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Recycling programs are not dead; however, it’s dependent on state and local governments as there is no national law that mandates it. Other countries that have been far more successful are Germany, Denmark, Switzerland, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and so on.
Recycling is for rich people. It would be interesting to see recycling trends in the above-named rich countries as they have become more diverse. The U.S. is becoming more diverse, too.
There is a website called Statista that appears to have that data, but it's a subscription service. What I can see indicates a peak in the mid-2010's in Germany, as an example.
If immigrants from destitute countries are not educated (assimilated) into Western-style recycling, it's our own fault that recycling rates decline.
Recycling is for rich people. It would be interesting to see recycling trends in the above-named rich countries as they have become more diverse.
There’s a huge difference between nonsensically stating ‘recycling is for rich people’ vs. establishing (or improving) its cost-effectiveness relative to the municipality.
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Originally Posted by jtab4994
There is a website called Statista that appears to have that data, but it's a subscription service. What I can see indicates a peak in the mid-2010's in Germany, as an example.
Actually, Germany has set the bar in its recycling programs relative to innovative infrastructure, high community involvement and mandatory separation of various types of waste.
That said, single-use plastic (relative to hotel toiletries and certain food packaging) will soon be banned in the EU.
If people knew how much of the stuff they separate out into recycling bins ends up in landfills anyway, most wouldn't bother. About the only common household waste material worth recycling is aluminum.
I grew up in the 1990s. Recycling was a major topic back then. Most of our county schools had recycling bins for cardboard, paper, various metals, plastic, glass, etc.
Over the last several years, I've noticed that basically all the recycling in my area has been eliminated. Cardboard and paper are the only bins I can find with regularity. Glass seems to be gone about everywhere. Plastic is rare, but can occasionally be found. The city doesn't offer any recycling services.
What killed off recycling programs?
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Originally Posted by Mae Maes Garden
Too expensive and people abuse the privilege to properly use the recycling bins. Too lazy to sort out the glass, paper, ect.
The stuff does not remain separated after we turn it in. In many cases it all goes to landfill.
The problem is that recycling's motive is to make us feel guilty for consumption and affluence. Not really to protect the environment. At the cultural level this advocacy of purposeless self-abnegation, an example of which is turning garbage disposal into a ditsy project, started much earlier. It's very easy for actors, actresses and politicians to preach self-abnegation; they don't practice it.
That's one of the reasons why, after the Depression, conservative politics and policies were out of style because the ministrations of hard work and sacrifice accomplished little but "comforting the comfortable" and "afflicting the afflicted." Nowadays, the constant screeches of "doom", in this case brought about by fraudulent claims of running out of landfill space, have created a self-inflicted lowering of living standards.
In hindsight there was some seepage into intellectual life. As the OP mentions, this philosophy of life was expressed in the U.S. via books such as the 1950's classic by John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society. This was foreshadowed by other authors and thinkers, such as Travels with Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck. In Travels Steinbeck rails against conspicuous consumption and other signs of affluence.
There was also the Club of Rome report, written over a period between 1968 and 1972, affiliated with MIT (link). This was at the end of the sunshiny era of the 1950's and early 1960's, a halcyon ear when grown was promoted. It was mostly a "let the good times roll" era, until it wasn't. The "Arab Oil Embargo," for example, was seized upon as an excuse to limit highway speeds to 55 m.p.h. and the "Club of Rome" mentality became general. That was the point, culturally, where the good times were over.
The "Progressives" have a gloom and doom mentality that is foreign to the U.S. The fact is that most people don't have time for purposeless virtue-signaling.
There’s a huge difference between nonsensically stating ‘recycling is for rich people’ vs. establishing (or improving) its cost-effectiveness relative to the municipality.
Please prove that it's nonsense. A lot of things we rich people worry about, are things that poor people would love to worry about instead of famine, war, persecution, and disease. Please think before you dismiss the plight of the poor as "nonsense".
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Actually, Germany has set the bar in its recycling programs relative to innovative infrastructure, high community involvement and mandatory separation of various types of waste.
That said, single-use plastic (relative to hotel toiletries and certain food packaging) will soon be banned in the EU.
I believe you. I'm simply wondering if they have kept up their high standards. Their recycling increased from 1991 to 2015, and I couldn't find data after that.
Recycling is for rich people. It would be interesting to see recycling trends in the above-named rich countries as they have become more diverse. The U.S. is becoming more diverse, too.
There is a website called Statista that appears to have that data, but it's a subscription service. What I can see indicates a peak in the mid-2010's in Germany, as an example.
If immigrants from destitute countries are not educated (assimilated) into Western-style recycling, it's our own fault that recycling rates decline.
Here, there isn’t even an effort to recycle. Probably two-thirds of the recycling efforts that were in place in 2000 are now gone.
My County shows as 0% even though both incorporated towns have it and the "convenience centers" (basically regional transfer stations) have multiple dumpsters for recyclables and distribute bins for homes. There is no governmental supported trash service and no requirement in County Code for residents to have household pick up. There are several trash contractors who do pick up and likely half the households outside the Towns pay the fees.
It's kind of comical watching people haul seven or eight bags of smelly, drippy trash out of their $80,000 SUVs at the convenience center. We don't have a drive-in movie any longer so you get your fun where you can.
Last edited by North Beach Person; Yesterday at 05:17 PM..
Because the reality is most things don't recycle well enough to be economically viable. Aluminum does. Plastic does not. A lot of the plastic "recycled" even in towns with recycling programs actually gets landfilled. It was more of a feel good image than anything else.
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