I always wondered what happens in the facility where they get “illegal” items, do they just dump the batch in the common trash? Do they have people separating what is good from what is not? And if they have people separating, does it matter if people follow the recyling guidelines?
Once worked for a municipality when the contracted garbage collectors complained that there was too much recycling in the trash and the other way around. They essentially have to trash everything in the recycling if it’s contaminated.
We had to do some public information campaigns to try reduce it or the company would raise their rates, which would affect tax payers. The message did seem to get across to people, as the company stopped complaining.
I work at condos and every single one of our recycling bins would be considered “contaminated” every single time. I imagine it’s the same at every condo since you can’t control what every person is throwing in. If they just dump the “contaminated” bins, they probably toss out 100% of the bins they pick up from multi residential buildings.
I know people are shit and it probably only explains a little bit, but that dumpster really should be painted blue. I might not have noticed myself
If it’s recycling or trash it should always be a common color. I’m used to blue for recycling but we should all agree on a single color. Green to me has always been common trash. Also I hate how recycling isn’t standard. I know reasons why they aren’t but I wish we’d all come together as a country to fix that (among the other 5,000 things).
A common color would maybe help, but the bigger problem is recycling is still a mess of different companies on taking certain things. Plastic is especially problematic. Sometimes cardboard is separate, sometimes it’s all paper, others don’t take glass, some want lids on jars, some no lids, if you want something exotic like Styrofoam or batteries then go fuck yourself. And then there’s electronics…
It’s funny I run condos and it’s incredible how many people go to me “oh, blue is recycling? I didn’t know” recycling has been blue for petty much all my life.
In North America, large dumpsters for apartments and companies have a colour that is just the company colour, such as Green for WM, GFL, Blue for Waste Connections, Republic, other companies can be Red, Brown, White, Cyan, Orange, Yellow or other colours.
The use is typically denoted by a sticker, sign or by spray painted letters.
For residential curbside bins, blue is typical, but some do it differently if it’s separated further into glass, plastic containers and paper/cardboard products. The colours schemes between recyclables and organics is not consistent and varies from city to city.
At work we’ve got a 5 colour recycling system in the hallways:
Blue : plastic
Grey : paper / cardboard
Red : glass
Purple : metal
Yellow : metal and glass, but with consignment (cans bottles, etc)
I understand the consignment bit, but the other 4 colours of recycling is taken by the city. Which has single source recycling. Also the recycling in our cubicles is single source…
We also have a brown bins for organics, buckets for batteries, and boxes for electronics. Plus normal waste too.
If the sign matters, why isn’t it the largest sign on the dumpster?
I don’t fucking care about your toll free number or your dumb company logo lol
People don’t give a shit. We have recycling dumster but people just treat it as a second trash dumpster. Not enough fucks to give anymore.
Something I’ve learned about an average person, it’s it not in big red letters it’ll get ignored.
It could be in large red flashing neon and people will still ignore instructions like this.
Even if the trash dumpster is a mere 50 feet away.
People just don’t care. Once it’s out of their hands, no matter where it ends up, it’s someone else’s problem.
One complex where I used to live, our trash dumpster was a full on compactor, very nicely concealed behind a small hill. Signs leading up would say, “No cardboard!” Signs plastered all over the machine, “No cardboard!”
Yet, at least once, if not twice a week, the thing would be clogged because people would toss in boxes by the truckload. Not even broken down.
Meanwhile, just around the corner, a specific dumpster meant for cardboard only that would take all of 10 more seconds to get to.
