Would you recycle if a recycle center where closer to your home?

Question

I ask because I recycle newspaper. I have 2 children & I don't have the time to be driving an hour to recycle plastic. I'd love to, but it's too far. I've searched online, there's nothing closer. So, my question is......if you don't recycle, does the recycleling centers distance have anything to do w/ that? Would you recycle if it were closer?

Answer 1

well for us here in CA Bay Area, all of our cities have recycle bin cubside pickup that is like garbage day. at least for me, all we have to do is throw whatever is recycleable in the recycle bin and they auto sort it at the recycle plant, maybe you should ask your city if they have recycle trucks that take plastic and other recycleable things so all you have to do is put recycleable junk in a bin and put it on the curb.

Answer 2

Judy, Maybe what is required is for your local society to utilise alternative collection methods rather than rely on individuals to drop off items for recycling. If they were picked up at the same time as other rubbish then it would encourage people to sort and put out at curbside or equivalent their materials for recycling. And by using a public service less fuel will probably be used in terms of individuals!

Answer 3

I lived in St. Petersburg Florida for five long years. For a town that aspires so to be metropolitan you'd think they'd have curbside recycling! Not only don't they have that - they've got zilch. They burn it instead. So when we moved out to this teeny weeny little town in the middle of nowhere, NC I figured we'd be without recycling here, too. Not so, but we do have to drive for it. It's about a twenty - thrity minute drive, located just outside the county seat, so we clean and store up our recycling in Rubbermaid bins and make the trip a family affair once a month. The Rubbermaid containers stack up for compact storage and they only cost about $4 a piece for huge 30 gallon tubs with lids. I put them out on the back porch and have made a privacy wall of them. We cut holes in the sides of ours so we can just pop items right in without having to unstack and open them. Then we just load them in the back of the station wagon at the end of the month and go, stopping for lunch and garage sales on the way back.

Plus, taking things to the recycling center isn't the only way to recycle. If you're worried about the stuff stacking up before you can make the trip, find new ways to use old stuff. I have made a great little garden border out of used beer bottles. After I loosen the soil I just pound the little suckers in with a rubber mallet. The beer we drink typically comes in brown or clear bottles, so I made a pattern by alternating the colors. I wish I were more of a Heinekin drinker so I could have had green, but oh well! And of course I have to keep encouraging my husband to drink beer so I can keep working on my garden. But somehow he perseveres! ^_^

Also, I save the caps and make shopping baskets by poking holes in the sides and wiring them together.  Make it a project with your kids, too. They'll love it. Send it to school as a project for their whole class (after asking the teacher of course). There is no end to what you can do with things if you get creative!

The great part is teaching my daughter who is seven about recycling. She's already a wizard at separating, and even reminds her wayward dad when he absentmindedly tosses something in the trash!

Remember, spend the time you normally use feeling bad about what you can't do, or haven't done, and use that time and effort to think about what you could be doing instead. It's all about being creative. May I suggest picking up a book called "It's Easy Being Green" by Crissy Trask? It's full of fantastic ideas without being smug and superior. A great help!

Answer 4

Of course, I would recycle no matter what.  Your town,village, city, ect. doesn't have recycling pick up along with garbage pickup??  I would think anywhere that has garbage pickup would have recycling pickup.

Answer 5

yes

Answer 6

Hi Judy

I am in the South of Western Australia and we have large wheelie recycle bins that are picked up on alternative weeks along with rubbish pickup so we're lucky. This makes it easy for us because we don't have to travel to recycle. Before these bins were implemented I was too lazy to recycle so yes I think distance does affect. We also find that our volume of rubbish is greatly reduced since recycling was implemented.

Answer 7

We recycle practically everything.  It works because the local kommune (Svelvik, Vestfold, Norway) provides a system that works and doesn't require a lot of driving.  In fact most of it can be done on foot by most people in the area.

If you have to drive for an hour (is that each way or total?) you have probably used four or five litres of petrol if you are driving an SUV.  The energy cost,wear and tear and pollution probably outweighs at least the energy value of the recycled material.  Of course you might be reducing the amount of junk that ends up in landfill so it might still have a positive side.  So to answer the question as if I didn't recycle: yes I would if it were closer and yes the distance does matter both in terms of convenience and of ecological and energy cost.

Answer 8

In Anaheim CA the city gives us recycle trash cans for recyclables. unfortunatly they collect to much stuff and just take it to the land fill because they cant recycle it

Answer 9

I live in Australia, and here all the major cities have curbside recycle bins, and trucks that come and pick them up.  If we didn't have these, I think I would probably only "reduce and reuse" rather than do the whole "reduce, reuse, recycle" thing.

Answer 10

I do recycle...the recycle center is 22 miles one way from here. I store my recyclables in a shed and take them to town every couple of months.