Recycling - Do you care?

[HarryB]

Ecologia de Ribera Chapala is a non profit AC. We are working to become self sustaining. BUT, to attain that goal we need volunteers at the beginning. Our Board is dedicated to success!

If you can come over today 10 - 12, I'd love to give you a tour?

 

We need help :

sorting books,

bundling a mountain of cardboard,

sorting plastic, cans and aluminum

sorting glass by color

we need bookshelves

 

[vetteforron]

Watch this. 

 

[HoneyBee]

Did not look at the video but one thing is for sure and that recycling is better then having this sh..t float in the oceans and waterways.

[timjwilson]

More than one way to recycle.

[lakeside7]

4 hours ago, HarryB said:

Ecologia de Ribera Chapala is a non profit AC. We are working to become self sustaining. BUT, to attain that goal we need volunteers at the beginning. Our Board is dedicated to success!

If you can come over today 10 - 12, I'd love to give you a tour?

 

We need help :

sorting books,

bundling a mountain of cardboard,

sorting plastic, cans and aluminum

sorting glass by color

we need bookshelves

 

My dear Harry. Among the many options and groups for people to volunteer, I think garbage sorting is the lest desirable....What happened to Tommy Thompson, I thought he started it or not? And given that most of the garbage is dumped by visitors it makes me more pi**ed off.....You would be better off giving your volunteers a big stick to whack the folks who are dropping all this garbage!

I have a better idea charge every visitor a visitors tax. Money then can be used to pay locals to clean up...and we would also have less visitors, congestion, noise and pollution...... wow what a win win situation for us!!

[pappysmarket]

3 hours ago, vetteforron said:

Watch this. 

 

Right on, it's the new religion for many folks.

[NEWMtnMama]

I guess it is easier to not bother than to try to do something. 

[HarryB]

My dear friends,our two biggest money makers are glass and cardboard. YES,THEY PAY US FOR PLASTIC TOO! ALUMINUM AND TIN ARE good money makers but, we don' get much. Could these videos be sponsored by the Trash Industry? After all, who would lose if the dump tonage was reduced? If we get paid for the stuff is it logical to believe that it isn't getting used?

We don't sort garbage and as we educate the public more, get the proper signage, and provide proper containers we will get more efficient.

Recycling is not our only mandate. We are working to train other villages. Chapala now has an operational group in its' infant stage. San Nicholas and San Juan Cosola want our help. 

We have educational programs for schools. 

Thank for your comments. Yes, most of them are sadly discouraging; why? How does it help?

 

[Lou Quillio]

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/03/china-has-stopped-accepting-our-trash/584131/

LQ

 

[Lexy]

So  I have a large box of CDs (mostly jazz and classical music). How  do I recycle them?  I cannot lift the box or lug even some of them anywhere myself. I do not want to toss them irresponsibly in the garbage. Is any help available? I live in Mirasol (Riberas).

Lexy

[NEWMtnMama]

We try to reuse plastics as much as possible and use alternatives such as cloth grocery bags. We save our recycle for our maid's sister who collects and sells it. The way I look at it, using as little plastic as possible is a good way to stick it to the petroleum industry who is encouraging using as much as possible. 😁

[HarryB]

Lexy, do you drive? Any gardener would help you load them and our worker is at the recycling center 9-2 Monday - Saturday to unload them for you. 

[Floradude]

Recycling has been tried several times here and it has never worked.

[ibarra]

We watch the garbage truck employees just throw all of the bags together in the back of the truck no matter if they are in recycle bags or not.

[Mainecoons]

Years ago when they came around in a stake bed truck to pick up the trash, the guys would recycle a lot of stuff right out front.  We bagged all our recyclables separately and told them about it and they really appreciated it.

Now with the newer compactor trucks, they don't do this.

I would bet most of the expats here are familiar with recycling and would do so readily.  The system NOB seems to usually rely on separate trash cans and pick up for recyclables.  Not sure how that could be implemented here.

 

[ibarra]

2 hours ago, Mainecoons said:

Years ago when they came around in a stake bed truck to pick up the trash, the guys would recycle a lot of stuff right out front.  We bagged all our recyclables separately and told them about it and they really appreciated it.

...  The system NOB seems to usually rely on separate trash cans and pick up for recyclables.  Not sure how that could be implemented here.

 

What we have witnessed had items in separate cans, workers did not seem to care,  dumped all trash in back of truck.   I don't believe we have a local government that actually cares what we do with our trash, let alone having any employees to enforce recycling.   Recycling is right up there with enforcement of the new smoking rules. 

[Floradude]

Several years back the Chapala Government setup a program for recycling.  Different colors, different trucks to pick up different material on different days.  They cannot even handle normal garbage pickup, much less all of that.  It never got off of the ground.  I am grateful when I get my weekly pickup of yard waste and garbage.

 

[Lou Quillio]

It's not that one shouldn't care about recycling, it's that it's not real. It's real to the recycling consumer, and maybe real to whomever you hand it off to. It's real, in a way, to your hauler, who provides separate bins, but he's really just flattering you or complying with his contract.

As soon as the material is far enough from your eyes, it's landfill, landfill, landfill. Sorry.

Keep on doing it if you want. I put plastic bottles in big translucent trash bags on the curb -- just in case interested pickers want it. I give aluminum cans to mi vecina, who collects el servicio. At the same time I don't kid myself that anything's really being recycled, cuz it's not.

The problem is that the makers of packaging waste don't bear the cost of disposal. They choose packaging that suits their business interests: marketing, transport, loss prevention, etc. After you buy the item, they're gone.

It's a problem -- excess waste -- that can't be solved bottom-up. Until manufacturers are made to price-in disposal costs, consumer recycling is an aspirational exercise in self-congratulation.

Committed recyclers don't like hearing this.

There are niches where some recycling is viable, but it's a drop in the ocean. When there was a lot of newsprint in circulation there was a workable recycling stream for it. Today, newsprint has fallen way off, but it has a modern proxy: Amazon boxes (I bundle mine separately).

But because of "aspirational recycling," somebody looks at their greasy pizza box, concludes that "It's cardboard," and combines it with the clean corrugated cardboard -- spoiling the lot.

In 2023, consumer recycling is a fraud. A harmless fraud, but a fraud nonetheless.

LQ

 

[HarryB]

So why are they PAYING for it. It would be insane to pay for something, put transportation, labor, gas... into it and then throw it away. I just can't accept throwing it away.

 

[timjwilson]

The way to handle a lot of recycling of materials is to process it locally. Plastic can be turned into building beams and other useful items. It takes a local business or non-profit to get rolling with the equipment. I do not know the current process for cardboard but it can be composted and used as weed blockers in gardening and worms love it. 

[artsnob]

In My neighborhood all the plastic,glass recycling bins have been turned over and wired so you cannot use....

[HarryB]

that is why the AC needs to take over the process. Those cestos which were turned over was because so much garbage was being put in the cestos. We need donations to buy signs detailing what to recycle.

[Mainecoons]

18 hours ago, Lou Quillio said:

The problem is that the makers of packaging waste don't bear the cost of disposal. They choose packaging that suits their business interests: marketing, transport, loss prevention, etc. After you buy the item, they're gone.

It's a problem -- excess waste -- that can't be solved bottom-up. Until manufacturers are made to price-in disposal costs, consumer recycling is an aspirational exercise in self-congratulation.

Absolutely correct.  I am old enough to remember when we weren't plagued with this total packaging overkill.  Seems we are spending more for the damned packaging these days than what is in it.  It is no wonder the landfills are all getting overwhelmed and there is litter everywhere.

Bear in mind, the manufacturers will not be paying for disposal regardless, the consumer will and this is always the case.  However I think one would find low packaging alternatives would quickly emerge and make the overpackaged stuff uncompetitive.

These days it seems you have to fight your way into a lot of the stuff you buy because of the packaging overkill.

[HarryB]

Correvt! Buy a bottle of asperin and it is 1/3 full.

[TelsZ4]

I live in La Floresta, there are recycling bins at the top of the street, on many occasions I have witnessed locals go through the bins taking all of the tin cans, aluminum and other metals and drive away with them.. I’m assuming to sell.