We can foresee the situation where we will start seeing construction debris at the roadsides soon, to pay for the non-cost effective state-mandated center.
The price on recyclables varies by area/market demand. The price here on Long Beach is down right now. Have read that some recylers are walking out on their contracts to buy them from local collecting authorities because their warehouses are full.
BTW, even the state road crews just dump their old culverts, etc. over a bank somewhere.
A few months back, some city friends of ours got a call from the sheriff in an adjacent rural county. Several bags of their garbage had been found, along with bags of their neighbor’s garbage.
Apparently, the midnight garbage men cruise the nice suburbs and pick up trash bags, look through them for credit card offers/numbers and other financial information and then dump the leavings on country roads. Not always the owners of the trash that dump it. We have recently moved to the country from the city.
We stopped at one of our neighbors’ home and asked him where we could take our trash. He responded that he didn’t know where the dump was because he just takes his trash up into a valley and dumps it. Since he’s only got an acre of land, the valley has to be on someone else’s land.
We found out our township has a convenient service of accepting trash and recyclables twice a month just a couple miles from us so that we don’t have to go to the dump. The only cost is .50 for large plastic bags to use (but you’re not required to use theirs).
Apparently, it’s not convenient enough. I also see “dumps” along some rural roads made up of old farm equipment, trailer homes, etc that are rusted beyond use.
So city folks aren’t always the culprits. we are also curious about why some would have to pay to deposit their recyclables. Recyclables are sold as a commodity so it would seem that the dumper of recyclables should not have to pay to dump them.
We see a bunch of outdated farm equipment not worth enough to use valuable inside storage but not completely useless. We might modify, combine or separate some parts to make a tool for a completely different purpose during off seaon when time’s not so rare.
Along some rural roads made up of old farm equipment, case in point some trailer homes that are rusted beyond use, or mobile storage units. Farmers have been using it since 1st trailer park family deserted it.
Farmers got the idea from using rusted beyond use bus bodies back before “trailer homes” were invented.
So city folks aren’t always the culprits. When recycling began, aluminium cans in my parts, it was a little extra money on the side and helping the environment.
Now we are noticing the trend toward recycling getting expensive for the consumer. Special plastic bags, accepting only certain types of plastic or paper, paying the trash disposal companies extra.
Don’t get me wrong, as a consumer I feel it is my responsibility to recycle whenever possible and I do but the question is, not so long ago, I could put an extra jingle in my pocket and companies made a profit from the aluminium as well. Where’s the money going when I have to pay someone to take my aluminium cans? Is this the good ole USA middleman makes all the money schemes?
It’s not the country neighbors and it’s not the guy with twice a week trash pickup. It’s the guy who decided to pass on paying for trash pickup because he can take it to the dump himself and save a little money or the guy whose trash hauler leaves his parcel because it didn’t conform to their rules… or perhaps an item such as an appliance which requires an additional fee.
Neighbors have to live with each other and usually have some space to bury their trash on their own place. They should use Long Beach dumpster rental services whenever they have gathered a large amount of junk they want to discard all at once.
There certainly are some greedy individuals in the recycling business, but run a spreadsheet showing the costs of collecting, processing, and shipping the “commodities” and you will find that with a few exceptions, it is less than a profitable operation.
Recycling is economically viable because it is a lower cost alternative usually to dumping in a modern high tech landfill with leachate controls, groundwater monitoring, etc.
With recycling some of the usual rules of the market are on their heads. An increase in supply increases the value, rather than vise-versa. Buyers of recycled commodities find it more economic to buy truckloads than backpack fulls.
So if you bring in 50 crushed beer cans, the per can value is low to negative. Bring in 10 tons and you got something. Also, the markets are volatile, but the collection efforts need to be long-term. You don’t want your garbage collector to be changing the rules every 2 weeks.
Here’s a point that may upset the free market libertarians: mandatory recycling is necessary to improve the efficiency of the system, provided that it is market based, not just tree hugging.