Do you think recycling should be made a law?

Question

At home, I try to separate the paper and plastics, but there's still so much that can be recycled/reused, including electronics and clothes.

Do you think it'd be plausible for recycling to be a state wide - or even a nation wide - law? People would have to dispose of their stuff in specific categories, and government could, we're saying hypothetical right now, provide an efficient system for this. In many countries, there are public disposals that separate different materials, such as paper, plastic, glass, not only for residences but also out on public streets. Why don't we have more of these in the US? If recycling was law, people would do it without thinking. Do you think this could become a changed habit? Just would like to see some pro/cons of this. Thanks for your opinion.

Answer 1

Government is big enough as it is, without getting into the recycling business.  Recycling should be done because people want to do the right thing.  This is a matter of education.  It's also a matter of economics.  Eventually raw materials will get so expensive that people will want to start recycling just to save money.

Answer 2

I would say get a recycling bin and dump everything in it. Higher unskilled labor to sort it out. People wouldn't follow it to closely if they had to put computers in one, cans in Another, magazines in another ect ect.

At the end of the day... where is the money to do this?

Answer 3

I'm not sure it should be a law, but there should be a carrot and stick approach. Taxes, charges, bans and ethical and moral stand points can all help promote recycling as sticks. Unfortunately there aren't many carrots just yet. It tends to be all doom and gloom.

If you are interested you might try the closest thing to a carrot I know of and think of the four most moving and important songs of your life and go to: http://www.24hoursonplanetearth.com

It's a site collecting tunes with the subsequent aim of removing plastic from the environment. It's totally free, a bit of fun and for a good cause. The site aims to make discarded plastic waste a useful economic resource and clean the environment at the same time.

Hope that helps.

Answer 4

In many places it is law.  It might be on a municipal, provincial/state or Federal level.  Some municipal by-laws are tougher than Federal environmental laws.

Economics is an excuse, if a recycling program is taken seriously and enforced then it will often pay for itself.

Answer 5

NO! Because it will be yet ANOTHER way the government in Britain and the US will strangle money out of us.

Answer 6

law no it should remain a choice. Besides look at the facts- 40% of all recycled item(you put in bins and have separate pick up) go into landfills anyway. And the cost to recycle is more than to landfill it, besides landfills become parks and other stuff later, at least that is what happened where i live!

Answer 7

Not unless it is done correctly.  We have a suburb of Dallas that has it down to an art.  They collect all trash without the home owner having to use separate bins, sort it at their facility and distribute the sorted product to companies that can reuse it for other products.  Their operation is more efficient than any other I've seen or heard about and doesn't cost the home owner but a very few pennies more for the service.

If this type of operation were mandated, then I would be in favor of mandatory recycling.  In other communities here in the DFW area and other areas of the country I've seen, recycling is a nightmare for the home owner, costs are out of sight and cause nothing but grief for the entire community.

Answer 8

I do think that it should be made a law. I live in GA now but, when I lived in NY and PA it was mandatory to recycle.  The state or local government provided the bins in PA.  Neither state charged for recycling.  I have family that come down here and have a hard time mixing recyclables with trash.  I have contacted my garbage company and they said that there was a fee but, do not have a separate truck or trucks with separate recycle bins.  

It is frustrating.

Answer 9

There's no specific law but at least there local laws that has provisions for making Recycling plants, Materials Recovery Facilities/Sorting plants in certain areas.

Answer 10

If you think about the fact that we are in a very high tech century, where we can send a camera into vast space to view pics of planetary systems we never imagined to exist, yet we are still dealing with obnoxious, way over-done, packaging of everything & the garbaging/recycling of such...makes ya go "hmmm???", yes???

Personally, as a rather demanding consumer, I admonish companies who spend more on the package than the inclusion...makes no sense but to jack the price tag, and give me heartache/headache getting rid of their ridiculousness.  Sooo, I would vote for companies being more ethical & put their smarts in gear so that we don't have this problem to being with.

The little guy has enough on his plate right now...all over this world.  It's time for the big kids to play straight & grasp their own resposibilities for such things.  We need another law-made "habit" like we need another hole put in our heads.  Laws like these cause prices to go up because then there would have to be added monies to reinforce the law made, more folks would horde their garbage causing health hazzards all over the place (there's enough of these people already), and at a time when 60% of the population are losing their homes & employment possibilities, I truly doubt that many are focused on sorting garbage right now.  The added stress of another bogus law upon them could put many over the edge they teeter on every day...and some humans can get pretty scarey with their personal stress mgmt. techniques...

Nice thinking going on, though...keep it strong & always in gear!!!

Good Journey!!!

Answer 11

No.  We are legislating away more and more of our freedom with every law that's passed.

Answer 12

I believe we should not have to pay for the recycling bins. Maybe some of the money our fine government is pouring into this war we are in, they could use toward recycling. I believe if everyone had one recycling bin or if there were recycling bins in public places people would just naturally recycle more.  In other words I do not believe it should be a law, only more of an option.

Answer 13

Absolutely not, there are already enough laws infringing on our freedoms, we certainly do not need any more.

Answer 14

Recycling only works if you have a use for what you are recycling.    And not just a theorhetical use.  But a company who is ready to purchase that recycled glass or plastic or paper.   Otherwise, you just have huge piles of separated materials, and no company who wants to use them.

So if you mandated recycling, you would need to require products that are sold to contain some portion of recycled materials.  This would increase the cost of these products - some of them by quite a bit.  It will be difficult to persuade businesses that the cost of their products should increase (and thus people will buy less of them) and it will be difficult to convince people that they should pay more for the things that they want.

So the question becomes - what result are you really looking for?   And will requiring people to recycle make that happen?

One way to encourage recycling is to make it very very expensive to throw things away.  If you were to charge everyone $25 per bag of garbage, but only $5 per bag of recyclables, then people would recycle.   And you would use the extra money that you collect to make the recycled materials more cost competitive for companies to use.   Suddenly, if I make glass bottles, I can get a bunch of glass PLUS a bunch of money if I use recycled glass, instead of paying a little bit for virgin glass.   This might make it worthwhile for me to use the recycled glass.

The important thing to remember about waste and recycling is that, right now in the US, it's all about the economics.  

Good question.

Answer 15

Hi,

No it should not!  Here in my city is a huge & growing dump, we get other cities and Canada's trash and sludge (sewer garbage).  The truck's travel down a road where people live and there have been a number of spill's.  Why should we be made to recycle when we take all this from others that don't have to, all because of $$.

Each state and country should deal with their own garbage.

Answer 16

well yeah but that is no use its like everyone will actually do that i am not being mean or stuff like that but i don't think it will really be a good idea.

Answer 17

Not a law, but a financially wise choice.   In the town I live in we have to pay $1.50 per trash bag that gets picked up at the door every week.   That cost doesn't come close to covering the cost of hauling and disposal.   Our recycling efforts help reduce the amount of garbage that needs to be disposed of out of town and we actually make a small profit on recycling as a whole.    Those who do recycle still have to pay for the excess costs of those who don't through town property taxes though.     Make the costs per bag go up to $4 and people would be more likely to recycle.   They would also be more likely to dump it in an empty lot too, so there has to be some middle ground.

Answer 18

of course are you kidding me?

People already have an economic reason to recycle aluminum and copper since the prices are at an all time high. Americans throw away 400,000 plastic water bottles a year which are made from oil so recycling saves oil.  They are being melted again for carpet fibers and coats and park benches. They wont decompose in the landfill.

Same thing with paper, its packed so tightly in the landfill that it doesn't disintegrate. Instead, China buys our recycled paper to make more packaging for the products we buy from them anyway. This not only saves trees but saves electricity and millions of gallons of water in the process.

Recycling makes good money for the city, creates new jobs, and saves time and gasoline for the regular garbage trucks since the trucks dont get full as much.