Why don't my wealthy friends recycle?

[Anonymous]

SELF entitled people want you the serf to as has been for all the ages.
ALL problems and taxes are layed on the under classes.
Too bad the majority accept this slave minded thinking.

[Anonymous]

Because most plastic is not recyclable!

[Anonymous]

I worked for a botanist in grad school who said that recycling is a huge scam created by corporations in the seventies to shift the obligation of environmental stewardship away from corporations entirely and toward the individual. And it worked!

[Anonymous]

Poor people absolutely recycle less than the wealthy. New York was considering incentivizing recycling. Or cities could nominate an Ove type character to shame and guilt people into recycling.

[Anonymous]

Because recycling is PR campaign to make people feel better about using plastic, etc.

[Anonymous]

It all goes to the trash

[Anonymous]

I’m middle class and not a great recycler. I’ve heard of cities that pick up recycling every week and regular trash less frequently to encourage more recycling. If my county did that, I would put more effort into sorting my trash.

[Anonymous]

Someone bumped a 10 year old thread.

I would advise OP, if she is still here, to drive through a poor neighborhood and then a wealthy neighborhood, and rethink who recycles and who doesn't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

We don't recycle and have one bin a week. Family of four.

[Anonymous]

We watched garbage take the recycling several times while recycling never came through. We gave up after watching that happen several times.

[Anonymous]

Recycling is a scam.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:SELF entitled people want you the serf to as has been for all the ages.
ALL problems and taxes are layed on the under classes.
Too bad the majority accept this slave minded thinking.

You revived a 10 year old post to add this?

Sweetie have your meds worn off?

[Anonymous]

Ask them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Thank you for posting this, but the true believers will ignore this bit of logic. Most people who understand economics and actually know how materials are produced (vs. your average dc nonprofit exec) understand that recycling actually does very little, if anything for the environment.

I was stuck behind a commercial trash truck today (this is trash and recycling day in our neighborhood) and watched as the trash guys picked up every trash can and every recycling bin and tossed all contents into the same garbage truck. Usually this company sends separate garbage and recycling trucks, but maybe they were a little behind this week because of the holiday.

Yep. It’s happened everywhere I’ve ever lived. I can’t believe so many people are still falling for the recycling scam. Ever since China decided it didn’t want to take our plastics anymore, almost no plastic is actually recycled. Cardboard and metals are really the only things that make sense to recycle in the US. Most plastic is incinerated or sent to a landfill.

[Anonymous]

My wealthy friends all recycle.