Your Questions About Recycling
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Filed under Recycling Q & A
Sharon asks…
How do I get my Westie to stop barking during supper?
I have a Westie that after she has been given a treat, she’ll just start barking during a certain point during the meal and won’t stop. She’s driving my mother nuts with it. She not only barks during dinner but whenever she sees something outside or hears the garbage or recycling truck, most times when my dad’s having his afternoon nap. How can I stop her from barking during dinner and when my dad is having his nap?
She is 7 years old.
The Expert answers:
Have her on a leash and the second she makes a bark stand up and take her either downstairs or in a room where no one is untill she calms down then take her back up. Kepp repeating this and she will soon understand.
Steven asks…
What happens to household trash once it is hauled away by the garbage truck?
I know it eventually winds up in a landfill, but do they empty the trash bags or bury them with the trash in them? How do they know whether you have put things in the trash that should have gone in the recycling instead?
The Expert answers:
The bags are left unopened and are just dumped in to a pile and left. After a while when the dump gets too messy, they will plow ground over the piles to cover the garbage and level it out. They don’t know whats in the bags nor do they care or check its all taken straight to the dump and dropped off. However some dumps do burn some of the garbage in huge incinerators but its not too common anymore to burn it because of all the smoke polluting the air. Take a trip to the dump if you’d like to see for yourself. Its pretty gross.
Sandra asks…
How can the “blue-bag” recycling program possibly work?
The blue bags with recyclables is thrown in the same truck as the regular garbage, and then it all gets crushed together. I’ve watched the garbage truck do this, and I know that the bags split open and burst when they are crushed inside the garbage truck. I’ve heard the bags popping and the sound of glass being crushed, and I asked our garbageman about it and he said that when they dump their load, everything is just a big stinky, slimy mess, and it’s impossible to separate anything. Plus who in their right mind would want that job?
The Expert answers:
Unfortunately pick-ups like you describe are still common. The blue bags are a great idea but if the collection service (private or public) is not seperating the bags then the resident is merely adding blue color to the compactor contents. I have never heard of anywhere that would attempt to hand seperate trash after it is compacted. Where I previously lived the trash was compacted just as in your area. Everything there got compacted together with no attempt to utilize a recyle plan regardless of the choice of curb side bags.
However in my current town the pick-ups have a regular trash day and a second pick-up day for recyclables. On the second pick-up day the materials are required to be pre-seperated by residents into two catagories of compactable trash and recycle trash. Recycle trash is required to be further seperated into catagories of (1.) glass, (2.) newspapers, (3.) cardboard and (4.) plastic bottles and left at curbside in seperate crates away from the compactable trash. The contents of the crates are hand dumped by city workers into collection trucks that are not regular trash compactor trucks.
Regular trash collection is weekly and recycle day is once every two weeks and is always on a regular trash day so as to avoid the hassle of placing trash at curb twice in one week.
David asks…
Why is it that recycling of all different types of materials is not mandatory?
Seperate all of the different materials as you throw them away. For people that live in apartment complexes you could have different dumpsters for each material. And for people that live in a house you could just set out the different bags. And have a different garbage truck for each type of waste to go through all of the neighborhoods and collect the waste.Also send out a list to each different home listing what is considered recyclable and what category the waste belongs to. This would also create a few more jobs.
The Expert answers:
Personally, I would love it, but its just not workable. The truth is that alot of recycling plans don’t work very well. Even though you save landfill space by recycling, there are some big energy costs to actually cleaning the stuff and recycling it. Sometimes, its a zero sum game. If everyone would bring their items to a plant, we would probably come out ahead. If you have to have different garbage trucks and crews and plants, you start using up more energy than you are saving. Its really a more complex issue than it appears. Lots of places that started recycling programs in the 80’s have actually gone the other way and discontinued their programs.
Mary asks…
Do you think recycling should be the only option?
I mean, should we make it a requirement? We could have the garbage trucks drive our trash to recycling centers instead of land-fills, incineration facilities, etc.
Abalistar: Actually recycling businesses cost less to run than the other facilities and save money in many other ways.
The Expert answers:
Yes I agree 100%!! I am more into environmental issues such as cloth shopping bags, Plastic 6 pack rings,cans, glass, metal ect. It is coming soon!!
Lisa asks…
What happens to the things we put at the curb to be recycled?
I’ve seen them go in a recycle truck, but I’ve also seen them go in the garbage truck…
The Expert answers:
They get taken to a recycling center, where things are separated and sold to companies that re-use the products, i.e. Paper mills, steel industry, etc.
Ruth asks…
What’s the Fastest way to get rid of junky stuff when you have no truck for Garbage Dump Runs?
Not allowed fires,restriced amounts and types of garbage pick up as well as recycling being limited.
Poll Over the fence? Live like trailer trash? Leave it out front as Free Stuff nobody wants?
It’s getting frustrating to clean house these days.0 o
The Expert answers:
That’s what gift wrap paper is for.
Betty asks…
At risk for tetanus?I have a small cut in my right ring finger.?
The last time that I had a tetanus shot was in 12/98 which was over almost 11yrs ago.
My brother accidental thrown the newspaper collection that I have been collecting of local important fascinating events for the past 10yrs in the recycling plastic trash can outside.
So I went outside grabbed the newspapers inside the recycling trash can.Inside was cardboard boxes, wrappers, plastic bottles and some metal cans including coke cans.Inside that recycling can is a few days old and the max would be a week old since the recycling garbage truck comes every week.
Anyways after picking up the newspaper I went inside it wasn’t until when I was about or was washing my hand I found a small cut in my right ring finger and it started to hurt when I washed my hand.But the cut didn’t look infected.So than I used cotton swab and swiped it with alcohol in order to disinfect it.
Now the question is if I get Tetanus would the cut area be already showing that it’s infected?Like getting sore, redness?Or a person who’s contracted tetanus would the area that they have got cut show any changes?
Now I’m not sure if there was any rusty metal inside that recycling can.The recycling truck comes every week to pick it up so there wouldn’t be anything there that is more than 1 week old..
What should I do?
BTW I’m almost 23yrs old…
The Expert answers:
Tetanus and infection are 2 different things and the person to ask is your doctor.
Http://www.vaccineinformation.org/tetanus/qandavax.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetanus
And it does not need to be a rusty item that cuts you.
George asks…
What are some ways to reduce or eliminate the amount of trash that gets pick up by a garbage truck?
Glass, metal, and most plastics can be recycled or reused, paper products can be burned, & food can be composted or returned to the environment.
This would reduce the amount of waste ending up in a landfill and save money on waste removal. Of course, one could always leave their trash in someone else’s dumpster or leave it on a back country road to just save money.
The Expert answers:
Recycling
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