Waste Reduction - how would you inspire/promote the Rs in your community?

[Ginevra]

Do you think your community does a good job of promoting reduce, reuse, recycle? Are there good programs in place, and do you feel people in your community know about available services, i.e., if there is free mulch available, or e-cycling? What strategies would you like to see that you believe would promote waste reduction?

[Ausmumof3]

We did a homeschool outing of the dump and recycling plant. The visual of tonnes and tonnes of rubbish stays with you.

 

Honestly though, I think a lot of responsibility is really with the producers to work out more efficient ways of packaging stuff.

[Carrie12345]

We have mandatory recycling (though I know some people still ignore it), so I like that.  

But we're also allowed up to FIVE garbage cans/week.  My family of 7 rarely needs more than 1, so I can't wrap my mind around what a more average family could possibly be tossing that requires 5 cans/week!  And I'm sure that's reflected in our community's contracted price that we *all* pay for.

 

Our local Facebook groups are pretty great for unloading one man's trash and finding another's treasure.

 

E-cycling is still a hassle for us.  I'd be overjoyed to find free mulch!

[Laura Corin]

Availability of recycling varies from village to village: in much of the county, people have four bins: general waste; paper; plastics, tins and bottles; garden waste.  These are all collected weekly or fortnightly.  

 

Our village only has a general waste collection, so I just take the recycling myself when I am passing on another errand: most public car parks have recycling bins, and towns have recycling depots that take extra things (electronics, mattresses, etc.)  According to the signs, the county recycles about 54% of our total waste.  There are no incentives or fines - one can put everything in the general waste bin if one wants - but people seem to feel that recycling is worthwhile.  I also compost green waste - you can get cheap bins from the local government for this if you want.

 

Green waste compost is only available to farmers - a portion of our garden counts as farmland, so we can get free, sterile green-waste compost.  Which is a great thing for mulch.

 

L

[hornblower]

We have had curbside recycling for ages but a new thing they've just been rolling out throughout metro Vancouver is curbside compost pick up & a concurrent reduction in garbage pick up to encourage people to compost/recycle.

Our garbage gets picked up only once every 2 weeks & we're limited to 1 can of a designated size.

Compost & recycling get picked up weekly.

The green compost bin takes everything: ALL food scraps, including meat & dairy, & all garden waste. All plastics & paper & glass have their own bins when get picked up weekly too. 

The few things that aren't food, or recyclable paper/plastic/glass, go in the actual garbage bin.

The green bins have locks on them so that bears & racoons don't get in them & we're not supposed to put them out until the morning of pick up. Some people have been complaining that rat populations are up but honestly, Vancouver has always had rats & we have a healthy coyote population which munches on the rats....

oh & regarding costs, we have a new province wide recycling program: "Under the BC Recycling Regulation, businesses that supply packaging and printed paper will be responsible for the cost of collecting, sorting and recycling these materials"
 

[marbel]

Our town promotes recycling via Recyclebank.   We have weekly recycling pickup, all materials put in one bin.  The bin has a barcode that is read when it's picked up, and we get points for the weight of our recycling.   The points can be used for various things - I've gotten Amazon and Starbuck's gift cards, a magazine subscription from it. 

 

Honestly though I don't know what is done with the recycling; some people suggest it all goes to the dump anyway.  

 

Where I live I think most people do the best they can.  I can't imagine needing more education than we are already given, with frequent mailings, billboards, PSAs, teaching in the public schools, and other reminders to recycle/reuse/reduce.

[Guest]

It was a happy accident that I got responses from two Aussies, a Canadian, a Scot, as well as a few US citizens. I know community involvement varies widely, just in the US, so it's informative to see comments from other countries as well!

[Guest]

Where I live I think most people do the best they can. I can't imagine needing more education than we are already given, with frequent mailings, billboards, PSAs, teaching in the public schools, and other reminders to recycle/reuse/reduce.

Where I live, a problem I perceive is that those edicts are treated as equal - reduce, reuse, recycle - when they are not equally helpful. I would love to see more awareness that reducing/reusing are far superior to recycling in terms of environmental impact.

[Mrs Mungo]

Here in Hawaii they have a redemption program for some recyclables/ You can turn them in for money OR you can put them in a curbside recycling bin and the city/county keeps the money. Part of the refuse here is used at the local energy plant and burned to generate electricity. That program produces about 7% of Oahu's energy. We only get one trash can of a specific size per week. They pick up green waste and recycling on alternate weeks. I wish they would pick up green waste every week, we often wind up with overflow for that one due to all of the big palm leaves from our trees.

[Mrs Mungo]

Honestly though I don't know what is done with the recycling; some people suggest it all goes to the dump anyway.

The website you linked has information about what happens to the material that they pick up:

http://s3.amazonaws.com/RBMarketing/media/pdf/Recyclebank_2013YearInReview.pdf

[marbel]

The website you linked has information about what happens to the material that they pick up:

http://s3.amazonaws.com/RBMarketing/media/pdf/Recyclebank_2013YearInReview.pdf

 

Whoa, that's a little humbling.  Honestly?   Never thought to look for the information.  I recycle anyway, and have for years.  I grew up in the SF Bay Area in California so I suppose it was pretty normal there.

 

Thank you!  :001_smile:

 

[bettyandbob]

we have recycling pick up once a week. The county also have recycling stations so if you have too much and don't want to wait for pick up you can drive your stuff to a station and put your paper stuff in a dumpster and glass and cans in other dumpsters. They also have batter bins at the recycling station. There are regular collections of electronics.

 

We have free mulch.

 

The community association has regular education programs on native plants so that people are encouraged to landscape with species that need the least amount of fertilizer and water use.

 

My neighbors neighbors and I have a shared compost thing. I don't garden. I have better sun in my yard so the neighbors garden in my yard. They have a compost bin. I put all my vegetable waste there. They give me as much as I want from their garden. They had the most amazing tomatoes this year. I think I get the best deal because someone is taking care of my yard and giving me free vegetables.

 

My community has a huge amount of trails and sidewalks and they've been adding bike lanes to all the roads. The trails get plowed in the winter so it is often easier to walk to shopping centers than drive after winter storms. There are maps published with these trail connections to encourage people to walk-bike regularly to shopping/library/activities.

[KungFuPanda]

We have a trash day and a separate day for recycling and yard waste. My city just dropped these enormous bins off one day, those coupled with the glorious fact that we don't have to sort makes recycling painless. You can also get free compost things if you want them.

[Amira]

There isn't a typical recycling program here, but the trash people sort everything as they come around. So when my crockpot died, they didn't put it with the rest of the trash, but set it aside to sell or take apart or what ever. They separate a lot of things, although not metal and glass. We used communal bins in Bishkek, but the same principal applied. If something might still be useful, you could put it next to the bins and someone would take it. Guadalajara has organic and inorganic bins all over the city, but I don't think it really works.

 

So even though there aren't recycling programs, there isn't much trash taken to the dump in Kyrgyzstan and Mexico, relatively speaking. Also, and this was especially true in Kyrgyzstan, people weren't throwing anything away until it had been well-used. We couldn't recycle metal, but people didn't buy much canned food, and glass jars were reused until they broke.

 

The biggest problem is the million of flimsy plastic bags. I think getting rid of those entirely would be better than instituting recycling programs in many places. Like the OP mentioned above, reducing and reusing are much more effective that recycling.

[SparklyUnicorn]

We are supposed to recycle.  I guess people can be fined if they don't.  I have never heard of that happening though.  We tend to recycle more than we throw out, but I notice a lot of people don't ever put recycling bins out.  Just to give you an idea the regular trash truck has a driver and 3 people following behind to throw out trash.  The recycling truck has one person who drives the truck and gets out to put the recyclables in the truck.  We also have deposits on soda and water bottles/cans.  As annoying as I find that, I do believe it helps because if someone merely throws the stuff out, almost always someone will dig it out so they can collect the deposit.  So you rarely see bottles and cans laying around. 

 

I think one thing that can be motivating is to charge far less for recycling than trash pick up.  Although here that wouldn't really work because trash pick up is included in the property taxes so nobody gets a separate bill so they have no idea what it costs.  But I know that not all places do it that way.

 

Another idea is to promote the idea to school children.  Run a program at the library.  Maybe have something like a recycling poster contest.  Kids will often go home and tell their parents they should do stuff like that.  One of mine at some point must have heard about recycling from a commercial or on-line or something because he got a box so he can put in anything he uses that can be recycled.  I never told him to do that, he came up with that one on his own.  Growing up my parents started buckling their seat belts because I insisted.  I had learned about doing it at school. 

 

And I agree with making it as simple as possible.  It used to be they required all kinds of sorting.  Now it's less sorting so it's easier.  If it is too complicated, a lot of people will not do it. 

 

What I'd like to see is a periodic recycling day for stuff like electronics.  As it is now you have to find a place to bring them and it's often not convenient at all.  Sometimes we just throw the stuff out because we can't figure out where to bring it.  Even stuff like batteries.  Your not really supposed to throw them out, but I can't find a place to bring them.  So we throw them out. 

[elegantlion]

I live in a small mid-western (US) town. Let's face it, they're not on the cutting edge of any green movement. They do have curbside recycling, you have to buy the bin, or you can take it to a recycling drop off for free. From the heaping amounts in the drop off bins on some days, I'd say many in our town are making an effort. 

 

I also see a lot of people line drying clothing and stuff left on the curb seems to always disappear. I'm sure economics plays a larger role than environmental concern. A lot of the older homes are well-built and designed for airflow, so people run their ACs less. People use an item until it is used up, cars, household items, but again, a lot of that could be driven by economics. 

 

The biggest non-reduction area here is driving. Most people drive out of town to work. The nearest big towns are 30 minutes away. 

[MiMi 4under3]

Our town has banned plastic bags given out by all shops or stores. They all give reusable totes with a purchase.

[Tess in the Burbs]

I think it does. We have recycling and food waste in addition to trash. The food waste is made into compost. I assume it can be bought from the county. There was a booth at the community festival in Sept. And the trash website company has tons of info. The county website is another source for everything recycling. Only issue I ever had was ridding myself of a damaged couch that even craigslist couldn't help. But the website told me what parts of the couch could be recycled ;)

[Guest]

I thought the concept of recycling was pretty universal in our small town, but I guess that's because we hang out with Scouts. I was appalled to watch the TWO cases of water bottles used at the musical for the cast this past week. And most of the bottles did NOT end up in the recycle bin just in the hallway. I called a girl on it and she said, "Oh, there's a recycle bin?" Um, they're in every hallway in this school and you've been attending since August!

This type of issue bothers me as well. The state and county I live in is pretty "with it" for reducing waste, but for those ubiquitous water bottles! The college I attend has SGO promo days and they are giving away planner books and disposable water bottles. That really bugs me. Why not have CCC reusable water bottles as a gift?

[AnIslandGirl]

Our town has free recycling and paid trash pick up. I think it really does encourage people to think more about what items can be recycled.

[skimomma]

Our area is embarrassingly behind the times on this.  We do not have recycling pick-up.  You have to take it to the single drop-off area.  They make it as hard as possible.  The drop site has a fence around it and hours.  The hours are sporadic and different depending on the season.  There are no weekend or after-work hours so you have to be available during the weekday.  If you manage to jump through all of those hoops, the bins are often overflowing so you might not even be able to find a place to dump your stuff.  Several times I have had to come back home with the recycling I intended to drop off.  I have complained to the people who man the site and once was told it all just goes into the landfill anyway.  Nice.

 

There is also no glass recycling within hours of our town.  The reason is that it is "too expensive" to haul.  We take ours on "vacation" with us anytime we will be in an area that recycles it.

 

There is a compost drop area that is run by a small farm.  It is barely "tolerated" by the city as many people have deemed it an eyesore (which is pretty funny since we have old and dumpy housing, sidewalks, and roads).  Many people have their own bins.  We do.

 

Given all of that, it is far easier for us to simply "reduce" instead of recycle.  I try to buy things with little packaging.  We do pretty well.  It takes 4-6 weeks for us to fill a standard garbage bag and most of that is cat litter.  We are very unusual for our area.  The whole concept is simply not a priority for most people around here.  It is pretty depressing and honestly one of the things that bothers me the most about where I live.

[prairiewindmomma]

We have trash and recycling pickup. Our city provides an extra recycling cart for free but charges for additional trash cans. We have free yard waste pickup on a separate day of the week that turns into mulch we can purchase. Our city regularly has workshops on making rain barrels and compost bins.

 

Our schools have community gardens. They use some produce in the cafeterias; the excess is sold at the farmer's market to pay for supplies and to pay wages to the student gardeners. We have a vibrant farmer's market; it's entirely possible to eat locally completely.

 

We have bicycle lanes. The public library provides a shower for the employees who bike to work, and the water fountains have a water bottle refill button. A bit silly, but handy. We have a decent public transport system, but not spectacular.

 

Sometimes I feel like we live in Portlandia....if you admit you aren't eating cage free eggs, you might get a lecture from a stranger. A lot of families raise their own hens under ethical concerns....

[Laura Corin]

I forgot to say: Scotland has just started obligatory charging for carrier bags - money goes to charity.

 

There's a charity that picks up furniture in good condition for people who need to furnish and who are in dire straits (abuse victims, etc.)

 

L

[magnificent_baby]

We have had free curbside recycling for about 6 or so years. It's so handy and it has trained me to rethink what I throw away. My town is trying to implement bike lanes as much as possible. We aren't cutting edge, just baby steps. Our school district, on the other hand, does not recycle nearly enough. The janitor frequently pulls out perfectly good items from the classroom trash cans and reuses them (pencils, pens, paper scraps that he makes into notepads, etc.). He said you would not believe what gets tossed.

[AimeeM]

I have to admit - I really don't. I only recycle because we living a part of downtown district that provides us with a green crate and free pick-up. I wouldn't recycle otherwise. Now, I do think they could make it even better by allowing us to have more than one recycle crate <---- that's a silly rule, since it means I throw away a TON of potential recycling, because they will not pick up anything that doesn't fit in the crate/bucket. Speaking of which, I need to call them again, to see if they've done away with that rule, and see if I can request a second crate, lol (I haven't checked in a while).

[hornblower]

This type of issue bothers me as well. The state and county I live in is pretty "with it" for reducing waste, but for those ubiquitous water bottles! The college I attend has SGO promo days and they are giving away planner books and disposable water bottles. That really bugs me. Why not have CCC reusable water bottles as a gift?

 

Metro Vancouver has been doing a big push on drinking tap water only. The giant water cooler things are banned in all municipal buildings.

Our tap water is some of the best water in the world so we really don't have any reason not to drink tap water.

 

The college dd is at has water fountains & most people carry refillable water bottles.  The new water fountains are made so you can easily fill up bottles at them.

There is also an initiative to encourage businesses & restaurants to refill people's portable water bottles.

 

Mind you we make up for all that good karma by chugging down gallons of coffee in paper cups which are not recycled...For some reason, using travel mugs is not as popular as lugging a water bottle.

[Guest]

I forgot to say: Scotland has just started obligatory charging for carrier bags - money goes to charity.

 

There's a charity that picks up furniture in good condition for people who need to furnish and who are in dire straits (abuse victims, etc.)

 

L

Are "carrier bags" the same as shopping bags? Some counties in our state charge five cents per plastic shopping bag. The Target where I shop gives a five-cent credit for every reusable shopping bag they fill. I am not sure if this is a policy for all Target stores, or if it is just in that city. Personally, I like the positive incentive of a credit a little better than I like the penalty for buying a plastic bag, but I do think the negative incentive might be more effective at changing people's habits.

[Guest]

Metro Vancouver has been doing a big push on drinking tap water only. The giant water cooler things are banned in all municipal buildings.

Our tap water is some of the best water in the world so we really don't have any reason not to drink tap water.

 

The college dd is at has water fountains & most people carry refillable water bottles. The new water fountains are made so you can easily fill up bottles at them.

There is also an initiative to encourage businesses & restaurants to refill people's portable water bottles.

 

Mind you we make up for all that good karma by chugging down gallons of coffee in paper cups which are not recycled...For some reason, using travel mugs is not as popular as lugging a water bottle.

When I went with DD visiting colleges, a couple of them had water bottle filling stations around campus. I am a big fan!

 

I would say travel mugs is not as popular as water bottles here, either. I brew coffee and dh and I take ours in travel mugs, but we seem (anecdotally) to be in the minority. People love to get their Starbucks, Dunkin, McDs, or whatever coffee while out.

[Laura Corin]

Are "carrier bags" the same as shopping bags? Some counties in our state charge five cents per plastic shopping bag. The Target where I shop gives a five-cent credit for every reusable shopping bag they fill. I am not sure if this is a policy for all Target stores, or if it is just in that city. Personally, I like the positive incentive of a credit a little better than I like the penalty for buying a plastic bag, but I do think the negative incentive might be more effective at changing people's habits.

 

Yes - a carrier bag is a plastic disposable shopping bag.  Tesco offers points for using your own bags - I don't know if they will carry on with that now that the law has been brought in.

 

L

[Mom in High Heels]

On our post, we have recycling for plastic, paper, cans, aluminum, etc.  Everyone here does it.  They only pick up recycling every 2 weeks though, so our bins get packed.  Garbage is picked up weekly, but we almost never have garbage.  We don't have glass or compost though, and I wish we did.

 

In Germany, it was mandatory in Heidelberg.  Each stairwell had it's own, locked, garbage cage, and the bins (4-paper, plastic, rubbish and compost) got inspected every week the day before everything was picked up.  They were SERIOUS about it. If there was cross contamination 2 weeks in a row (we had stickers on the cage that told us if there was contamination), the stairwell coordinator and building coordinator were told to find out who it was.  You'd think it would be difficult, but since there were 6 apartments per stairwell, it wasn't too difficult.  The soldier from that appt was warned.  If there was contamination 3 weeks in a row, the bldg coordinator and stairwell coordinator had to go before the garrison CO.  They did NOT want that.  The reason it was such a big deal was that the German gov't charged by weight for rubbish, but they didn't charge for recycling.  Once we moved to mandatory recycling, it saved a ton of money for the US gov't.  We're talking in the millions, per year.  We had massive glass recycling bins that were shared by several buildings, and were divided into clear, green and brown glass.

 

In Wiesbaden, recycling wasn't mandatory on post (though they are apparently planning to move to it), but there were still bins for everything.  What made me mad was the fact that all the bins, save the glass, were right next to each other, yet people still threw stuff in the wrong bin!  The paper was RIGHT NEXT to the rubbish, yet people threw paper and cardboard boxes in the the rubbish bin.  OMG, it made me so mad.  I was constantly pulling paper/cardboard out of the rubbish, and tossing them into the paper bin.  I may have had a few choice words coming out of my mouth when I did so.  They weren't loud, but if anyone was walking by, they would have heard me muttering.  One time I was outside with my dogs, and I saw a neighbor about to toss boxes in the rubbish bin, but when he saw me, he quickly moved to the paper bin and tossed it in.  ;)

 

As far as promoting it in local community, I think it's all about education.  If people don't realize it's important, and I believe it is, they won't care.