What % of your garbage do you recycle?
 

(No high-horsing here or 'holier than though' speaches please.)

I'm fairly new to the whole recycle thing and am looking for some benchmarks as to how good of a job I'm doing. I was psyched when I realized that I'd reached the 1:1 mark of bags of trash:recyclables (to answer my question - 50%) until I remembered that it was subscribing to the newspaper that tipped me over the edge.

How much of your garbage do you recycle?

0% good ole America

Not sure a % but I recycle newspapers, magazines, cardboard, plastics, glass, aluminum, etc. Anything that can be recycled I do. Makes me feel a little better about being such a fucking consumer of resources.

almost nothing - but bulky cardboard boxes and a few milk cartons do get dropped off at the local recycling center (this is a disgustingly liberal/hippie town in some respects, but that center is one the good points)

Good for you! ^-^ For me it's usually just newspaper, regular paper and cans/bottles. But newspaper takes a lot of space :p. So consider it 3:1.

We basically recycle everything that you can, like newspaper, cardboard, glass/plastic bottles, cans and so on. Quite often we have much more recycling that our regular garbabe, so i imagine quite a bit.

Does anyone else have a compost as well?
That cuts down on our garbage as well. Its also really good for the soil and so on.

0.10%

We have a carbonated beverage deposit in MI. Unless you want to lose your $.10 you'd better take that sucker back.

1/3 to 1/2. In Wellington, rubbish costs $1.20 a bag to get collected from the kerbside. Recycling is free for kerbside collection. So there's a bit of an incentive there.

a little over half. not bad for a state that doesn't have a bottle bill.

Nothing.


Americans aren't supposed to be nice to the Earth.

most apartment living isn't very friendly to recycling unless you have the space to hold all of that rubbish until you can transport it to a recyling centre. with that in mind, all of our waste simply goes to the dumpster. i don't have the time or the storage space to hold all of our paper, cardboard, plastic, aluminum, tin, and other recyblable rubbish

I recycle absolutely nothing.

cans and bottles for the deposit...newspapers and magazines to the recycle bin...

All plastics and all newspapers.

They give you these blue bins to put out along with that big ass rolling can they also give you.

Its there, why wouldnt you use? Takes maybe 2 more min out of your life to save some of the environment, no brainer.

Re: What % of your garbage do you recycle?
 

most of it. no choice really, here in Germany.
(altho i really don't mind, when i lived in the US i recycled most all i could)

How it works here -

our allowed garbage for the whole house -
(me + bf in our apt, plus landlord + her 3 older kids in the main house)

40 liters every 2 weeks.
(so, imagine 20 x 2 liter soda bottles)

or, approx 10 gallons.

that is the size of our garbage can.

(it's not so bad for everyone, my bf's parents for example where it's just the 2 of them get to make 70 liters of garbage. they live in a different but nearby town, and perhaps they pay more for it?)

so - what gets recycled -

drinking bottles (glass & plastic) -
have a deposit so they go back to the store

plastic. everything plastic. including tetrapacks (milk, icetea, etc)

paper. all paper, even used kleenexes. (not sure if that's 'supposed' to go in there, but we go thru so many, i've got no choice really)

metal, glass. such as tincans, bottles for various foodthings.
those we have to bring to big recycling bins ourselves, just a 1 minute bikeride away tho.

compostables. composted. all vegetable parts, coffeegrounds, eggshells.

so yeah, if it *can* be recycled, i recycle it.

it's a bit of work, and i think the garbage restrictions are a bit too tight, just because i do like to go on occasional super-clean throw-shit-out sprees...

but overall, i think it's a good thing.

and there honestly from what i've seen there's less 'litter' here than in the US.

:shrug:

curious@ any other europeans here - how is it in your country?

newpapers, bottles, cans and milk jugs. that's about it.

I recycle everything into the bin.

Isn't that where it's supposed to go?

Here's to the proud few of us who do not recycle anything, be we indignant, apartment dwellers, unconscious, or lazy.

I remain at 0.00% recycled output.

I'm also unsure of the %. We recycle anything and everything that can be recycled.

As much as I can, but don't let this make you think I am environmentaly responsible. On the contrary, I could give a rats ass. However, recycling is free whereas garbage costs a buck a bag. That's almost a coffee per bag! I'm a cheap fucker.

I recycle about 60% of my trash.

Bottles, paper, leftovers, tincans and plastic containers...

I'm another of the "too lazy" camp. I'd recycle if I saw recycling bins next to my apartment complex's dumpster, or if it there was a strong incentive to, like for SiN or rogerd. :(

Back home in Michigan, we recycle all our pop bottles and that was about it.

We Americans suck. We know it. :(

The only thing our city picks up at the curb is paper, plastic and tin cans. I try to recycle as much as I ca, but everything makes it there.

Reason: I'm just to lazy for the most part. :p

Probably 1/3 to 1/2 depending on the week. In wa state, it used to be free for the recycler trucks to do their thing, but now we have to pay for their gas or something....it still keeps the trash can from being overstuffed.

O.000000000000%

I recycle around . . . . . . . . 0% of my garbage.

i would say around 5 - 10% of my garbage is recycled

recycling is bullshit. The garbage men throw everything in the same pile and burn it anyways, so why bother?

When I lived in Tacoma WA and curbside recycling was free, I recycled everything I could. Then the city decided we had to clean everything first, no problem, I still recycled everything i could. Then the city decided to start chatrging for curbside pickup, with no reduction in garbage rates. So I stopped recycling altogether, because it was going to hurt my wallet. Now I live in OR and my apt. doesn't offer recycling so I only recycle carbonated beverage containers (there is a 5¢ deposit).

Zero. I wouldn't mind recycling if not for the environazis trying to force me to do it.

In fact when I lived in the People's Republic of Maryland, you could actually be fined for putting soda cans and other recyclables in your trash. Fuck that, I just used black opaque trash bags and threw non-recyclable crap on top. One time I had a bunch of glass so instead of risking a visit from the recycling gestapo, I took it along when I visited a friend 150 miles away and chucked it in the dumpster at his apartment complex. No fucking communist is going to tell me how I can and cannot dispose of my trash, dammit.

probably in the range of 70-80 %

paper , plastic , packaging, newspapers , etc

basically anything non biodegradable unless it has contained food
which my recycler wont accept.


its also important to RE- USE I Re- Use tons of household items for other uses. and re use things like padded envelopes , boxes,
elastic bands, jars, plastic tubs etc.

0% i am so nice..............

I recycle everything I can. Here in Vancouver we have some pretty good recycling programs. We recycle all paper products..extra plastic bags go back to Safeway or are re-used somehow.

The only problem is plastic containers. All drink containers can be returned to a bottle depot but other things like plastic food containers are more difficult. The recycling bin only recycles numbers 1 and 2 so we are looking for where to recycle all the other plastic.

I don't suck. Speak for yourself. :hmm:

60 - 75% I love the pacific northwest. We have curbside recycling with all recyclables mixed together (except glass). Goodwill workers sort it and we all benefit.

A lot of U. S. recycling is a sham (no this is not a flame)

I recycle zero and not ashamed.

Anyone who knows the truth about paper and cardboard recycling (and probably a lot of the rest) knows that it is a complete sham.

I used to be paid good money 8 years ago for truckloads of paper and cardboard that I recycled. Now I have to pay to have it hauled away and sent to landfill or incinerator because there is such a glut of the stuff. Really, this is true - Now that everyone is recycling there isn't anywhere NEAR the market for this stuff and a lot of it is a big waste of effort and costs towns a lot of needless money.

I even know a town very nearby that spent tons of money building recycle center and passing nazi laws requiring recycling, etc. After two years the place was filled up and they found they didn't have the money to haul it away and had to just bury it. It was a travesty! This is about the crunchiest town in Mass. too.

There is a vast oversupply of some recyclables. I'm all for recycling if it is legitimate and does some good. I would be in favor of giving real incentives to businesses to use the stuff, or better yet - how about to not produce it in the first place? duh!

I'm a "liberal" but I'm not an ignorant idiot. I don't blindly believe in things that feel "fuzzy" and sound like the right thing to do without real proof of the facts.

For example, most tree huggers think that nuclear power is dirty and dangerous - so we shouldn't build any nuke plants. Well, the old, existing ones are bad but there are standardized safe cheap approved nuke plant designs now that default to non critical and could eliminate shitloads of coal and oil smoke belching into the air and killing 10's of thousands. What's better, safe clean nukes or being dependant on terrorist muslim oil states and what we have now? If you don't know all about these plants then don't just give me some ignorant dogma instead of actually researching it first and making up your own mind from facts and logic.

I would have to guess about 1/4 is recylcing. Basically all my newpaper and all the clean glass and plastic (e.g. soft drink cans and bottles). I don't have the motivation to clean out dirty glass and plastic containers. They just go in the trash, because we are only supposed to put out clean recyclables.

i recycle everything that i can.
our council gives us massive bins for both rubbish and recycling. so i'd say 60% of all my waste here is recycled.
and i compost all food scraps (except meat products - because that attracts rats).

I'd say 10% or less, we just recently started recycling. The city gave everyone special bins and pick them up after the garbage every week.