Recycling
emma3434
| Posted in General Questions on
Hey
Yesterday I came across this blog: https://junkit.ca/5-things-you-thought-you-could-put-in-the-recycling-bin-but-cant/ which left me in surprise. It says pizza box, water bottle cap, wet paper, aerosol can and so are not recyclable. This is a new knowledge for me. But is it true? I know recycling is important for the earth as well for the future generations to come. So I’d like to start a discussion based on recycling here.
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Replies
Emma,
I suspect that you are just trying to boost the number of visits to a blog site that you are associated with. But I may be wrong.
The article is mostly correct, except for its incorrect use of the word "Styrofoam." If you have any doubts, simply call up your local trash-collection authority and verify the information.
Styrofoam is a brand name for one type of extruded polystyrene (XPS). Most homeowners have few opportunities to throw away any XPS.
More common (but in declining use) for household purposes is expanded polystyrene (EPS) -- the common white foam used to make coffee cups. Most residential recycling programs don't accept EPS.
I can imagine how soiled paper would be impractical to recycle. Makes more sense to compost that stuff. Most people can barely follow the general guidelines of what to put in the bins, so most programs don't even bother to try to divert it, they just sort it out at the facility.
Our community's "waste management" service ended its recycling program because too many bags of recyclables were being contaminated with regular garbage. So far the community has not been able to find a replacement recycler.
Posters are free to discuss anything they want, but from my perspective the usefulness of GBA is just that: Green Building Advice. Recently there have been a number of discussions around lifestyle choices and energy use. That's all well and good, but there are literally hundreds of sites dealing with those issues. High performance construction is where the expertise of the editors lies and the reason most of the posters come here, not the content of their recycle bin.