Are you seriously unable to differentiate between an airport’s garbage collection system vs an entire suburban neighbourhood’s worth of individual bags of garbage?
OCD person’s nightmare!
Anyways, these initiatives should not be targeting households but rather big businesses and fastfood franchises. Now that’s wasteful in every sense.
When I was in college, I enjoyed laying in my bed hearing the sounds of our 2 64 gallon recycle bins get emptied. The sound of 128 gallons of beer cans, as well as wine/beer/liquor bottles, crashing and breaking against each other sounded like an accomplishment for my house.
Stand down little man. You speak to issues in which you are unfamiliar. Household and airport trash are sorted at the same facilities in some cases. How many neighborhoods do you think generate more trash than KATL…I’m starting to understand what was meant when years ago I was told I was young, dumb, and full of c*m.
I’ll separate my trash in most respects. My wife, however, likes to recycle the toilet paper cores and wash the empty food jars and cans. I think that’s going a little too far.
1.) From what I have heard, it is actually more costly to recycle than it is to use new stuff. Think about it–if you have paper in a separate recycling container, then you have to have a truck to come pick up the paper. And the truck probably runs on diesel fuel. And has a huge carbon footprint. And it has to drive around a lot to pick up a lot of paper, most of which actually becomes waste anyway during the recycling process.
Double this if you separate your paper from your cardboard. Triple it if you separate your glass from your paper and cardboard. Quadruple it if you separate you separate your tin cans from your glass, paper, and cardboard.
2.) Where did I come up with the above theory, you ask? I used to work with a guy who was an accountant for the city of Midland. The city has giant recycling containers in a few select locations, where you can put cardboard, paper, etc. And I thought that by recycling, I was saving the environment and reducing carbon emissions (or something else that Al Gore would be proud of).
But in reality, it all goes to the same dump. The city actually sends trucks every week to pick up the separated stuff, then goes and dumps it all in the same landfill.
So why bother putting the giant recycle containers out? Simple! It makes the city eligible for some dumb grant money from the state. If you have a “recycling program”, then you get money, and having the giant containers qualifies, even if it doesn’t actually accomplish anything.
Only difference now is they don’t say it to your face
You’re probably right about the airport vs neighbourhood - but I still think everyman can still do his part. For me it’s not a monetary issue but more of a conservation issue. Unfortunately the USA doesn’t really care about that.