On my 19th Birthday we went to the bar down the street at midnight. On the way to the bar we passed by a garbage truck picking up the public garbage cans. In Toronto the trash cans have 3 separate doors; garbage,and 2 recycling doors.
I saw the city worker open up the can and the proceed to dump all the garbage and recycling in to the same truck.
It made me think about where are garbage goes.
Just recently our building posted a notice saying that they're aren't going to have separate recycling containers. This means we dump all of paper, glass, and plastic into the same bin. The reason that recycling centres want you to separate is so that it's easier for them to sort. Now that the building isn't asking us to sort does that mean it's not going to the recycling plant? It's probably cheaper for them. They can rent fewer dumpster bins, and they only need to pay for the garbage pick up.
This got me to start thinking about the $$$ costs of recycling and why many businesses opt out of recycling. Even if the business has recycling, that tend to be for the employees to feel good.
In grade school we did a garbage challenge. We were encouraged to not bring food that had a lot of packaging. The class with the least amount of garbage in their class garbage can by the end of the week won a prize. (I honestly don't remember what the prizes where, it was probably something like ice cream or Popsicle.) What ended up happening, is people who had garbage from their lunch had to either bring it home or find another can to throw it out. It didn't really change the garbage production, it just moved it's disposal. I guess the idea is to make everyone aware of how much garbage they produce, but most people went right back to producing a lot of garbage.
Most of the packaging problem comes from the food we buy be overly package. It is possible to cut down on the packaging you purchase, but it's still a lot.
I was contemplating the idea of all packaging should be biodegradable, but there is some issues with that too.
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| The OCAD cups looked like this, but with the school's student union logo |
Last year I bought a biodegradable travel mug. After about 1 year the bottom started to degrade on me. I ended up with tea all over the table one day. I had to toss the cup. The whole thing felt futile.
I'm not sure where else to go from here, but it'll take some research.
I still recycle, it's such a habit, I feel weird not recycling cans, plastic and paper.
I also always bring the reusable shopping bags when I go grocery shopping and I carry one in my purse in case I do some impromptu shopping. I always hope that the little I do makes even a tiny difference.
That's my thoughts on recycling for now.
~ashley
