Friday, April 22, 2022

We should recycle like it’s WW11.

This week I heard our CFO say our trash hauling fees are going up. I assume our fees for recyclables are going up as well. With land fills closing every year there's no denying there's little space left in our country to put our trash. The best we can hope for in reducing our costs is to eliminate bulk items from the household trash that could be recycled.

From time to time, ever notice the number of large couches and recliners there are around Town waiting to be picked up by our diligent DPW workers? Some of these behemoth sized hernia makers are very heavy and are loaded into a DPW packer and carted away to the nearest transfer station along with household trash. Most of these pieces of furniture have various amounts of steel in them, some as much as 50 pounds or more of steel that we pay for in tipping fees to get rid of. As the costs of trash removal are always rising, increasing our overall recycling would decrease our trash removal costs. Recycling should be more of a priority among our city leaders, residents and businesses. It’s painfully clear that many residents don’t know what to recycle or how to recycle it. Just look at the recycle bins on trash days around your neighborhood. You’ll see bags of household trash, metal, large pieces of plastic items, hanging plants, etc, etc in the recycle carts all of which don’t belong there. Eventually every City and Town will be forced to mine the recyclables to reduce the tipping fees for trash removal. We should also consider that we are losing rare earth metals, precious metals and valuable recyclables to other countries who then sell us items that they recovered from our recyclables. And as the sanctions against Russia are widening, we will not be able to buy any of the minerals mined there for some time it appears. Many of these minerals are used in battery manufacturing for electric cars.

 

 

8 Comments:

At May 1, 2022 at 4:39 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

I worry less about that furniture and more about the amount of recyclable items people just carelessly throw in the trash. Can't we institute a fine for that?

 
At May 2, 2022 at 11:53 AM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

We should recycle as if we care about the future of our planet and out kids and grandkids. I am always amazed at people who just don't care about future generations and the mess we are leaving them

 
At May 2, 2022 at 12:46 PM , Blogger jim pillsbury said...

DPW has a written warning placed on recycle bins if the driver or an auditor find the wrong stuff in a recycle bin. As far as I know, there's not civil fine... but there should be IMO. Residents will continue to place the wrong items in the bins until they are fined.

Ahhh the future, excellent point. And it starts in our schools and municipal buildings which do such a bad job policing what goes into the bins. And we will be reminded of the future when the budget shows how much more we will have to pay to get rid of our trash and recycling.

 
At May 2, 2022 at 12:47 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Can we require city owned building, including schools, to do what they should be doing and enforce it?

 
At May 2, 2022 at 2:56 PM , Blogger jim pillsbury said...

I've asked that same question a few years ago and the answer was, it's a union thing. Who takes the trash out and where it goes is still a mystery. I spent a few years at the high school registering kids to vote during all three lunch periods for a few years a while back. Barley a soda can was in ONE recycle bin in the whole cafeteria.
Mandatory recycling in our schools and buildings can only come from the top down imo.

 
At May 2, 2022 at 8:45 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

We should recycle as if our lives depend on it because they do

 
At May 3, 2022 at 4:15 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Didn't I just see somewhere that the School Commmittee is proposing changes to address climate change issues in our school buildings? Could recycling be a part of that initiateive?

 
At May 3, 2022 at 7:55 PM , Blogger jim pillsbury said...

I'll have to ask Adam F about it. I just heard about Bob Trembly organized a school ground clean up at each school. I didn't see anything abou it on the newsletter so I guess it didn't hapen. Framingham must ramp up recycling.

 

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