Recycling, WHAT A SCAM!

Ok, it’s not a scam.

I still need to revisit this, but what I know from the past:

Anything can be recycled, but for cost effectiveness (cheaper to recycle than make new), the items that are best to recycle are aluminum and glass.  Although it’s not necessarily always cheaper for places to use new pulp rather than recycled pulp when dealing with paper.  There is no pulp shortage as paper companies are required to replant trees when they’ve harvested some, which make nice & neat pulp nurseries.  Mind you that these aren’t exactly ecosystem friendly, but it’s a renewable resource that once we set up is regenerated.  Also, I have a problem with logging old-growth forests as we don’t need to, but most of that was done in the first 150 years of America’s existence (the country was once covered in these forests but now you mainly only find them in national parks).

Recycling is usually done by an independent company that contracts with the city or local government to sponsor their pickups.  The depth and scale of the recycling program is determined by the company’s capacity.  That is why some of Lexington has recycling, and some don’t (where the rest have to depend on drop off sites such as my work - sorry shameless plug  :-D ), and the method of recycling varies from place to place.  In Lexington, we used to have to separate everything, but now we only separate glass from everything else (but can only recycle 1 & 2 plastics).  I don’t think it’s ever inforced (you could always put your recycling in the trash), unless maybe it’s mandated?  I’ve not run into that, but it doesn’t mean it exists.  Overall, this is good, because you have new jobs, less going to landfills, but it will only work if companies that produce goods use recycled material purchased from the recycling center.

As far as cardboard, here is what the reality is with my work:  We have loads of leftover cardboard.  We throw our trash in the trash bin, which costs money to pick up.  We throw our recycling in the bins we host for the community - no cost to us to carry away this waste, only have to give up a few parking spots to plant the bins.  Our cardboard goes into a cardboard compactor that we have leased (for next to nothing), and we get PAID for every full bin we supply (it gets picked up).  So, instead of throwing it in the trash and paying for pickup (which would more than double what we currently pay if we went this way) or in the recycling bins to reduce our cost, we actually GENERATE money with our trash.  So, recycling is not only good for the environment, it’s good for our company too.

By the way, we supposedly aren’t running out of landfill space (all of the landfills in the United States amount to very little land relatively), but in some urbanized areas that have a problem logistically with trash.  So recycling can still benefit in this instance.  The main trash to worry about is hazardous/radioactive materials.  Also, the hybrid cars DO save money, but only if you live in the city and drive stop & go most of the time.  Otherwise, you get little benefit for constant driving (it generates electricity when you stop).  If you are thinking of fuel cell cars or other potential models, then I don’t know if they are cost effective as I’ve not really looked into it.

Zooey… the money mnade on the alluminum is being lost to the municipalities in paying for the fees of the hauler.

Waste Management (or whoever handles it locally) estimates the value of the recyclable materials they will collect, and the cost to collect same, and issues a bid to the municiple government for the collection contract.

And since the cost of runnig the trucks on regular routes exceeds the $ collected from the recycled materials, the city/county/township/parish/etc. PAYS the hauler for their services.

What the local govt gets is a price that is LESS than the actual cost of collection though, due to the hauler making money off the materials collected on the back side.

http://www.rmhc.com/rmhc/index/programs/ronald_mcdonald_house/pop_tab_collection/participating.html

Ronald McDonald House has a program that kids in many schools collecting pop can tabs for the aluminum.

The tabs are high grade Al, so the recyclers pay them a premium over regular whole cans.  The rest of the can has inpurities like the liner.  Residual sugars would be the most problematic, it can draw in other pests.

Perhaps a location near you.

I think some are trying to save the world for the future while others try to make a profit off anything going!

Almost every comunnity around here has recycling as an option for which we must pay.  If it’s profitable why do we pay for i?

I know that in the big city (Cincinnati, OH) recycling is free, yeah, right!

I checked it out in the tri-state area(IN/KY/OH.)  All the trash/recyclers gather glass, paper, cardboard, tin, and aluminum.  However, the only item that doesn’t sit around waiting for someone to RECYCLE IT is ALUMINUM!  All other recyclable materials just piles up and waits for the recycling companies to be created.

Here’s a minor point to ponder.

Do you collect and turn in to your hospital those aluminum rings and/or pulltabs for minutes on the kidney dialysis machine for the needy?
What do the hospitals do with those things…throw 'em away???

cystic crypt, whyaintcha check that out and get back to us!  :-D
Don’t waste time on a catnap.  Edykat ur brudermon!

@Zooey72:

I would like to know, where is the $ from my old cans going???  Who is getting rich off of public policy for us to “feel good” about saving the enviorment.  The $ I made collecting cans is going straight to the government now, and I want to know where that $ is being spent.  You can’t tell me “to fund recycling” because if that were the case than I would never have gotten $ for my cans if the man I gave them to only broke even on the transaction.  That’s not how things work.

Waste management gets the money.  It’s supposed to offset the cost of our “pay as you go” garbage policy now…another scam of the local administration to cut their costs while increasing our taxes and not letting us know it.

For instance, you used to get $20 for your cans.  Now I pay $32 to get my garbage off my curb AND I’m out the $20 for the cans.  That’s a $52/month increase in taxes for me, or roughly $624.00 a year in increased taxes.  The population of my fair city is roughly 50,000 so if you do the math that’s roughly $31,250,000 going to Waste Management from private citizens instead of the village whom we pay taxes too.  Now, we’re just a small collar city of Chicago, imagine the billions, or trillions, a year that Waste Management gets off the citizenry, and then imagine how much cheaper it would have been to have one contract by all citizens for, say, 10% off that we could have put towards the national debt.

Bet with some basic financial principles in place, a decent mathematician or two (say, high school graduates, and we know how bad THEY are) we could have this entire debt paid off with just the money saved from buying group policies from Waste Management and saving our Aluminum cans!

@Jennifer:

Waste management gets the money.  It’s supposed to offset the cost of our “pay as you go” garbage policy now…another scam of the local administration to cut their costs while increasing our taxes and not letting us know it.

For instance, you used to get $20 for your cans.  Now I pay $32 to get my garbage off my curb AND I’m out the $20 for the cans.  That’s a $52/month increase in taxes for me, or roughly $624.00 a year in increased taxes.  The population of my fair city is roughly 50,000 so if you do the math that’s roughly $31,250,000 going to Waste Management from private citizens instead of the village whom we pay taxes too.  Now, we’re just a small collar city of Chicago, imagine the billions, or trillions, a year that Waste Management gets off the citizenry, and then imagine how much cheaper it would have been to have one contract by all citizens for, say, 10% off that we could have put towards the national debt.

I think your analysis is a bit off - not to mention that you are probably mistaken in where the money goes.

If Chicago is like most other areas, then the recycling is subcontracted out to a recycling company.  I’m sure they are paid by the city to do this, which is reimbursed through local taxes.  It probably would be nice for the city to get credited for what’s collected, but I would doubt this happens (at least from my experience).  The city probably is ahead in what it saves for allowing for the contract compared to traditional trash collection, which should mean lower taxes.  Win-win, so to speak.

Now, for your financials.  The current US average is $.25 per pound of cans (about 33 cans to a pound).  That would mean you produce 80 pounds of aluminum cans (per week?) which is approximately 2640 cans.  I’m not saying you don’t produce this, but I find it unlikely (but who knows?).  If you can get $20 for your cans, then you should do it, but I don’t think not collecting on this means an INCREASE in your taxes (far from it).  I don’t really have to time to go into detail why the rest of the financials are quite off (I’d like to make some other posts), but if you start there, you might see why Chicago’s waste management isn’t raking in cold, hard cash.  They might be reducing expenditures, but I doubt they are profiting.  Feel free to convince me otherwise.

I got the $20 for can’s from the other guy’s post.  The $32 for the garbage collection comes directly out of my pocket.  The city pays nothing for garbage collection, recycling collection, waste refuse or any thing else to do with our garbage.  They still handle our shit, but that’s only because we don’t put it in pretty blue baggies and place them neatly on the curb for them…it’s harder to put an individual tax on to save them the cost of handling it themselves.

So, let’s just go with the $32 per month in garbage taxes by 1/4th the total population of Hoffman Estates (roughly 12,500 families of 4) and you have $400,000.00 per month in revenue for the village, or $4,800,000.00 per year and that’s for just one of about hundred collar cities.

Now, you have to sit there and wonder just who’s getting extremely rich off this scheme.  Because, you KNOW, the government isn’t going to change a policy or service unless it means some individual in power gets a ton of money - I don’t care if you’re republican, democrat, independant, communist or what.

Here’s my theory:

The city saves $2,000,000.00 in collection costs for the city’s garbage.  Of this, say City Employee(s) “X” get’s 10% per year as a pay off.

The waste management company, who now has a government established monopoly, get’s to charge whatever they want to the end users, currently that’s about $5,000,000.00.

That’s a total loss, to the citizenry, of about $7,000,000.00 annually ($2 million to the city in taxes they still have to pay but no longer get waste management benefits for and $5 million to the monopoly so their garbage is removed as it was before the change.)

And keep in mind, there’s no less then 50 suburbs of chicago and probably a great deal more.  I can’t name them all off the top of my head and a cursory search didn’t produce a list, but if I had to pull a number out of my arse, I’d say about 150.

@Jennifer:

I got the $20 for can’s from the other guy’s post.  The $32 for the garbage collection comes directly out of my pocket.  The city pays nothing for garbage collection, recycling collection, waste refuse or any thing else to do with our garbage.  They still handle our sh*t, but that’s only because we don’t put it in pretty blue baggies and place them neatly on the curb for them…it’s harder to put an individual tax on to save them the cost of handling it themselves.

So, let’s just go with the $32 per month in garbage taxes by 1/4th the total population of Hoffman Estates (roughly 12,500 families of 4) and you have $400,000.00 per month in revenue for the village, or $4,800,000.00 per year and that’s for just one of about hundred collar cities.

Now, you have to sit there and wonder just who’s getting extremely rich off this scheme.  Because, you KNOW, the government isn’t going to change a policy or service unless it means some individual in power gets a ton of money - I don’t care if you’re republican, democrat, independant, communist or what.

$32 does sound a bit steep for a monthly fee on garbage collection, but you do know that it costs them money to run that sevice, don’t you?  They aren’t making a straight profit of $32 a month from every single person who gets their trash collected.  Saving money is quite different than generating money.

Here’s my theory:

The city saves $2,000,000.00 in collection costs for the city’s garbage.  Of this, say City Employee(s) “X” get’s 10% per year as a pay off.

The waste management company, who now has a government established monopoly, get’s to charge whatever they want to the end users, currently that’s about $5,000,000.00.

That’s a total loss, to the citizenry, of about $7,000,000.00 annually ($2 million to the city in taxes they still have to pay but no longer get waste management benefits for and $5 million to the monopoly so their garbage is removed as it was before the change.)

And keep in mind, there’s no less then 50 suburbs of chicago and probably a great deal more.  I can’t name them all off the top of my head and a cursory search didn’t produce a list, but if I had to pull a number out of my arse, I’d say about 150.

I don’t follow you here.  The city has to pay far the garbage collection, which is reimbursed through the citizens involved with trash pickup.  And if they people in your suburbs are paying $5mil for garbage pickup a year, then that’s how much they are out for a service.  Now, you could argue that there’s a company that would charge $3mil for the same job - then I’d chalk that up to neglect and incompetence and not malfeasance.  Besides, there are more than one trash collection agency and waste disposal companies - there’s competition there like anyone else. And it must be profitable, otherwise, why would anyone do it? It’s not like they know you are stuck with trash and are going to milk every penny out of you.  If you no longer have money to buy anything, then they are out a job.  :-D

No.  Basically, the city USED to pay for the service.  Now the citizens pay for the service.  However, the taxes we paid that were dedicated for that service were never returned to us - and we still pay them to this date.  Thus, our tax on garbage collection basically doubled so that both the waste management service AND the village make the profit leaving the citizens in the lurch.

That’s what I was trying to describe.

Oh yea, but hey, Mayor Daley got a new house and his daughter has this cute little barbie doll car, life size too!  Guess our tax dollars are still good for something, right??  (Best part is, I don’t even get to vote for Daley since he’s city proper, but I’m a burb….gotta love taxation without representation!)