A Thing of Beauty – Recycling Station

Photo: dievca – McDonalds’ Waste Center Sweden 08/2018

“There is no such thing as ‘away’.
When we throw anything away it must go somewhere.”
– Annie Leonard, Proponent of Sustainability

dievca ran into a Swedish McDonalds for a friend’s children. They like the coffee drinks offered (Frappe?).

This garbage/recycling station was a thing of beauty. A hole to place every piece or shape of garbage possible. (Yes, I thought of other useful holes as I wrote that line.) A slot for ice/liquid, a slot for excess food, a slot for paper.

Where does it go?

A question that has been on dievca’s mind for….well…years.

China is no longer taking USA recycling. New Jersey, USA garbage collection services, with Mob ties, treat garbage as a commodity and as recycling doesn’t make money, the process doesn’t happen. The single-stream sorting process is expensive to start and doesn’t always work. If there is no market for paper-recycling or an area doesn’t have the types of business to use recycled paper – paper bales go into a landfill because they are too expensive to ship.

Etc., Etc., Etc.

Perhaps if garbage/recycling is sorted at the point source, smaller amounts could be collected and handled immediately – making the “products” cleaner and easier to transport.

A little bit being recycled is better than nothing being recycled. Right?

dievca cleans and sorts – hoping that her efforts can be used, sold or something.

But, she knows her food scrap composting has reduced her solid waste by 1/3 to 1/2 and its being used in NYC, she sees it. That story is for another post.