Is Raleigh Dumping our Recycling in the Landfill?
Uncategorized October 25th, 2007Man I hope not but I happened to be looking out the window this morning to see all my recyclables being tossed into the back of a normal garbage truck rather than the usual sort-it-on-the-street truck. Maybe there is a good explanation.
I shot this video before the truck rolled out of site:
October 26th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
Ellicott City, Maryland (Howard County) uses standard garbage trucks to pick up our co-mingled recyclables, allowing them to reuse existing resources (i.e. trash trucks) instead of having to buy purpose-built recycling trucks.
While I’ve never followed one of these trucks to its destination, I’m fairly sure it’s all legit. Further evidence of legitimacy is given by the fact that separate trucks come by on recycling day to pick up yard waste. So, on the same day, that’s one truck for co-mingled recyclables and one for yard waste. If it’s not legit, that strikes me as being a fairly elaborate ruse.
October 26th, 2007 at 4:11 pm
Supposedly they are sorting at the dump now. All of the recycling centers in wake county are gone too, replaced by one _big_ bin for everything recyclable cans to computer monitors at each of the transfer stations.
The economics and environmental impact of recycling are questionable at best anyway. But I still cling to the hope that some of that avoids the landfill. Gotta watch out for the crying indian…