Can our American friends please answer this question for me?

Question

When visitng my daughter who lives in OHIO, I was SHOCKED to see how much WASTE there was taken away each week in the TRASH? Particularly cardboard and paper, and bottles, it was mind bending! Especially with Global Warming being such an issue today.

I live in England, we have a lot of recycle points, for all materials apart from plastic bags. I put a lot of effort in but felt maybe we are wasting our time, if this type of TRASH is simply DUMPED???
Are those living in America ECO FRIENDLY as we are trying to be accross the pond??? I hope this was an isolated case - but perhaps you can throw some light on it for me.

I am NOT GENERALISING here, simply wondering if its widespread or just them, if its the case, I shall try and re-educate them. This is NOT judgement, simply a question.

I am treating TRIBUNES totally unnecessarily anti-American comments with the contempt they deserve.

This is not a judgement on anyone, simply wondering others are taking this siutaion as serious as I am.

Answer 1

We live in Ohio & we have recycle bins . They are dark green & every one is supose to put card board , bottles , some types of medel cans , news paper , plastic . any thing that you would recycle in them . Some times we have to much for the ben so we put it in a card board box next to the ben . The trash man knows what belongs to the recycle truck .
Some citys sort things after they get to the sorting building , but they give us the bins to save time & money . Our trash bill per month is real cheap because of recycleing . If you saw card board flattened & bundled & setting close to the trash cans , it is not picked up by the trash truck , we are supose to do it that way & the recycle truck pickes it up with the rest of the recycle stuff .
Our city picks up & composts leafs . Christmas trees & other trees from storms . We can go there & get compost to mix with dirt for gardens , We are blessed we have a city & trash people that do things right .
We do care in Jelly city in Ohio

Answer 2

It all depends on the area of the country and the amount of stress put on the issue. In some cities in Massacusettes it is mandatory to recycle -- there is even a "trash inspector" that will come in your house and look at your garbage to make sure you are recycling. In my town it is more of a choice, but most of the families I know do recycle.

I guess your answer would be it depends on the location. Different areas are more concious of the problem.

I hope you don't think all American's are wasteful just because a few are!

Answer 3

It kind of depends where you live. Where I live in Seattle, recycling has always been a huge issue that most everyone tries to do (though some don't try as hard like anywhere else in the world.) The trashman will sometimes not pick up your garbage if they believe there is too much recyclable materials in there. They also provide us with huge recycle bin containers and we can put out as many cans as we want, where we have one small can for garbage (which really makes you try to recycle.) They do try to make it as convienient as possible to recycle so that we are more willing to do so, and they've also loosened up their guidelines such as you can recycle food stained paper products, as long as it is in the yard waste recycle and not the regular.

However, I know my relatives who live in Oregon have to go to a place to recycle which makes them less likely to recycle and more likely to throw stuff in the trash. It only costs you a buck to go to the landfill as long as it only is one car or van full of stuff. That is insanely cheap. If we were to fill our car up with garbage to take to the dump, it would cost us at least 60 dollars.

Answer 4

My town has a recycling program and so were most of the towns across America. In my town, not only do we recycle but also pay roughly $35.00 each month to support the trash recycling program. The town is also into green recycling where matter are turned to compost. At home I have a wood chipper that turn branches into instant mulch...so we do our share. I would think across Ohio it's the same. Of course there are pockets where residents have lost their civic pride...I assume those are the residents you observed during your visit...Next time come to California...your satisfaction guaranteed.

Answer 5

A lot of communities recycle, some don't. The community I live in has recycled for 12 years. It just depends on where you are. I've seen more and more communities move to recycling - maybe with the new attention being paid to global warming it will convince the rest of the communities to join our side.

Answer 6

Don't judge everyone by what you saw some people do. Many people are very environmentally aware and do take cautionary steps to ensure they get the most from their products, but some don't. I'm sure you will find some of that same behavior within your own country.
It just happens that those who care and are enlightened (and believe there is a problem) do, obviously, more efforts than those who do not care and are ignorant to such issues.

Answer 7

Sorry to say that the U.S. as a whole has not embraced the recycling idea. Not enough time in between fast food joints, grocery stores and the fuel station to fill up the SUV or over sized trucks to be bothered with recycling. Sad commentary on the U.S. mindset as a whole.

Answer 8

Some companies sort it after they get it back to their dump site. Some places pay two different types-one for trash, another for recycling. A few sadly, do neither. You'd have to actually ask teh company or city they collect in to know for sure if it's beign seperated later or not.
You are right to bu upset about it though, It only takes a few seconds to put in a different container.

Answer 9

I live just outside of San Francisco, and it's very different here. In addition to the regular trash pickup, we also have two recycle bins...one for paper products and the other for plastic and glass.

Answer 10

America has (had) so much open land, we got used to just dumping the trash into landfills.

The typical density in America is 106 to 13 people per sq.km. (average is 31.2)
In Britain, its about 380 people per sq.km., and 246 for the whole UK. So America has about 7 times more space to dump the trash.