USA how come no one seems to recycle in your country?

Question

just spent a month travelling lall over Florida and up to North Carolina and Atlanta, i think i only ever saw 1 type of recycling, no households seem to do it thats not very good is it,and was looked at as though i was mad when i mentioned it!
in Chester Uk where i live we recycle all our household rubbish it gets collected by the council every week

WHEELEBIN FSS; not al of the shopping is in brown paper bags! we used to get about 15 plastic ones when we shopped and I used to overfill the bags and give some bags back, much to the bemusement of the cashier!!

mark _gvr yes i did only see a small part of the USA but even on the news etc it dosent seem like many people are interested in recycling, dont get me wrong there are areas in UK that could do with a shake up! but we are a smaller country and were trying to do our bit!

3dm, i did not insult the host country i was visiting, ALL of my family live there and they said it was difficult to recycle!!
the lady in the supermarket had no idea what i was on about! i dont go around insulting people this was an observation,

tomw thankyou for the sensible answer x cheers x

tomw thankyou for the sensible answer x cheers x

patzky99 thankyou for that,!!
WOW i didnt realise i would get soo many replies on this matter, it goes to show that people may want to recycle but cant in some cases, im glad i posted the question regardless of some of the cras remarks ive had about it! its made people think if nothing else!! AND THANKYOU to all those who thort my question was a fair one and not an insult to USA in general!

Noon-N if you dont know what im talking about then why have you answered my question???

LITTLEBEARB
We have a wonderful health care system compared to the USA and you know that!! people in the Usa are scared to go the Drs for tings if they have no INSURANCE, i cany say anything bad about our healthare system as when my, husband was dying of Brain Cancer, and was diagnosed with Breast Cancer, WE had the BEST treatment you could get and it was all for FREE our taxes pay for it and i doubt if anyone here would have it anyother way! BUT WHAT HAS ANY OF THAT GOT TO DO WITH RECYCLING!!!??

LITTLEBEARB
We have a wonderful health care system compared to the USA and you know that!! people in the Usa are scared to go the Drs for things if they have no INSURANCE, i cant say anything bad about our healthare system as when my, husband was dying of Brain Cancer, and I was diagnosed with Breast Cancer, WE had the BEST treatment you could get and it was all for FREE our taxes pay for it and i doubt if anyone here would have it anyother way! BUT WHAT HAS ANY OF THAT GOT TO DO WITH RECYCLING!!!??

jb
as far as i know Chester Uk where i am recycles loads we get regular info from the recycling peeps letting us know how much we have recycled and what it was recycled into! like plastc bags,are recycled into duvet and sleeping bag filling!

Answer 1

Many do recycle but some don't its true. Few places have mandatory recycling but it is economically feasible to recycle and everyone in my neighborhood does and in most others in my area. Because you can collect and sell recyclables a lot of youth groups and civic organizations do it for fund raising. The people on this site who make the bizarre statements and make it seems as though no one does are people who live in cyber world and have no real life so they say offensive things like those that you may have read. As a nation there is incredible work being done to clean the rivers and the air and the automobile industry (Ford and GM mostly) are in a race to produce hydro cell cars that use no gasoline. They are not far away from that with Ford making some recent breakthroughs. If the US needed no gasoline for transporation it would change the environment of the world. People are working on that. GM has invested nearly a billion dollars. Wind/solar and hydro electric generation is growing rapidly. Its so much cheaper than coal or oil generated electricity that only fools would not want to invest in it. So don't think poorly of us, the majority want to be more earth friendly and of course we want cheap energy that does not require the importation of anything. Its not that far away. Come visit again you will see differences and ignore the idiots, every country has them but here we have learned to tolerate thier idiotic remarks. We live in a free country and that means that some have the right to be stupid in public.

Answer 2

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Answer 3

I spent a week with a friend in New Mexico a couple of years ago. Being a fan of recycling I was astonished to discover that not only was it a policy to recycle but that they also go to the extent of separating plastics by the PET number written on the plastic item!

The policy of recycling has not been endorsed by the Bush administration (until very recently and only half-heartedly) yet the periferal states including New York and California chose to follow the Kyoto Policy despite their government's stance. However these things take time, not only regarding the infrastructure but also the habits of the people.

In Britain there is still a haze of confusion about what should go into which bin in every county I've been to, and there's still issues with the actual recycling companies and whether they do their utmost to recycle everything. Given time I believe the USA will catch up and the willing will outnumber the unwilling and downright ignorant.

Answer 4

I've got some figures here that compares recyling rates around the world, the US does slightly better than the UK overall. On a global scale both countries do really bad.

Here's some figures...

RECYCLING PAPER AND CARD
US - 42%
UK - 41%
Top - Germany 70%
Bottom - Italy 37%

RECYCLING ALUMINIUM
US - 53%
UK - 42%
Top - Switzerland 92%
Bottom - Spain 25%

RECYCLING GLASS
US - 23%
UK - 30%
Top - Switzerland 91%
Bottom - US 23%

RECYCLING STEEL
US - 59%
UK - 42%
Top - Japan 86%
Bottom - Portugal 28%

The US and the UK rank amongst the world's worst recyclers, the countries that top the list are Japan, Sweden, Switzerland and Germany.

These figures are from 2004, I know since then the UK has greatly increased the proportion of waste that it recycles (I'm in the UK as well). I would guess that the US has also increased the amount of waste it recycles.

Reading the summary report there are, as mentioned above, large regional differences in the US with some states doing significantly better / worse than others.

Answer 5

I agree with the jello man .My son and a couple of my friends work at a recycling plant . All day long they sort stuff that comes from the garbage . My son even found a wallet with over 300 bucks cash in it . You wouldn't believe some of the things they fined gold rings chains money guns ammo you name it Americans throw it away. You know we are just a bit smarter then you guys . Its bad enough that we have to pay for garbage removal but to do there work for them is another thing . You know there making tuns of money off the metals and things that's recyclable . Check out the new SUV,s the owners are driving

Answer 6

UK how come no one seems to use reason or even simple observations? How come you jump to conclusions and come off in a berating and accusatory tone?

I'm sorry. Just thought I'd "recycle" your phrases to get a bit more use out of them. This varies from state to state and city to city. I know Florida recycles - I lived there 20 years ago and had no problem finding a recycling center in a relatively small city (yes, I've been recycling for decades). I know North Carolina recycles ( http://www.cra-recycle.org/ ) as does Atlanta ( http://www.keepatlantabeautiful.org/ ). Keep in mind that most residential pickup is only going to be done once or maybe twice a month (if you produce more recyclables than that you are likely over-consuming) and that many cities have ordinances that prohibit the bins to be put out more than a day in advance, or to leave the emptied bins out more than a couple of days. Many cities utilize alley pickup along with garbage bins.

The look you got from people when asking about recycling was probably one of incredulity if you came off as condescending as you have here. Next time, pick up the Yellow Pages or do an internet citysearch to find out about local recycling instead of insulting your hosts.

Answer 7

The US is one of the worst recyclers because we just don't give a sh*t. We have our heads so far up our asses that we appearantly don't know that there are people who will pay us to recycle.

Here in Merced, California we get a grey curbside container for garbage, a blue curbside container for recyclables, and a green curbside container for organic waste like grass and leaves. The recyclables oviously get recycled and the organic waste gets turned into compost and sold.

By the way recycling is not a scam and it doesn't prevent new trees to be planted. The tree is not a man made thing. As long as we recycle and not pollute the forests, trees will continue to reproduce themselves, regardless of whether or not humans are around.

Answer 8

okay, you busted us on this one. i live in north carolina, and will be the first to admit that the recycling opportunities here, especially in the small towns, are nil.

the town i live in offers recycling pickups, but they don't take many of the items they ought to... no milk cartons, no cardboard packaging, etc. even so on a walk through town, about 1 in 5 homes puts the bin out to the curb on recycling day. not sure if it's a strictly 'southern' thing or not...

but when i lived i the midwest, recycling often filled the containers to overflow. more items could be recycled, and even municipal parks and most businesses offered options for customers to recycle. organized clean-ups were de rigeur.

on the whole, while the yards look nicely manicured in the south, the country roads here are dumps. perhaps the part of the country you visited tarnished your image of americans unduly. but your conclusion about what you saw in carolina seems embarrassingly correct.

Answer 9

Here in California we recycle. Our taxes fund it.
Part of the problem of communities not recycling is the city or county doesn't have the money to pay for it and the public doesn't want a tax increase.

Answer 10

the Q&A is not meant for a two-sided conversation, and it's unfair to the users to use it this way. Most people see the question, they respond and never return, so I can't figure out why you're responding to their "opinions". Do I hear a rant? Do I hear that you want to win your point? It won't happen. It's clear you didn't travel much when you were here in Florida. There's no need to point out a state or two and try to start an argument over it, comparing it to a "country". Why not compare apples and oranges?

Each country, like language, customs, tradition does things different one from the other.
At least here in Florida we do a lot of recycling, both from the homes and apartments. Perhaps you weren't out and about on the collection day. We don't leave our recycling items out all week on the curb for visitors to see. It's a one-morning a week type of collection activity.

We have found though that because there is sprawl here that to collect some items it is more costly to collect them than to just get rid of them (because of the high cost of gasoline, and the high cost to produce another product)...did you by chance notice that we are these days asking overseas to produce products for us so all of us can afford to buy the things we need).

We do re-use furniture here, do collect shread and boxes, tires, newspaper, glass and plastic bottles, aluminum cans (most of those are in huge hidden by trees in box cars or in commercial-type buildings. We do have creative people now making logs from used newspapers, making ebay salables from junk that they repaint and make into something else. We do have re-usable clothing in several different types of stores. We do have lots of places where second-hand things are sold, and, we also pass things down in our families. We also have Salvation Army and Goodwill stores and St. Vincent De Paul societies which provide the reusables to those who need them. We also have women's organizations who take in good reusable women's work clothes and shoes for those who have that need. We also have places to turn in used ink cartridges, and a place that takes in old computers (strips them of needed parts to reuse them). Had you noticed that we in Florida go barefoot or use sandals a lot? My $10 pair of shoes lasts me 10 years. I wear the same outfit when shopping, for 10 years now. My car is 22 years old. My electric bill is $35 a month. So what part of us recycling did you miss, or maybe we should pat outselves on the back for not making our recyclables (and junk) so obvious. :-) kudos to us.