I live in a very rural county in the Blue Ridge Mountains, total population of 1500. We bring all our garbage to dumpsters in central locations. I’m told they used to have recycling of plastic and aluminum but nobody used it so now we just throw everything in the same dumpster.
I really, REALLY dislike all the plastic everywhere – grocery bags, packaging, etc. Styrofoam packaging (the kind that rubs off into snowy flakes) is by far the worse. That crap ought to be banned as environmental spam. Why? Because it’s just as easy and economical to use molded cardboard packaging, as many manufacturers do.
We’re doing pretty good recycling paper. I always buy recycled paper and cardboard products whenever it’s available. However, you can’t buy “recycled plastic.” Why not? Because it’s easier to make products out of “virgin plastic” than recycling. Well, there should be enough of an extra tax on plastic made from hydrocarbons; enough to force manufacturers to recycle.
If my county could make money by recycling plastics, they’d have a “plastics” dumpster, and people would use it. (Likewise for an “aluminum” dumpster.) Recycling takes so little effort and does so much good: it saves energy, reduces the volume of landfills, and benefits the environment in countless ways.
The scientific name for a central recycling strategy is “circular waste management.” Manufactures should set this up, if for no other reason than for the advertising boost they get from selling “green products.”
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Excerpted from Going Green, available as an eBook at this list of eBook retailers online.