A few years ago, Penn & Teller’s “Showtime” series “Bullshit!” ran an episode devoted to recycling and all the BS that goes along with it. They sent their camera crew and a few actors out to pester some unsuspecting homeowners, to see how many separate recycling bins people could be suckered into accepting and having to deal with. Luckily, this segment is available on YouTube. In the end, the test subject were willing to accept up to nine separate recycling bins. This was played for laughs, since it’s clearly a ridiculous idea, and shows how far people will go to be seen as “green.”
Sigh.
In a regime set to spread across the country, residents are being forced to juggle an astonishing nine separate bins.
There has already been a storm of protest with warnings that the scheme is too complex and homes simply don’t have the space to deal with the myriad bins, bags and boxes.
The containers include a silver slopbucket for food waste, which is then tipped in to a larger, green outdoor food bin, a pink bag for plastic bottles, a green bag for cardboard, and a white bag for clothing and textiles.
Paper and magazines go in blue bags, garden waste in a wheelie bin with a brown lid, while glass, foil, tins and empty aerosols should go in a blue box, with a grey wheelie bin for non-recyclable waste.
…
Compulsory recycling is commonly enforced by bin police who can impose £100 on-the-spot fines for breaches like overfilled wheelie bins, extra rubbish left out, or bins put out at the wrong time.
If people do not pay the fines, they can be taken to court, where they face increased penalties of £1,000 and criminal records.
Oy. JUST BURN IT.
6 Responses to “Reality imitates Penn & Teller”
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They forgot bin #10 for batteries and electronic parts.
I love recycling discussions.
In 1978, my new wife brought home an article on it, suggesting that we do it. I read the article. I wish I’d kept it because the gist of it was that while it was good in theory, in practice it was so expensive that doing it was irrational if money means anything.
In 1998 I met the chap who was running the recycling effort at University of Richmond. He revealed that the program cost the school $85,000 each year. He proudly announced that the return on that investment was $5000 each year.
Have things changed since then?
“He revealed that the program cost the school $85,000 each year. He proudly announced that the return on that investment was $5000 each year.”
But we’re getting that return on investment back from Mother Earth, who is no longer quite as polluted or exploited due to our paying the liberals to clean her for us. /sarcasm
Sigh…. Modern liberals are f*cked up.
“” Oy. JUST BURN IT.””
nope, It probably illegal to burn stuff in your back yard, especially if it interferes the highway. (imagine how the farmers love this one!!)
or, you need a permit….
Germany when the wife and I were there had three (3) bins that were picked up on different days. One for glass, one for papers/plastic/etc, one for “food-waste”. All in all not so bad to deal with.
Getting back to the States we had “recycling” in most places where paper/plastics/cardboard/glass all get put in ONE container as part of the overall city “garbage-disposal” fees. In most cases the CITY then “sells” the pickup/seperation/disposal contract every couple of years under a compatative bid system. We do that here in Utah now…
The “issues” comes when you get special case disposals such at the mentioned “Multi-bin” systems where the costs of having individuals seperate the items and requireing multiple pickups and/or seperate trucks ends up being HUGELY more than having a single or maximum two bin pickup with seperation done by the contracted company.
9 bins, (or specific seperation thereof as mentioned “bags” instead of bins) is FAR more than should be needed even assuming (as it seems the system does) it is somehow ‘cheaper’ to put the seperation efforts on the indivdual and/or household.
Michael Holt asks if there is a difference “now” as to the recycling in 1998 the answer would be “mostly” because of different efforts are “run” differently :o)
The UofR recycling, and English systems the “recycling” is treated as a disposal system rather than a recycling system because the need for strict seperation, distributed pickup and overall treatment of the materials being ‘recycled’ is aimed at maximumizing ease of ‘disposal’ of the materials. This type of system will ALWAYS cost more.
On the other hand a “simpler” system with fewer individual seperation requirements ends up being somewhat “profitable” overall because the system is more streamlined from pickup through seperation, and processing and final ‘disposal’ of the materials. It seems counter-intutative for the most part because of costs for the disposal company would seem to be higher than any possible return value, however by having all seperation, processing, packaging and disposal efforts concentrated rather than spread out over the system the actual ability to concentrate and SELL the bulk materials nets a profit. (And it doesnt’ “hurt” profits that people are being ‘charged’ for part of the costs as a disposal fee :o)
Scott: You probably live outside the normal ‘garbage’ pickup and disposal zones for cities? While you CAN ‘burn-it’ as long as transportation and other systems costs for disposal are low enough most places find it easier to deal with by just wrapping the bulk of the materials into the general “garbage” disposal system. Companies actually compete to ‘dispose’ of garbage as it’s a rather lucrative ‘trade’ item… Has it’s own “stock-market” section even on most stock-markets :o)
For the majority of the United States especially, “garbage/recycling/waste-disposal” has become (much to many environmentalist’s dismay as it goes against the ‘wisdom’ of the movement don’t you know :o) a profitable business enabling a much wider range of recycling and reuse as well as easing the overall garbage disposal problems of cities.
Overall the “system” works MUCH better in the United States than anywhere else in the world, simply because instead of being BASED on the idea of the need for “recycling” various materials the system is BASED on the (original) concept of waste disposal management with the addition of “recycling” as a value-added item rather than something that needs additional processing and disposal.
Randy
[…] Green gone wild, residents in the UK are told to sort their trash into nine separate bins. In Canada, we sort the trash then haul it huge distances in carbon-spewing trucks. Penn & Teller were right. […]