Why don't my wealthy friends recycle?

[Anonymous]

Our cleaning lady takes out the trash Monday and recycling and trash out on Thursday. So maybe OP should be blaming the help.

[Anonymous]

Because they're wealthy and obviously Republicans and should be tarred and feathered more on DCUM. /sarcasm

OP, mind your business, both with the recycling thing and with what you perceive others' net worth to be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread is such a crock.

Your income has no correlation to recycling! OP - you happen to live in a neighborhood where people dont recycle and they happen to be executives....I bet if you go to a neighborhood with non-execs you will find the same trend. There are people that believe in it and people that cant be bothered.

By they way, if you EVER came to me (as a neighbor) and suggested ways that I could recycle Id probably kick your ass.

This is the same mentality that refuses to "believe in" climate change.

Recycling is not about faith, nor is climate change. Recycling requires acceptance on the part of the human populace that our actions as individuals have a collective impact on the health of our planet. Deciding to recycle versus tossing everything into the trash, requires minimal effort, but it does require a change in habits. Most people have a very hard time changing any kind of habit.

OP, I don't think it's selfishness or laziness that makes people refuse to recycle. I think it's simply one more habit to change. Most people do not think very deeply about the effect of their actions when that effect is not immediately apparent.

We're all busy and tired, even rich, accomplished, intelligent people who do care about the planet. The answer is not to condemn, accuse or criticize. If it's something you care about, you can try to work to make it easier for everyone to recycle, push for composting (much better than recycling, but difficult to do on a large scale), and do your part to set an example to others.

More people will recycle and compost when it's made easy and is the social norm.

[Anonymous]

HHI $550k. We recycle. However, we live in N.Arlington and it is very GREEN over here. They make it easy.

[Anonymous]

This thread is herby awarded "MOST IDIOTIC POST EVER"

[Anonymous]

I don't know how you have just 1 bin of trash per week - but I guess that's another topic. We recycle and probably have 5 bins of recycling per week-and only 3 of us! Then again it's the holidays and we're expecting - so lots of cardboard boxes and other packaging. We're in upper NW DC and all of our neighbors recycle too. They make it really easy for us as we can mix all of our recyclables together.

[Anonymous]

We recycle, but, honestly I'm not sure the evidence has demonstrated that it makes much of a difference to the environment. My very green nephew makes a strong case that recycling just makes affluent people feel good. The recycling trucks also use gas, oil, etc. -to haul the recycling to the recycling center - so instead of having the garbage truck out 2x per week, you have the 2x garbage plus the 1x recycling. In addition, you are using a tremendous amount of resources to convert the recyclables into new products. Still, probably a good thing, but not sure it is a green as we might want to believe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We recycle, but, honestly I'm not sure the evidence has demonstrated that it makes much of a difference to the environment. My very green nephew makes a strong case that recycling just makes affluent people feel good. The recycling trucks also use gas, oil, etc. -to haul the recycling to the recycling center - so instead of having the garbage truck out 2x per week, you have the 2x garbage plus the 1x recycling. In addition, you are using a tremendous amount of resources to convert the recyclables into new products. Still, probably a good thing, but not sure it is a green as we might want to believe.

What recycling is, is BIG BUSINESS.

And yes, it does make affluent people feel good (and super extra smug), as demonstrated by the OP.

We recycle because that is what we do, it is as second nature to me as wearing my seat belt. My parents recycled, we grew up sorting and recycling, so I do it now. We also use reusable bags for everything, including shopping at the mall. The bag thing mainly has to do wtih the fact that I LOATHE clutter. I don't like to bring anything unecessary into the house. Christmas boxes from Amazon make me crazy.

FWIW, I'm a libertarian-far to the right of many of you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wealthy people in America have a sense of entitlement and very little sense of personal responsibility. This lack of responsibility is actually rewarded in many industries (e.g., high risk industries like ibanking), so we as a society are promoting that sort of behavior on a fundamental level.

Hence, the sociopathic behavior you see from rich people in many facets of life (overleveraging assets, embezzling, ponzi schemes, unethically large golden parachutes and backscratching from cozy CEOs and their boards, fraud, corporate welfare, etc).

This. Morals and ethics keep the middle class, middle class. Which is fine because who else is going to support the rich and poor? It takes a lot and perhaps the majority to support the rest.

[Anonymous]

Simple: They don't do the trash stuff. Their maids/help do it, and aren't used to separating the recycling.

[Anonymous]

How do you define wealthy OP? In our wealthy neighborhood (houses are in the $1.2-2.0m range) everyone seems to recycle heavily - our huge MoCo paper bin is always overflowing, we recycle everything we can, we have a built in recycling bin in our kitchen next to the trash and we bring home things to recycle if we are out and there isn't recycling available.

At our summer house we really push recycling because we pay by the bag for trash and don't have to pay for recycling.

[Anonymous]

it drives me nuts, too, OP. I dont know if it has anything do to with being wealthy, but I don't understand what is so hard about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How come the normal poors that i know don't recycle?

Outliers mirror one another.

[Anonymous]

They just haven't asked their illegal household help to do it.

[Anonymous]

Why do my unemployed neighbors have smart phones and HBO? Drives me crazy!