Irony patrol: Recycling bins

I think the issue is that large plastic objects aren't sortable or compatible with the process used in the recycling centers.

Keep in mind that people do all sorts of crazy/stupid things with garbage. Things like hiding hazardous materials in the recycling. Hazardous includes biohazards (needles, medical supplies, toxic materials (mercury, reactive chemicals) and outright dangerous materials (explosives, old bullets, propane tanks).

Because of this, they need to design the system to accomodate the intended waste flow -- the safety measures intended to contain the explosion of a half-empty camp stove canister is very different that what is needed to contain a 20 lb propane tank.

The fact that it took 3 months to find a place to put 40,000 recycling bins is kind of ridiculous. You'd think they would be made out of a recyclable thermoplastic that could just be shredded and used in another process, but the article makes it sound like they were reused instead of recycled. I wonder what the cost savings (both in dollars and carbon units) is compared to just shredding the things?

I worked at a company where the employees were careful to separate recyclable waste from regular garbage, and then the weekly cleaning crew would toss both into the same garbage bags. So much for good intentions.

I'd hazard a guess that this was because regular garbage gets incinerated so if someone doesn't shred something sensitive it gets thrown in with the "yucky" garbage and then goes and gets burned instead of being in a bag of nice clean paper.