The average US person throws out between 1350 and 1800 pounds of garbage a year. That may not sound like so much, but consider the number of people involved. New York City residents produce 12,000 tons of garbage a day. That’s what gets dumped in landfills or incinerated (and hopefully not in the ocean anymore).
About 75% of all garbage is recyclable but we recycle around 31% — that’s mostly paper, cardboard, aluminum cans, water bottles — the easy stuff. We don’t really have a good system for recycling plastics — too many different kinds, some recyclable, some not. And when we do recycle, we don’t really have a good system for getting the recyclable stuff to where it needs to be. Studies have shown that a lot of energy and expense is used moving recyclables around. [Garbology: Our dirty love affair with trash]
We need to figure out a system that makes it both easy and profitable. The auto industry did it way back and their “recycling” is considered a normal, profitable business practice. About 86% of a vehicle is recycled and reused, floor mats, fluids [including dirty oil], electronics, aluminum and steel, etc.
The average US person throws out between 1350 and 1800 pounds of garbage a year. That may not sound like so much, but consider the number of people involved. New York City residents produce 12,000 tons of garbage a day. That’s what gets dumped in landfills or incinerated (and hopefully not in the ocean anymore).
About 75% of all garbage is recyclable but we recycle around 31% — that’s mostly paper, cardboard, aluminum cans, water bottles — the easy stuff. We don’t really have a good system for recycling plastics — too many different kinds, some recyclable, some not. And when we do recycle, we don’t really have a good system for getting the recyclable stuff to where it needs to be. Studies have shown that a lot of energy and expense is used moving recyclables around. [Garbology: Our dirty love affair with trash]
We need to figure out a system that makes it both easy and profitable. The auto industry did it way back and their “recycling” is considered a normal, profitable business practice. About 86% of a vehicle is recycled and reused, floor mats, fluids [including dirty oil], electronics, aluminum and steel, etc.