By now most of us know what can and cannot but recycled, but there are always those miscellaneous items: cash register receipts? Tissue wrapping paper? What about those plastic packages from “fresh” pasta that don’t have any number symbol? Plastic hangers? Metal hangers? And if I’m not sure, am I better off putting it in, or not? They say to “rinse” everything — what if I don’t? Will it still get recycled? Will it “contaminate” the whole load?
Most of all, how much of the stuff collected truly gets recycled?
My plan is to arrange a visit to Montreal’s sorting/recycling plant, and to sit down with someone there to ask all my questions. But first, I’m collecting your questions: so, what have you always wanted to know about recycling?
Send me your questions through this blog, by email, via Twitter @EveKrakow, or through Montreal OpenFile’s “growing file,” Everything you always wanted to know about recycling but were afraid to ask.
I look forward to hearing from you!
Related posts:
Merci Eve, c’est très rassurant.
Wow. I will definitely ask about this, Éloi.
Alanah, thank you for your input. I am hoping to find out exactly how all this works, how much of a role economics plays (a major one, I suspect, but maybe it also depends on government), etc.
Article should be ready in a few weeks… please stay tuned!
My neighbors like to use big transparent plastic bags instead of the recycling bin to leave their recyclables on the curb. Much easier to carry, the big bag also prevents the wind from blowing the lighter items everywhere in the street.
I asked my Eco-Quartier about using recycling bags instead of the bin and this is what they told me : “Technically, the company that sorts through recyclables has the right to NOT OPEN PLASTIC BAGS, so there is a chance your bag will go straight into the garbage.”
What?!? I told my neighbors, but we just can’t believe this is true…
Eloi, I asked about this, and it’s not exactly true. When the bags get to the recycling plant, they’re tossed onto a conveyor where a machine rips open the bag, and then the materials inside go back to the main conveyor (see the post I just wrote explaining the process). But it doesn’t sound like bags are ideal, even though some boroughs use them, because plastic tends to jam up the sorting plant’s machinery.
It’s possible what the Eco-Quartier person meant is that, if the people collecting the recyclables at curbside see items that are not recyclable, they are not supposed to take them. So if they see a bag containing several non-recyclable items, they’re not going to start opening the bag and sorting through it, so they may just leave the bag on the curb.
I’m mostly curious about the economics behind recycling. I remember around 2008 suddenly there was no market for recyclables and the private reycling firm was just stockpiling stuff… Its weird to think that our recycling system depends on the economic system which, itself, is rather unsustainable…
Good question also about the contanimation. Look forward to reading the post!
Hi Alanah, see my latest post:
https://enviromontreal.com/2011/10/03/a-visit-to-where-our-recyclables-go/
as well as an article I wrote that focuses on the economic aspect:
http://montreal.openfile.ca/montreal/file/2011/09/what-city-honestly-doing-its-recyclables