I know I have made the point previously that we are appalling slugs in the Florida Keys when it comes to recycling. This innovation I found recently at Truman Waterfront which you would think would be everywhere. And Waste Management doesn't mind at all if plastics and paper and cans and bottles are all jumbled together. They couldn't make it any easier.
The resistance to island wide recycling is intense and rather unbelievable when you consider how close to nature everyone claims to be. The newspaper reported on a machine last year that reduced bottles to crushed powder and it was small enough to be installed behind the bar itself and used as the bottles were emptied. That idea flew like a lead balloon. Then you'll read comments in the Citizen's Voice to the effect that "I won't recycle my few bottles until the bars do," and no one will call that sort of truculent stupidity on the carpet so we plough forward. this rant was inspired by this trash can at the Ramrod Pool:
Give them credit for not tossing them in the mangroves or in the water but... Is it time to create some sort of redemption value for empty bottles and cans?
The resistance to island wide recycling is intense and rather unbelievable when you consider how close to nature everyone claims to be. The newspaper reported on a machine last year that reduced bottles to crushed powder and it was small enough to be installed behind the bar itself and used as the bottles were emptied. That idea flew like a lead balloon. Then you'll read comments in the Citizen's Voice to the effect that "I won't recycle my few bottles until the bars do," and no one will call that sort of truculent stupidity on the carpet so we plough forward. this rant was inspired by this trash can at the Ramrod Pool:Give them credit for not tossing them in the mangroves or in the water but... Is it time to create some sort of redemption value for empty bottles and cans?
7 comments:
You mean, like Oregon? The greener-than-thou rather smugly crow about how Oregonians recycle more bottles and cans because of the Bottle Bill, but most Oregonians toss such containers in the nearest trash can... it is the poor, the homeless and usually the non-white who root through the trash and return their limit of 144 containers a day for a measly nickel each. And the places where one must return them are smelly, grimy and unsanitary. But that's okay, it's thought of as a kind of social welfare program by the smug upper-class white people who call themselves "green."
__Orin
Scootin' Old Skool
We had a 10 cent deposit on bottles and cans in Michigan, and I can tell you us white folks with jobs hung onto each of them cans like they was gold.
The irresponsible drunk-ass idiots who whip'em outta cars provided a benefit to folks who didn't have a job - and then there were the entrepreneurs who would station themselves outside sporting events and collect empties from patrons entering the venue. Some of these guys made $50K/year.
It kept the streets clean, and forced bottlers to recycle. That's what's important. You may ascribe whatever bitter pill you deem fit - but the driver for the law was clean streets when originally enacted over 33 years ago.
Hell - when I was a kid short on $$, I'd scrounge...maybe you should, too!
It doesn't have to be a Dickensian hell, recycling, but an encouragement to do the right thing around here usually invovles money.
Why do people worry about what the bars are doing, can't they see the effort has to start somewhere?
Our household produces about one kitchen-size bag of garbage every six weeks and it takes no effort at all to recycle the rest of our refuse.
This country is so soft maybe we need a new depresion to teach people how to appreciate what we have.
Those of us who do recycle see the benefits.And wonder why our annual garbage fees have to pay fro two trash pick ups per week. Ifd people had to pay for overflow at the dump if one weren't enough that might be a lesson.
In case you hadn't noticed we do have a full blown economic Depression only our leaders are fudging the numbers ("...and we can't think why!" WS Gilbert again, sorry). Perhaps you should check the site shadow stats for independent confirmation?
The reason the bars matter is because, beyond the feel good result of doing recycling for yourself the way to make a dent is to get the instituional wastrels to back the effort.
City commissioner Rossi owns the biggest bar complex and titty show in Key West where people drink compulsively and yet recycling is not on his agenda anywhere to be seen. Why?
GLEE valiantly twitters about doing good but it's not a conforntational organization that asks our leaders the hard questions. Why?
Because we have started somewhere you and I, recycling diligently in our homes. Waste Management is a useful ally, they take all plastics now in asingle stream recycling which couldn't be easier, and yet...We live so close to Nature here and yet...
...I can't think why?"
Can you?
I grew up in MI and I can attest to the usefulness of the bottle bills. The streets and woods - to this day - are empty of cans and bottles. All mainstream retailers have return machines/facilities, and most everyone, indeed, does hang onto their cans and bottles to turn them in. When I visit family, I fume to myself that we can't do this in FL. We, here, have single-stream with WM, also, and we recycle probably 80% of our waste. It'd be more if I ever put in that compost pile I keep talking about. Point is, it is NOT difficult. It takes a short period of adjustment, and you keep two or three cans or bags in the kitchen or wherever to separate stuff, but I can spend 30 extra seconds of my day to do so. It may not save the earth, but it sure can't hurt.
Diana
When I was a kid, long before there were bottle bills in any state, there was a deposit on soda bottles, which were made of glass. You got the deposit back when you returned the bottle(s), and the bottles were washed and reused by the soft-drink companies. I collected many, and occasionally cleaned up, financially.
Now, you have these one-use plastic things that are mostly "recycled" into landfills because there's no market for the material. So what's really happened is the soft-drink companies used to reduce/reuse/recycle, and now they don't. As I said, go anywhere in Oregon, which was one of the first states to pass a "bottle bill" and you will see trash cans overflowing with cans and bottles on which a store charged a deposit. And no members of the middle class redeeming them.
__Orin
Scootin' Old Skool
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