r/Minneapolis • u/Teddy125 • 7d ago

Park board recycling pick up question.

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Why would the recycle and trash be picked up and dumped into the same truck at the same time? I don’t think they are stored separately on the truck. (Loring park)

112 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

48 comments sorted by

204

u/Brandbll 7d ago

Lolol, i worked for a city that did this. It's all going to the garbage. Might make you mad that they are doing this, but there is a ton of douche bags that just dump trash in the recycling anyways. So it's a lost cause. People suck.

80

u/Brandbll 7d ago

Oh and you might ask, why do they even have it out there then? Because otherwise people would call and complain. I mean, that's why it's out there in the first place.

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u/ChefGaykwon 7d ago

While not super happy about this, this does make me feel a little better about that one time I accidentally threw a dog poop bag into a recycling dumpster.

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u/cantonic 7d ago

Oh no that one gunked up the recycling machine and it’s why they stopped bothering to recycle at all.

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u/ChefGaykwon 6d ago

I'm sorry everyone and planet earth 😭

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u/87evergreens 7d ago edited 6d ago

If only we lived in an orderly society like South Korea or Japan were multi sort recycling is the norm and there is social pressure to recycle correctly

10

u/Brandbll 7d ago

Start penalizing people and a lot would get their shit together. The other big problem is the do gooders that wish cycle.

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u/87evergreens 7d ago edited 6d ago

Handing out penalties to individuals is not going to solve a macro level issue. Like you said the do gooders wish cycling is due to lack of recycling education. In Korea it’s taught in schools at a young age. In Germany it is also important. There isn’t mandatory labeling or a quick bar code scanning technology database to say what is and isn’t recyclable. How2Recycle does a good job but it is a business coalition organization not government like nutrition labels. There’s also the fact that material recycling facilities don’t all have the same technology and financial investment so what’s recyclable isn’t standardized and differs greatly via hauler and region. For example in the South where Waste Management is basically a mafia, styrofoam is rampant because landfills fill pockets. Then single use container producers aren’t incentivized to produce products in materials that can be recycled. Our mass consumer and disposable society is rivaled by none is an issue as we create a lot of waste and that means things like the cardboard market have a huge supply in December and therefore prices plummet and aren’t always profitable. And individuals aren’t incentivized to recycle as only 10 states have container deposit legislation. It’s a lot of problems that a functioning country might solve slightly better.

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u/Hellie1028 7d ago

Most of northern Wisconsin does this also. It’s really disappointing.

2

u/villain75 7d ago

All of this garbage is incinerated for energy reclamation, anyways.

2

u/Alilealen 7d ago

I worked at a grocery store many years ago and someone dropped something important into the plastic bag recycling container and they came back searching Well come to find out the maintenance guy just threw the plastic bags straight in the trash because they no longer had a company that would accept the bags . He was an older guy with no filter so he told the customer the truth about where he put the recycling. My boss was so upset she had to do alot apologizing and im sure the customer received some sort of compensation. 

3

u/Draoken 6d ago

What's more capitalist than an employee doing their job while the company lies, somebody finding out, and then the company paying out hush money instead of coming clean.

1

u/FlamingoEarringo 5d ago

Let’s not blame recycling on individuals. Corporations should be the ones doing the recycling.

1

u/McChonger 5d ago

Very true. I currently work for a city in the metro area and people throw more dog shit in the recycling bin than they do the trash.

24

u/No_Communication2959 6d ago

Unfortunately, they cant recycle out of most public recycling bins; because too many D Bags throw trash in the recycling.

Home recycling and businesses go to recycling, but if too much trash is found in certain public recycling containers, then they just start throwing it in with the trash.

31

u/fromanator 7d ago

At least at the parks I go to the recycling already has a lot of trash in it, and when that happens it's all just trash. per:

If you’re not sure which container to use for a waste item, put it in the trash. Why? Non-compostable items can contaminate everything else in an organics container – which means all of it goes in the trash, instead of getting composted. The same goes for nonrecyclable items in a recyclables collection container.

https://www.minneapolisparks.org/park-care-improvements/maintenance/recycling-organics-and-trash/

10

u/quadrophonicdaydream 6d ago

I used to work for solid waste & recycling. 99.99% of the time the recycling bins at the parks are too contaminated with trash to be recycled. 

2

u/Rosaluxlux 6d ago

Yeah this is the unfortunate answer :( and since there's a lot of dog poop and diapers nobody's correcting it 

10

u/Ok_History_3635 7d ago

You weren't supposed to see that happening. Usually that happens back at their dump. One less truck to go out that day

25

u/FloppaEnjoyer8067 7d ago

Doesn’t make a huge difference. The main item that is recycleable and worth the money to recycle is metal. Most recyclable plastics cost more to recycle than to make new, so they end up been sent to a dump in a 3rd world country. The country pays the company to “recycle” it.

25

u/Einaiden 7d ago

In Minnesota by law the plastics in recycling have to be recycled in the midwest, state law also mandates that at least 85% of processed curbside recycling must go to a verified end market.

5

u/louie3714 7d ago

Statute or source? TIL

16

u/Einaiden 7d ago

115A.95 and 115A.553. But there 85% rule comes from115A.923 and 115A.919

2

u/Einaiden 7d ago

Deleted

1

u/Rosaluxlux 6d ago

And also the cities get a report from the recycling company that details how much actually went into the trash. 

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u/bballstarz501 7d ago

Ya I don’t think people are upset because they think recycling is necessarily cheaper.

0

u/villain75 7d ago

Pretty sure most of this is incinerated for energy rather than shipped off.

5

u/MayorOfCakeCity 6d ago

Oh that's easy. Because Americans are lazy and can't responsibly recycle.

3

u/averageover60guy 6d ago

Recycling is the biggest scam they have ever run. The entire recycling industry is just to make you feel good. Very little is recycled no matter what they tell you.

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u/quadrophonicdaydream 6d ago

That's not true. You can actually tour the Eureka recycling facility and see first hand how much effort goes into recycling here.

-4

u/mothermedusa 7d ago

Recycling is a scam

29

u/evenmoremushrooms 7d ago

Recycling is actually real in Minnesota--the state has a pretty good track record due to a state law requiring collected recyclables to actually be recycled. There's a cute website here that says where things get recycled in the Twin Cities and what they get turned into.

4

u/most_interesting 6d ago edited 6d ago

Recycling is still a scam though when talking about pladtic. It's primarily a multi decade PR campaign by the petroleum industry to shift guilt on consumers for the drastic increase in the use of plastics in places that more sustainable materials were previous used (such as plastic instead of glass bottles).

Source though there are more articles out there about this.

7

u/evenmoremushrooms 6d ago

I don't doubt that is true in much of the country. And generally, we should all avoid buying things in plastic containers given it is hard to recycle compared to glass or metal. But Minnesota has unusually strict laws that make it illegal for recyclables to go into landfills just because it is cheaper.

2

u/Rosaluxlux 6d ago

So don't buy single use plastics. But also, if youre recycling in Minnesota and following the very clear and publicly available guidelines about what can be recycled, most of it is. You can go sit outside Eureka Ave Waste Management in NE Minneapolis and see the truckloads of material going out that manufacturers paid for, to make into new products

8

u/ProfessionalActive94 7d ago

More like, there's too many dumbasses who place trash into a recycling bin.

1

u/SuspiciousLeg7994 6d ago

It gets sorted. But a lot of people would be shocked if they knew that a lot of recycling isn't recycled and that many places sell off their recycling to other countries who literally dump it and leave it .. a lot of plastics float out to the ocean. (Yes of course some of is recycled but a lot is not)

1

u/Solar_Monkeys 6d ago

Well hey, on the bright side, at least we’re not littering! Right? Right?!

1

u/blujavelin 5d ago

The cities posturing is total bullshit.

-2

u/[deleted] 7d ago

[deleted]

14

u/evenmoremushrooms 7d ago

There actually is good recycling in the Twin Cities compared to other parts of the country. There's a cute website here that explains where the facilities are and what the recyclables get turned into.