this back, the typical hoax believer is too lazy to learn not intelligent enough to understand the physics, so they come up with a hoax to justify it.

Fixed that for you

[Nowhere Man]

So, stuff your housemate into the recycle bin on pickup day so he can see where he winds up.

No, don't do that, that's bad advice from someone you don't know.

Fred

[Peter B]

There is no doubt in my mind that municipal recycling is an actual activity, not a hoax.  The rational question is whether it is an economically sound and  environmentally helpful activity or is it an expensive fashion statement.  There is little question that commercial recycling of waste at the source of production is a sound idea. Because the waste occurs in large quantities and is of known quality.  But on a municipal level, the collection and sorting is expensive relative to the value of the product.  And one must account for the energy consumed in recycling in the overall benefit.  In many places, private waste companies charge extra to recycle compared to dumping, an indicator that the extra effort comes at a higher expense than the value it produces.

My understanding is that here in Canberra some amount of material placed in recycling bins ends up at the tip anyway because of contamination (people ignorantly or carelessly putting material in recycling bins which shouldn't go in there). Also, I understand there are cases where perfectly good material for recycling gets dumped in landfill because there's no market for it at the time, and storing it isn't practical.

So your housemate may be right to some extent - that material placed in the recycling bin may well end up in landfill. The problem is that it might be because of people like him - who place the wrong material in the recycling bin. There's something neat and symmetrical about the idea, but also something quite exasperating.

As it happens, here in Canberra we don't have green waste collection. Instead, while you have to pay to take ordinary rubbish to the tip, you can drop garden waste for free at another section of the tip where a private company uses it to make compost which they sell. The proprietors rely on the honesty of people using the system to not contaminate their garden waste.

[darren r]

My understanding is that here in Canberra some amount of material placed in recycling bins ends up at the tip anyway because of contamination (people ignorantly or carelessly putting material in recycling bins which shouldn't go in there). Also, I understand there are cases where perfectly good material for recycling gets dumped in landfill because there's no market for it at the time, and storing it isn't practical.

So your housemate may be right to some extent - that material placed in the recycling bin may well end up in landfill. The problem is that it might be because of people like him - who place the wrong material in the recycling bin. There's something neat and symmetrical about the idea, but also something quite exasperating.

As it happens, here in Canberra we don't have green waste collection. Instead, while you have to pay to take ordinary rubbish to the tip, you can drop garden waste for free at another section of the tip where a private company uses it to make compost which they sell. The proprietors rely on the honesty of people using the system to not contaminate their garden waste.

There have been reports in the UK of people's bank statements ending up in landfills in China and so on. I think stories like that probably influence the unthinking belief that it's all a ploy to extort money from the poor taxpayer. But I agree with you that it's probably more to do with people putting waste in the wrong bin. To be fair to my housemate, he did accept my arguments about recycling being a genuine thing. Although he still seems to think that foil cat food pouches and plastic carrier bags are recyclable.

On the subject of garden waste : collections used to be free where I live, but now the council have decided to charge extra for it. Of course, most people aren't going to fork out and it's either going to end up in the normal household waste or burnt on bonfires. I can't help feeling that's not really a win for anyone.

[Donnie B.]

Here in my town, recycling is "mandatory", which really means "strongly suggested" as there is no enforcement mechanism that I know of.  Non-recyclables (mainly household garbage) is sent to an incinerator/cogenerator facility where it is burned to produce electricity.  No doubt this results in some materials that end up in landfills (non-combustibles and ash).  I don't know how much volume is saved by the incineration, but it has to be pretty significant.

The town has a contract with the incinerator operator, which means we get the recycling service for free and there is no requirement for sorting various types of recyclables.  Previously we were expected to sort glass, metal, plastic, and paper into separate bins, which undoubtedly discouraged compliance.

The fee for one year of disposal is $35.00, but there is no town collection.  You can either cart the stuff to the transfer station or hire a private contractor to collect.  I haul my own.

There is also a place to dispose of garden and yard waste, but I don't have to deal with that as I have some wooded sections of my property and can do my own composting.

[ka9q]

Where I live (at least), the major motivation for recycling is not the value of the recovered materials but reducing the amount going into the landfill and increasing its operational life.

Also, closed parts of the landfill generate methane for power production, and most recyclable materials do not decompose to produce methane. Recycling maximizes the percentage of organic waste in the landfill.