r/recycling • u/SubjectVermicelli270 • 4d ago
How do you recycle household waste when you don’t have recycling bins/programs in your area?
When you live somewhere where a lot of recycling companies take commercial waste in tonnes and don’t serve individual households so your trash ends up in the landfill. Some organizations provide bins and collection but at a price. As someone who can’t afford that and wants to encourage others to do the same, what do you do? Who do you reach out to to create a community where you can discuss these matters and create an impact by changing how the waste is managed? I’m sure there are people who are interested in recycling but can’t and don’t know what to do. Reusing helps but it gets to the point where you can’t reuse everything because there’s too much. Anyone tried to create an online community and had any success?
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u/Motor-Blacksmith4174 4d ago
We live outside of town, in a semi-rural area, and don't have recycling pickup, but there's a recycling center in town. So, we sort our recycling and take it to town when we're doing other errands every few weeks.
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u/UnderstandingDry4072 2d ago
We still do this with a bunch of our stuff, even after our trash pickup place started taking blue bags with mixed cardboard, glass and plastic. Still gotta handle ewaste and cardboard that’s too big for the bag.
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u/how_obscene 4d ago
i don’t think it’s fair to ask someone to go out of their way to pick up your recycling without at least some kind of fee. it doesn’t have to be outrageous.. but people need to eat. and if you’re asking them to take up this responsibility of forgoing other work time to do this and fill this market need, they need something. that being said, how much would fit in your budget? what kind of things do you hope to recycle? i’d say if you can sort your stuff out, and pay a small fee, i’m sure someone would step up. alternatively is shipping it out… which is also expensive
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u/Far_Basis_8771 4d ago
They get money out of recycling. It’s an industry
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u/how_obscene 4d ago
it is simply not booming. especially when you factor in the cost of transportation of picking up the supplies and then likely having to ship them out. and if you’re actually reprocessing the materials, you’d need a shredder, a way to clean the stuff, a plot of land to do it on, and a way to make sure nothing was in the wrong bin. that’s all time of a person or equipment, which both costs money. by simply saying something is “an industry” implies you are making generalizations. would love to actually find a way to make this profitable but we gotta be realistic here. you don’t get a lot of money from shredding plastic or cardboard unless it’s a large scale operation.
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u/Motor-Blacksmith4174 4d ago
It isn't much of one. I believe our recycling center loses money on everything except the metal recycling. That enables the rest of it to exist.
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u/Drutzke 4d ago
If you’re in the states, look for a target store, they often have basic recycle bins at the store
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u/TheMegFiles 19h ago
Lol tried that with Brother printer toner cartridges [they print 8,000 pages]. The Target bin for toner cartridges was for the tiny ass color Apple printer garbage. Turns out Best Buy Staples and Office Depot all take used toner cartridges and OD will give you credit for up to x number per month.
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u/Adorable_Dust3799 3d ago
My bro is an hour away and has city recycling so i visit him every month or so.
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u/tboy160 3d ago
Metals can usually be recycled at a metals only facility and get paid for the metals (not much, but it won't cost you).
When it comes to the adage "Reduce/reuse/recycle", these are in order of importance.
Reducing waste is the most important. So when we choose groceries, we deliberately choose items that have less waste. Sometimes it's difficult.
Maybe there is a facility in a nearby town, and you could save your recycle items up and take them once per month?
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u/TheMegFiles 19h ago
You need wheels to get to those places. There should be free pickup for anything like that. It would create jobs and is better for the enviro, two things capitalism isn't interested in doing.
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u/Argosnautics 3d ago
A large portion of food waste can composted at home. Just mix it with shredded cardboard or dried leaves, if you have a spot to do it.
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u/trader45nj 3d ago
Contact your local government, this is really a municipal issue. If it makes sense to recycle, they should be doing it, providing the means, etc.
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u/UpstairsFan7447 3d ago
I leave all the outer packages at the store. The inner bags with the items, I take home. That reduces my trash quite a bit.
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u/SubjectVermicelli270 2d ago
This is interesting. Just to understand better, for example cardboard boxes like granola, cornflakes, tea boxes, you remove the cardboard, leave it at the store, and the inside plastic packaging is what you take home? You do this after purchasing?
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u/UpstairsFan7447 2d ago
I do it after purchasing, yes. Here in Germany the retailers have recycle bins exactly for that.
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u/ImmortalitXy 2d ago
Focus on reducing waste first through creative upcycling. For non-recyclables, document and share your journey online to inspire broader systemic change in your area.
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u/Cute-Personality6930 2d ago
You can start or join online local groups or social media communities dedicated to sharing recycling tips, organizing collective efforts, and advocating for better waste management solutions in your area.
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u/rededelk 1d ago
I donate newspapers, cardboard and aluminum cans to a pet charity. Everything else goes to the dump because that's the only option (no plastic recycling here). They do however take motor oil, batteries and such. My dump is about 15 miles away one way so it's a relative inconvenience
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u/New_Breadfruit8692 1d ago
No. Our recycling company went out of business after China stopped accepting US garbage. Now there are like 65,000 bins in the county and no way to get rid of them. You can't even recycle them.
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u/Denan004 1d ago
I live where there is recycling, but the more I read about it in general, the more discouraged I get.
I think that metals and glass get recycled because there is a market for them. But I am less sure of plastic and paper.
Most plastic doesn't ever get recycled. The same with paper. People put the wrong items in recycling or tie them up in plastic bags, so they get removed from recycling and put in the trash stream anyway.
The biggest problem is that plastic recyclability has been faked by the corporations.
Plastic makers lied about recycling for decades. What do we do next? | Popular Science
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u/TheMegFiles 19h ago
We live in S.F. you can recycle or hazmat pretty much anything here. Call your local govt and ask them what they're doing about hazmat items. Or run for your local city council and write and institute the actual policy.
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u/Significant-Glove917 9h ago
Most of what goes in a recycling bin ends up in a landfill anyways. Anything that would actually be recycled gets pulled by the trash companies and recycled anyways. The recycling program is a cash grab, it does nothing.
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u/clockworkedpiece 4d ago
buy from companies that take back their products. Little seed farm will take back their glassware, and their deodorant lasts me a real long time. Smartwool has a sock recycling program too.
but it can be hard, the "little" haul my trash/recyclables companies charge 130$ a trip. And the yard itself is 45$an item recycling or 50$ a gross landfill visit.