r/AskAnAustralian • u/Ok-Needleworker329 • 1d ago
Why can’t we be bothered to separate waste from recycling?
Councils in Perth, Sydney , Vic etc have started setting up different bins. One for waste, one for green composite, one for recycling.
What I’m hearing from some workers is that there’s NO point if people don’t separate things properly.
Even in the public there’s a recycling and normal waste bin at the train stations and I see people putting non recyclable stuff in the recycling bin.
Why?
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u/Boatster_McBoat 1d ago
If you look at what happened with Redcycle you can see that a significant proportion of people will not only take steps to separate their recycling they will also take it with them to a drop off depot. many people are really, really good. The fact that soft plastic recycling is due to solving the actual recycling part of the puzzle.
That said, some people just don't care. Some people can barely manage to care for themselves let alone care for the environment.
It's a complex problem.
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u/Pokeynono 1d ago
some people just don't give AF. When the 4 bin system was introduced in my LGA the number of people that publicly bragged they weren't going to sort their waste and claimed they had removed the RDF tag from their bins so they couldn't be fined.
There are also the people that will take their bottles to the bottle deposit machines and just dump the rejected items on the ground instead of taking them home and putting them in the council.recyling bin.
We also have a huge illegal dumping issue in the area . Including a fire of a few weeks on a property that allowed illegal dumping for a very long time. It has been a shitshow of toxic smoke, polluted run off into waterways , access issues and the landowner ignoring cleanup orders
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u/someonefromaustralia 1d ago
IMO it’s a bit more complicated than that. Waste might say “recyclable” yet it isn’t in certain councils.
There should be much more clear instructions from both producers and councils surrounding packaging - not some itsy little instruction.
When I was 23 after finally fully moving out of home 3hours from my parents I got slapped with a fine for putting milk cartons in recycling. My parents did so fastidiously. that’s when I learnt its not universal and can be much harder.
I’ve also been waiting ages for these extra bins, especially the glass. They are yet to be rolled out where I am.
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u/Pokeynono 1d ago
Unless you drink a lot of alcohol the glass bins don't really get utilised. Very few food manufacturers still use glass except jam, coffee, condiment jars and jars for some meal bases. I've had the glass bin for nearly a year. I have put In a couple pasta bake jars, a couple of mustard jars, 4 imported cordial bottles and a pickle jar . I wash Coles jam jars and Moccona jars and reuse them to store pantry items or pass on to people locally to use. .
At the rate I'm going I will put my glass bin out mid 2028. The only house in our street that religiously puts out their glass bin is the share house with young tradies living there 😃
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u/luxsatanas 1d ago
Glass will probably have a come back with the (notably slow) phase out of plastic though
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u/CantankerousTwat 15h ago
Moconna jars make an excellent fat collection vessels. I keep one by the stove and just scrape in fat and leftover cooking oil. Wipe the pan down with paper towel and shive that in the jar as wll. As soon as I empty a jar of coffee, the one full of fat goes in the general waste bin. Moconna jars are the best for this because you can pop off the lid with one hand while still holding a pan or spatula.
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u/s3ik0 9h ago edited 9h ago
I'm very conscious about recycling and more importantly reducing my waste. I leave out 10c items in a separate bin for a local guy to collect. Im even conscious of doing things like separating plastic from cardboard (clear plastic windows on cardboard boxes, handles etc etc).
The wife runs a business that involves posting items that need to be protected. In the years we have been in business I have never had to purchase packaging material due to reusing and shredding or cardboard to use as packaging material. This includes collecting waste from my work and bringing it home to use again.
In say this, if it has a recycling symbol on it then it goes in the yellow bin. I received a notice that a council dude went through my bin and said something along the lines of you can't recycle this and you can recycle that.
Yeah they can get stuffed. Sort it out with the company you signed a waste management deal with.
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u/GoldBricked 1d ago
And the only reason they go to the bottle deposit machines is because there’s something in it for them (money, albeit a small amount)
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u/ComfortableUnhappy25 1d ago
That's more on those stupid RVMs requiring cans to be perfectly intact, not crushed or dented in any way.
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u/ArmyBrat651 1d ago
Idk man, if they managed to solve it in many developed countries in EU, I wouldn’t really call it a ‘complex’ problem.
Not every issue is novel and specific to Australia.
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u/Boatster_McBoat 1d ago
Never suggested it was novel and specific to Australia.
Can you point me to where I can learn more about what the EU has done to solve it?
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u/ArmyBrat651 1d ago
It’s not solved all across EU, but Germany is a good example as they are a rule-bound society just like Australia.
I’ll give you an example of how it worked for small complexes in Berlin 10+ years ago.
Different bins have different costs and you choose which extra bins you need.
General “landfill” bin costs the most. If you don’t want to recycle, you are free to skip it, but you’ll need more of those costly bins. Up to you.
On the other hand, if you separated correctly into many (6 colors IIRC) cheap bins, there’ll be practically nothing left for the landfill bin, so you only need one of those.
It’s a very good financial incentive as the fines are hefty! They can and do dig through trash to find receipts or anything that would identify offenders, though that’s more of a thing in Switzerland - they’re brutal
Similarly, the onus of making the market go recyclable was put on supermarkets rather than consumers. If you sell it, it’s your responsibility to make sure it is recyclable.
That resulted in supermarkets dropping some brands which didn’t want to make packaging recyclable-friendly.
It also resulted in those amazing bottle-swallowing machines that scan the bottles - they are literally in every supermarket and have been for 15+ years.
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u/CantankerousTwat 14h ago
If they were in every supermarket as they should be here as well, I would use them. For now, I rely on those folk who go thru the recycling bins looking for refundable packages. If I have a party, I keep the cans in their original box and leave them with my recycling bin. $2.40 per case of beer is not enough to get me in the car to go to the container places.
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u/Mother_Speed2393 1d ago
I wouldn't call is 'solved' exactly in the EU.
Countries like Germany, who are a very rules oriented population, they certainly have had good success with compliance.
However, they still have the same challenges with the technology, the infrastructure, the cost, the sorting etc.
See here for some interesting stats: https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/analysis/indicators/waste-recycling-in-europe
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u/Boatster_McBoat 1d ago
Thanks. I was hoping I had missed some radically good news
Edit: just took a look. There is some really good progress in there. Slovenia from mid 20s to 60% recycling. And, yes, far from solved. None of that data suggests they aren't also grappling with the sort of complex problem that is not unique to Australia.
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u/strichtarn 1d ago
In Copenhagen you can get a discount at the supermarket when you return some recycling.
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u/bobbobboob1 12h ago
And look at India an Mexico land fill overflowing with our recycling
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u/bobbobboob1 12h ago
Oh look they just loaded another container of plastic on my truck to take to the port
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u/Electrical_Pause_860 1d ago
There's also a huge amount of confusion about what is recyclable. Most materials are technically recyclable in some way, but that's a very different thing to what your local council can actually process. So people chuck stuff that seems recyclable in which shouldn't be.
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u/fouronenine 20h ago
Wishcycling (as in "I wish this were recyclable") is definitely a thing, as is confusion around the terms biodegradable and various versions of compostable.
FWIW, every council I have lived in has had a clear list of what is and isn't recyclable on the website, through letterboxed flyers, even bin checks these days.
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u/Living-Perception-84 1d ago
My council has started doing the red bags, you load your soft plastics into then put them in our recycling bin when it's full. They sort them out on their end. Super handy
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u/habitual_citizen 1d ago
I grew up in Europe. Switzerland had hands down the most comprehensive recycling program I’ve ever seen. You did have to drive to a depot with all your recycling, but as a kid i had heaps of fun doing it with my parents. Glass was separated by colour: green, clear and brown. Caps went in a different bin. Bin for aluminium, plastics, tins (because they’re coated inside), cartons, cardboard, paper, etc.
I agree with you. I’m not in the clan of “people suck”. I’m in the clan of “it’s an upbringing and education and access thing”. Like I said, my parents took me to these at a young age to teach me why it’s important to do. As a child it was like an Easter egg hunt to find the right bin, you can really turn it into a game.
Anyway, I remember these depots so fondly. Breaks my heart that they don’t exist here.
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u/shavedratscrotum 1d ago
Lol that was the least of redcycles problems.
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u/Boatster_McBoat 1d ago
What was?
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u/shavedratscrotum 1d ago
Soft plastics are a nightmare.
They didn't have the scale or capabilities to actually process it.
They were just shipping vast quantities to china when that was banned they became an aggregation service.
Services like plastic forests and manufacturers like Nylex and Sealed air are overwhelmed with recyclables and there is little appetite for it.
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u/Boatster_McBoat 1d ago
That point was supposed to be contained in my original comment. Although on re-reading I realise I've worded it poorly. My point was that consumer buy-in was not the issue. It was the actual recycling that was the problem.
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u/shavedratscrotum 1d ago
2nd.
There little appetite to actually decrease plastic waste from retailers.
I had a project wound back that would have reduced a further 400 tonnes of soft plastics because they felt it would devalue their products.
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u/Boatster_McBoat 1d ago
That's the way to do it. If the manufacturers and retailers make positive change it's 100% of consumers on board by definition
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u/Lintson 1d ago
Even in the public there’s a recycling and normal waste bin at the train stations and I see people putting non recyclable stuff in the recycling bin.
Laziness, ignorance and the propagation of the convenient misinformation that the recycling and general waste end up at the same place so it's pointless to separate your waste.
While the above is true in certain places/settings, for example it is quite possible that the waste management contractor at your workplace doesn't sort waste at all and dumps it all in the same compactus, it's not necessarily true for your household bins, bins at a different private premises or public bins
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u/luxsatanas 1d ago
Fuck I hate the doesn't-matter crowd. It just feeds back into the problem. Recyclers won't accept recycling with too many contaminants. So, businesses have a choice to sort it themselves, find someone willing to accept it for sorting, or chuck it. Meanwhile, it takes zero effort to move your hand 30 cm to the side and put it in the right bin. At least then you can actually blame the business if it goes to the wrong spot
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u/Key-Birthday-9047 1d ago
Also if the household collection is too much for the sorting/recycling centre, it gets diverted to landfill.
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u/DeeDee_GigaDooDoo 1d ago
I think a big part of it is disillusionment with the whole recycling system. Recycling got moved offshore, then it was revealed that a huge amount of that didn't get recycled and then they banned importing recyclable waste. So then we had recycling systems here that did some sorting but ultimately was just stockpiling the waste. Then you have specialised systems the likes of recycle that collapsed and was revealed to basically just be stockpiling warehouses of material.
People were apathetic before all this but even as a fervent environmentalist myself I often think "why bother?" when sorting waste. Why waste the time sorting when it will most likely end up in landfill anyway? If we had a decent recycling system here and there was the demand on the other end for recycled materials more impetus on the public to sort better would probably achieve some dividends but when by all accounts they can't even find buyers for recycled materials and a lot ends up in landfill even after people sort it it's hard to motivate people.
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u/iball1984 1d ago
Demand is critical.
One major problem with Redcycle that the products they made out of the recycled soft plastics had limited value. Park benches, a few boardwalks and bollards and that was about it.
The recycled product has a greasy texture to it, and isn't particularly strong. It certainly isn't food grade.
So that limits the use. THe boardwalks are crap because they get slippy when wet. And in any case, there's only so much demand for boardwalks and park benches anyway.
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u/2GR-AURION 1d ago
"Recycling" in Australia is a scam & nothing more than eco-soundbites for Councils & Local Govts.
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u/Electrical_Pause_860 1d ago
Plastic recycling largely is. But metal and cardboard recycling is real. These are very easy to recycle and the end product is high quality and more valuable than the cost of recycling it.
Plastics just need to be phased out where possible.
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u/CidewayAu 1d ago
To answer your question with a question and the answers will give you a fair idea why people don't seperate waste properly.
Which bin does paper towel go in? Recycling, General waste or Organics.
Bonus question, which bin do pizza boxes go in?
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u/floss_bucket 1d ago
Paper towel goes in the green bin. Used pizza boxes go in the green bin.
There's various apps/websites that answer these questions in a very straightforward way. Which Bin (SA specific) and Recycle Mate are ones I'm familiar with.
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u/CottMain 1d ago
Which bin for empty fly spray can?
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u/orlec 1d ago
Your guidance may be different but here is WA:
Whether it’s a can of deodorant, whipped cream, paint or insect repellent, chances are the aerosol cans around your home have a recycle symbol printed on them. Yes, aerosol cans are made of recyclable materials like aluminium and steel. But no, they can’t go in your recycling bin. Why? Because even if they are ‘empty’ they generally contain residual flammable liquids, which can cause fires and explosions at the recycling facility.
Instead, take them (empty or otherwise) to your local HHW facility (which accepts all aerosol cans including CFC-based flammable paint and flammable pesticide). It’s a free service.
https://www.wastesorted.wa.gov.au/blog/hazardous-waste-the-things-you-just-cant-bin
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u/floraldepths 1d ago
Recycling bin! Alternatively they can be returned to the sorted community recycling thingy that most landfills have - the one you can put lightbulbs and paint and stuff in.
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u/thorpie88 1d ago
Most pizza boxes can be recycled. At least that's what the actual boxes themselves say
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u/Afferbeck_ 1d ago
The boxes themselves can but not once they're caked with cheese and grease. So they can't.
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u/thorpie88 1d ago
They still can be. It's up to the local council as to if it's a problem or not but cheese and grease will not stop the boxes from being recyclable
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u/snorkellingfish 1d ago
I feel like this line of discussion illustrates the point about potential complexity.
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u/luxsatanas 1d ago
Not really. Any council I've seen that accepts them will stipulate that the box must be relatively clean with no food scraps and only some grease marks
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u/Iceman_001 Melbourne 1d ago
But the cheese and grease contaminates the pizza box, so you're not supposed to put it in the recycling bin.
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u/Puzzled-Star5330 1d ago
My dad goes for a walk along the beach every single morning at daybreak, just for exercise and fun, and he picks up rubbish people have dropped every single morning. At our beautiful beach. People literally don’t give af and it’s sad
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u/CBRChimpy 1d ago
A better question might be why we bother collecting plastics in a separate "recyclables" bin when very little or none of it is ever recycled?
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u/commking 1d ago edited 1d ago
Here in Victoria, councils pay per tonne to dispose of the kerbside waste they collect. They pay more per tonne to dispose of landfill waste, than for recycling. So on your rates notice, the waste charge can be lower by encouraging recycling. For the recycler, same deal - they pay a premium to send stuff to landfill. So it just doesn't make business sense for them to do that. If a load of recycling is too contaminated - because of people who refuse to comply - the whole truckload goes to landfill, which just drives up the cost for the all of us.
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u/wretchedRing 1d ago
When will people understand you can recycle a piece of plastic only a few times (at absolute best) before the properties are so changed/degraded it's useless for anything?
This idea you can recycle the very same Coke bottles indefinitely like you can aluminium or glass is extremely far fetched. But people seem to believe it.
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u/luxsatanas 1d ago
Plastic manufacturers propaganda~ They're very good at it
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u/MsMarfi 1d ago
As long as it's the correct plastic, it will be recycled. There's a lot of stuff that's put into recycling bins that can't be recovered. Council websites/waste officers will have all the information you need.
Just because it's called a "recycling" bin, doesn't mean that everything that is recyclable can go in it. Unfortunately, there's probably more that can't go in it than can.
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u/Jazzlike_Wind_1 1d ago
We used to just ship it to China where they would "recycle it" (throw it in a furnace for money)
Actually recycling plastic is pretty expensive and always produces a worse product than new plastic. Aluminium however recycles wonderfully and all of the aluminium you put in the recycle bin gets recycled.
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u/MsMarfi 1d ago
So why did China stop taking it if it's so profitable for them? They stopped taking it because it was so contaminated. We should be responsible for our own waste. A lot of plastic packaging is made from recyclable plastic now, as product manufacturers want to be seen doing the "right thing", but when virgin plastic is much cheaper, there's not a lot of incentive to use it. Unfortunately the free market isn't going to solve our waste problems.
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u/Jazzlike_Wind_1 1d ago
Why did they want to crack down on it or what was the measure they used to restrict it? Two different things. They wanted to stop us dumping our rubbish on them so they could clean up their environment, which is hard to do if you're burning trash sent from all over the world lol.
If it wasn't even economical to recycle our plastic for the Chinese when their labour costs are a tiny fraction of ours we have no hope of doing it here that's for sure
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u/MsMarfi 1d ago
You're contradicting yourself. I work in the waste industry - it's being recycled.
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u/Jazzlike_Wind_1 1d ago edited 1d ago
Soo the government is wrong?
>The recovery rate for plastics was the lowest at only 12%.
>The 2022–23 recovery rate for plastics was about 12.5%, almost identical to the 12.6% estimated for 2016–17.
> About 1% of this recovery was for its energy value. The rest was recycled. Landfills received an estimated 87.5% of plastics waste.
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u/mediweevil Melbourne 1d ago
yeah I'm not interesting in being a materials scientist when it comes to chucking my rubbish out. it's either recyclable or it's not. the situation is even more farcical when I can go a few metres across a council boundary and somehow an item magically becomes recyclable when it wasn't on the other side of the road.
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u/Raychao 1d ago
We need to do much better. There have been so many scandals related to recycling that people have lost faith. There are many people who assume it is all a rort and none of it gets recycled anyway, so they don't bother.
There is some truth to their fears. We have found that the thin plastics recycling was all just being warehoused and was not being recycled. We've seen that container loads of recycling have been sent to Malaysia and China and it has ended up either being sent back or just dumped on the side of some rainforest somewhere.
What I will say to all of us is: We are the problem.
It is supposed to be reduce, reuse then recycle. We just keep buying more and more crap and capitalism wants to fill that niche.
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u/LukeDies 1d ago
The recycling bins at my work are just for show. The cleaners lump everything together.
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u/luxsatanas 1d ago
How clean is the recycling? /gen
My uni has recycling and compost bins but people chuck plastic is the compost and food in the recycling. What are the cleaners supposed to do?
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u/-DethLok- Perth :) 1d ago
People are stupid, ignorant, lazy and have no respect.
Just my observations over the last 50+ years anyway.
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u/kombiwombi 1d ago
The question is why we can't do as well as South Korea, which sorts waste even further.
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u/HKRioterLuvwhitedick 1d ago
bc culture
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u/kombiwombi 1d ago
For sure. So what parts of our culture do we need to change?
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u/luxsatanas 1d ago
Maybe if we started charging people per kg of waste they produce they'd shape up. That's what they do in South Korea
Also, rejecting recycling that's been contaminated
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u/Electrical_Pause_860 1d ago
Then they would just start dumping it on the side of the road. A better solution is just making companies phase out single use plastics.
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u/luxsatanas 1d ago
For sure, people already dump it. But, they did ask what South Korea's solution was
You could maybe spin it as discount rates if you're under however much per quarter or whatever. But, that would still cause issues
Which gov will have the spine to be the first to ban single use plastics? There'd need to be concessions made for medical and scientific use as well as a few others
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u/2GR-AURION 1d ago
Or China where private recyclers routinely collect & PAY YOU for recyclable materials &/or goods.
When I experienced this whilst in China, every other system they have in Australia that EXPECTS YOU to do the work for the Council is nothing short of been scammed.
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u/Express-Passenger829 1d ago
We used to send our recycling to China. They dumped it in the ocean.
We do have those payments for bottle recycling in Australia though. It pays people to rummage through everyone’s trash, strewing it around the street collecting already sorted recycling so they can get paid for sending it through a different channel. Single worst policy I’ve come across.
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u/wrymoss 1d ago
I've never seen trash strewn around as a result of the bottle scheme where I'm at. Hell, plenty of the local councils where I'm based now have enclosed shelves on the sides of public bins so that you can leave your empty 10c cans there to spare people from having to dig in the bin.
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u/Express-Passenger829 1d ago
Good for you. It happened so frequently where I live that council withdrew the bottle collection point.
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u/2GR-AURION 19h ago
The 10c bottle program is relatively new here in Vic & is an excellent idea. Pay people to recycle & they will be more inclined to do it.
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u/jmwarren85 1d ago
Many issues.
- Recycling and waste streams are not standardised across the country. Some accept things that others don’t.
- Information can be quite confusing and contradictory
- Governments do little to educate, some just resort to pecuniary measures which results in either people just stopping trying or being overly cautious
- there’s a lot of misinformation similar to “it all goes to landfill anyway”
- some people just don’t care
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u/Express-Passenger829 1d ago
The public don’t believe that recycling actually happens in Australia. People won’t bother separating things if just gets put back together at the other end, or just ends up in landfill anyway.
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u/gonadnan 1d ago
If no one wants to buy it, it's rubbish. The problem is at the top with manufacturers making containers and products out of stuff that has no value, let alone able to be recycled. Container deposit schemes create a market that helps a bit but nobody is buying returned tetrapaks as a raw material.
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u/thedramahasarrived 1d ago
I see my neighbours put their rubbish in the yellow lid recycling bin all the time and nothing happens to their bins
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u/ChilledNanners 1d ago
Because people's thoughts are: "My single bottle won't make a difference, so why bother?"
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u/Even_Saltier_Piglet 1d ago
Where my mother lives in Sweden, she can get serious fines if she doesn't do it properly. They have about 10 different bins and a bunch of stuff that isn't collected, so everyone has to take it with them elsewhere.
Each bin that is collected has a bar code that they scan when they empty it. This is so they can charge for each time they empty it, as well as fine anyone who has put the wrong plastic in, etc. They check.
Things like plastic bottles and cans have to be returned to a store, and they can not be damaged. The machine has to be able to read the bar code, or you won't get any money back. The lid has to be screwed on the bottle.
Glas has to be separated by colour and carried (by bus or foot if you dont drive) to a collection station outside the supermarket. You don't get a cent back, but you can't throw it in any other bin unless you want a fat fine, so you better do it.
People are lazy, and without strict control and fines, they would never recycle properly. It is a bit of a joke that rates bo logner include garbage pick-up and you have to pay 7 different companies to empty 10 different bins at various intervals, but it works.
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u/Nanashi_VII 1d ago
While there will always be those who don't care at all, packaging also needs to improve. There are many items from the supermarket that I've noticed need to be broken down into multiple components and disposed of in different ways, which really doesn't help the issue. It should be simple.
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u/LiesOfSerpents- 1d ago
Because people are stupid. I routinely find people’s dog poo bags in my recycling bin if I accidentally leave it out for a bit after getting my waste bin. People can’t comprehend simple things like plastic bags full of dog shit aren’t recyclable, you expect them to sort their stuff?
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u/Similar_Strawberry16 1d ago
Yes, we can all agree people in general should do better, but why is the onus on the public to deal with excessive barely recyclable materials? Why aren't our governments being more productive in pushing for alternatives to mass plastic?
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u/Moodapatheticz 1d ago
because you could recycle for your entire life and then Taylor swift would get on her jet and go and get dinner and it would all be for nothing. I can see why people dont care. I try and do my part but im not gonna get bent out of shape over it when others dont. we were tricked into thinking we are the problem.
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u/Airline_Pirate 1d ago
If I reasonably expect it shoudl be able to be recycled, thats where I'll put it. Up to the recycler if they choose not to.
And at home, ill fill the recycling bin til its full, but since the council only collect it every second week, a lot of recyclables go in the rubbish when my recycling is full. That's not a me problem, its a council problem.
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u/freshair_junkie 1d ago
For as long as the recycling bin contents get loaded into containers and shipped thousands of kms away to get dumped on a Chinese beach, my take is to either burn it here or send it to the landfill.
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u/Effective-Mongoose57 1d ago
As someone who actually cares and does do my recycling properly, I’m (and all the rest of us plebs) also a bit sick of having to having to “solve” the pollution issues of the planet. How about the billionaires do their freaking part?!?!?
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u/Keebs3 1d ago
Don’t fall for the people shifting the blame onto the individual, it just moves the focus to the 1% of emissions generated by normal people and away from general structural changes and holding massive corporations accountable
I still recycle but can understand why people are disillusioned by it
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u/drunk-sloth 1d ago
Disposable coffee cups are NOT recyclable. Most people don’t think to check, even for things they try to recycle daily. And what incentive do they have to?
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u/universe93 1d ago
Neither are long life milk cartons. Somehow most of the public truly seems to think that paper and cardboard alone can hold liquids lol
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u/brezhnervouz 1d ago
If you put things in the wrong bin where I am, my local council sticks a large lime green signed and dated warning sticker on your bin. Which says that if you do it again, your garbage collection service will be stopped 🤷♂️
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u/wretchedRing 1d ago
My brother is in charge of waste collection for quite a large council. If you are dutifully sorting all your waste, you are wasting your time. It's all bullshit. Most (as in around 80%) of it will never be recycled. There will be no attempt to recycle it.
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u/Elly_Fant628 1d ago
A lot of people believe that it does no good, that the bins and the trucks all go to the same tip. That it's just a con. There was a documentary a decade ago showing that. I'm in Brisbane Metro and we just have normal rubbish and recycling bins. I've heard quite often even now that it's all fake, we haven't got the facilities to actually deal with the recycling.
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u/LiesOfSerpents- 1d ago
What I don’t get about this line of thinking, is have none of these people ever been to a tip?
Like I’m sure that some tips just throw all the stuff in the landfill and call it a day, but every tip I’ve ever been to has a recycling facility. Do people just believe these are there for fun?
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u/Ornery-Practice9772 NSW 1d ago
I havent been to a tip. At all. Ever.
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u/LiesOfSerpents- 1d ago
Lots of people haven’t, but I would figure you also don’t go around claiming that Australia doesn’t recycle.
To be fair, I’ve never lived in Queensland like the person I’m replying to, but they are definitely a thing in NSW, and Vic.
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u/Pepito_Pepito 1d ago
I was at an event at the Royal Exhibition building in Melbourne and all the yellow bins were full of red bin rubbish. I carried my glass bottle over to the Melbourne Museum which was literally next door and the yellow bins there only contained bottles. I don't know what made the difference in behavior.
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u/stevtom27 1d ago
Seen it at work people cant even get it right there in the kitchen putting paper towels in recycling, fruit in bin instead of organics, hell they cant even put dishes in the dishwasher and just leave it in the sink. People suck
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u/Quietly_intothenight 1d ago
I’ve had three bins in my local council area for over 20 years, but it took a while for updates on what to put where filtered through from council. Our ordinary waste bin is smaller than the other two so separating just makes sense. I just keep a waste paper basket in the kitchen near my rubbish bin to hold the recycling until I take it outside. Green waste is always full from about 1/3 of my lawn clippings so i just stagger that over the cycles (waste every week, green waste and recycling alternate weeks)
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u/Similar_Strawberry16 1d ago
Yes, we can all agree people in general should do better, but why is the onus on the public to deal with excessive barely recyclable materials? Why aren't our governments being more productive in pushing for alternatives to mass plastic?
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u/scrotes_malotes 1d ago
Because currently 1/3 of all our recycling ends up in landfill, which i guess is an improvement from pre 2018 when the majority was sent to China to end up in landfill over there.
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u/blucyclone 1d ago
Why can't corporations and factories start controlling their waste and using renewables when they are doing more damage to the environment than the general public? Education starts from the top. If the actual waste producers aren't doing anything, why should we expect everyone else to, because splitting your plastics is not going to counteract the damage from Gina's private jet.
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u/mediweevil Melbourne 1d ago
What I’m hearing from some workers is that there’s NO point if people don’t separate things properly.
what we're saying is that we know full well it all just ends up in landfill anyway, because there's no market for most recycled materials, so why are we bothering to pretend?
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u/finding_flora 1d ago
I’m surprised this is only just being implemented where you live! Adelaide and most towns within 50km have had 3 separate bins for at least 20 years. I think in general people are quite good at seperating recyclables and green waste from hard rubbish, it’s certainly not something that gets complained about!
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u/GothGirlsGoodBoy 1d ago
Dealing with work, mental health issues, study and other things in life, I have very little time that I want to dedicate to chores.
I’m not spending an hour reading a thesis on what goes into what bin and separating it all out, which would be extra stress and misery for a negligible positive impact.
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u/Dry-Huckleberry-5379 1d ago
I actually get really annoyed about all the public places we could have recycling and either don't at all or only for glass and aluminium Food courts where they've changed all their packaging to cardboard and wood because the government said they had to: but then the centre manager hasn't bothered to upgrade the bins so you can actually recycle the packaging.
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u/JournalistLopsided89 1d ago
i suspect recycling household waste is being caught up in the culture war. Anti-woke, anti-renewables, anti-recycling.
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u/ThrustmasterPro 1d ago
In the age of Big data, machine learning, blockchain, artificial intelligence why is recycling technology still in the stone ages?
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u/Emotional-Rub8215 1d ago
I've been staring at this for a while now, thinking, "How will I write this?" and I've decided to go back to the beginning and explain how it was not always like this.
I started out as a runner and sorter at an independent recycling yard in 1995. Back then it was so clean, and the money was fantastic for a first-time job, I was making $700 for a 50-hour week, double the minimum wage. Back then there were no wheelie bins, you placed your recycling in a black tub, a white bag, or a metal dustbin if you drank a lot. (The heavy drinkers the bottoms would fall out of the white bags before they got them to the curb, so they would invest in the old silver metal bins. My god, they were so heavy, full of stubbies.)
We often ran in pairs or more, one person would be loading the truck, and the second would run ahead to the next house and begin sorting, ready for the flatbed truck with skips on the back. The first skip would be paper cardboard we would sort that out on the curb and toss it into the front skip bin. Then in would go your glass and plastic bottles into one of the other skips on the back of the truck. (I was fit, running 40 km+ a day in quick shuttle runs and lifting 5 kg to 40 kg+ in a ground-to-overhead motion, as I'm short and the skips were above my head.)
It was so clean, if we did find 1/2 a cooked chicken, a nappy, or needles, we just emptied your garbage onto your lawn, took the recyclables, and moved onto the next house. You had a mess to clean when you got home.
We recycled everything that came to the yard back then. We sold bales of plastic PET and milk, no others. The cardboard paper and glass were all sold on to the recycling plants.
We didn't take soft plastics and bags, meat trays, etc. A lot of what they claim is recyclable now, and what they actually recycle, we did not touch. It was just 8 items that is all we really took. And the community knew and was really good about it.
(Had to post in 2 sections more in reply)
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u/Emotional-Rub8215 1d ago
Fast forward,
Big companies moved in Australia-wide. Winning contracts from councils pushing out small operators. we have wheelie bins and drivers detached from the sorting process they drop off and drive away. I'm no longer a runner I now sort full time. My pay is cut, I don't even work for the company. I'm hired via a work-hire agency now... At first it's still clean, but slowly things change.
It starts with lawn clippings and food waste slime with optional maggots, My green and white glass sorting spot is starting to smell.
I hear the Trommel guy scream out one day as the line stops, "Fuck this," and eerie silence as he walks off, never to return. You see the trommel sorts lightweight material as it spins, the heavy stuff falls down through holes. The paper and cardboard float up on an angle as they're spinning out the end to be manually sorted.
This day someone with twins had decided to load up nappies into the recycling bin, and as they broke apart in the trommel and baby shit smeared across the machine, coating the paper with baby butter goodness. The trommel operator just hit emergency stop and quit not wanting to deal with it. (The turn over of new employees would become amazing. A good 10% left after the first morning break hit, jumped in the car, and just left.)
Nappies would become a pretty constant theme to be honest, before I left in 2005. I'd go on to see literal dead PETS. Yes, add the S it's not just PET anymore. 7 black and white puppies, A giant feathered turkey, Even Medical waste glass jars marked adrenaline with plastic tubes coming out. The worst was cement or any fine particulate, Some of the automated sorting processes used suction.( a fanfare of OH&S Problems arose due to contamination issues)
Our plant manager always tried to do his best, but I feel curtailing to the whims of corporate over workers wins out.
For more context.
we were told we would see more crap in the next 3 months as the contract was up for renewal with the local council and the drivers had been instructed to take everything. Drivers can refuse your bin, and place a sticker on it. but that leads to complaints to the council. (Yeah, didn't see that coming. The entitled complain to council the workers suffer with more garbage.)
So the new normal became mass contamination they fitted arms on the machines so when it got real thick we could push out the conveyor belt and dump it all straight to garbage.
lines would stop more often, we sorted slower. Syringes! emergency stop!, We all ran round with kitchen tongs removing them from the conveyor belts. more than half is just flying off the end as garbage now on the paper line cause it's full of soft plastics, The machine was never meant to sort paper from chip packets or plastic bags.
The loss of accountability of dumping peoples shit out on their lawn.
The fact they wanted to pretend to be better by collecting more products they never recycled in the first place. (making a lot of it confusing when it says recyclable but we then don't actually recycle it and have to work around the new garbage)
All meant it became cheaper to mass dump than sort contaminated product.( they still made heaps of revenue from council rates right ?)
that all said i know #1(PET) and the milk #2 is still very profitable if you can make nice highgrade bales. why they don't go back to rejecting bins and accept the base 8-10 items Idk guess that's why i was the sorter not the big boss.
The silver lining I guess was we always got sent cash most likely by the same morons that sent us trash
(yoink that nice $50 note and crap ton of loose change that would build up at workers stations. Some days treasure came down the line and the plant manager never stopped us taking the odd thing)
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u/tr011bait 1d ago
I'll recycle metals, glass and cardboard, but not plastics. Plastics aren't as useful the second time around (due to some chemistry thing about polymers that I've forgotten about since high school). A lot of energy goes into transporting and processing and crushing and re-transporting used plastics that is often sent to landfill anyway because they're harder to offload to manufacturers. Recycling plastics makes us as consumers feel better but it'd probably be better off just being transported the once to landfill. Better to get into the mindset that plastics aren't really recyclable and we have to reuse them instead - or just avoid them as much as possible.
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u/antnyau 1d ago
Nihilism?
I guess it's because consumers seem to be left trying to fix the problem, whilst the government and manufacturers don't do much to help address the root cause. By that, I mean, primarily, much greater standardisation regarding packaging. Ban any unnecessary plastic and cardboard, make it clear for people to discern exactly what should and should not go into recycling by using contrasting colours and incorporating designs that minimise any residual residue (food, etc), and don't rely on people going to/using specialist recycling services as part of the model - most people will never do that, nor is it a reasonable expectation. Make it easy for consumers and those working at recycling centres by limiting what can go wrong from the start.
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u/ConceptofaUserName 1d ago
It doesn’t even matter, really. As long as corporations are allowed to run rampant, our petty recycling makes no difference.
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u/Superb-Chemical-9248 15h ago
Eh? We've had separate bins for years... Even most of the public bins in my area (City of Greater Dandenong) have been around for the best part of a decade and appear to be pretty well-used...
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u/bobbobboob1 12h ago
Because it ends up in the same place unfortunately we don’t have the industry to utilise the resources yes I drove the truck that dropped it in land fill
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u/Lucky_Telephone8638 10h ago
I get charged an additional 10c per bottle/can and have to recycle to get my money back.
So fuck everyone, I’ll cop the fee since it’s impossible to avoid but I’m not recycling out of spite.
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u/Hairy-Bandicoot1937 1d ago
Because it, gets processed, bagged, shipped over seas or stored on Australia and then magically ends up in a huge warehouse fire or in an overseas ocean and on our shores anyways, its a rort
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u/MsMarfi 1d ago
Nope. China stopped taking our waste in 2017 (look up Operation Sword). We are, quite rightly, no longer allowed to send our waste overseas. Councils are all transparent about what happens to residents' waste, perhaps you should have a chat to them 😊
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u/Novel-Truant 1d ago
We still send recyclables to Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam
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u/MsMarfi 1d ago
Yes, after it's sorted. I mean we don't just send shiploads of garbage overseas anymore.
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u/Novel-Truant 1d ago
Thats why I said recyclables and not garbage. In fact the person you replied to did not mention garbage, and pointed out that it gets processed before being sent. You're the only person talking about garbage.
And what tends to happen when a shipload of recyclables arrive in Malaysia? It tends to either end up in landfill, get burnt or its dumped into the ocean. Recycling in this country at least is a sham.
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u/MsMarfi 1d ago
Why would a country buy recyclables from another country, just to put it into landfill or dump into the ocean??? If they are burning it, it would be in a waste to energy facility, which is a great idea and much better than landfill. The materials recovery facility I work at sells aluminium and steel to various Asian countries where it is recycled back into aluminium sheeting and metal rods. Where's the sham?
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u/Novel-Truant 1d ago
Yeah metal, particularly aluminium, glass and paper are the easiest and most efficient to recycle, so I make an effort for those items, which Ive also mentioned elsewhere in this thread. The issues come with plastic. Thats why i dont really worry about which bin the plastic goes into. I also chuck greasy pizza boxes in the bin as they wont get recycled as they are considered contaminated. I never said they buy them from us, I expect that we pay them to take it under the assumption that these places will recycle them. Which they often dont. Dont blame the messenger, I dont make the rules.
Though, you seem to have a penchant for putting words into other peoples mouths so I wont be responding to you anymore.
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u/MsMarfi 1d ago
You don't know what you're taking about 🤣 Cookers gonna cook, I guess.
The Australian government introduced the Recycling and Waste Reduction Act 2020, which bans the export of unprocessed waste plastics, paper, glass, and tyres. These materials must now be processed or remanufactured in Australia before they can be exported.
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u/Novel-Truant 1d ago
Yeah everyones a cooker
https://www.breakfreefromplastic.org/2023/05/23/statement-australia-reopens-plastic-waste-exports/
Goodbye
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u/twocrowsdown 1d ago
I have watched (many times) people emptying bins by tipping the recycling into the non-recycling then take the whole lot away in the one bin. So why bother?
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u/Novel-Truant 1d ago
Is it true that the vast majority of recycling ends up in overseas landfill, or being burnt overseas, or being dumped in the ocean overseas?
From AI:
While systems and policies are in place for recycling and resource recovery, a substantial portion of material collected for recycling ends up in landfill—mainly due to high contamination rates, poor plastic recovery, and limited domestic processing capacity, especially for plastics.
Thats when I stopped caring. I will recycle aluminium, glass and paper. Thats about it.
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u/sylvannest 1d ago
Can we stop asking AI things like this. Who's to say any of that is true? Actually do some research and find those sources.
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u/Novel-Truant 1d ago
I used perplexity and it provides sources.
https://www.binmaster.com.au/australia-and-recycling-efforts-how-households-can-make-a-difference
https://minister.dcceew.gov.au/plibersek/media-releases/australias-latest-waste-figures-new-report
https://kab.org.au/australians-falling-short-on-recycling-targets/
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u/Master-of-possible 1d ago
Look up your specific council process.
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u/Novel-Truant 1d ago
Yeah I just did and it tells me that the waste is collected, sorted, and sold to make new products. Sure it does.
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u/2GR-AURION 1d ago
Coz recycling in Australia is a scam. The majority of genuinely recyclable refuse, hard rubbish collections included, is thrown in land-fill, regardless who puts it out or collects it.
Council Rates are ever increasing & most residents feel they get little for their Yearly Rates $$$ whilst expected to do more work for the council by washing out & sorting thru their own garbage.
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u/beastiemonman 1d ago
Laziness. I am hoping that robots will be perfected to sort rubbish. It isn't really hard to programme one to identify and separate on a production line. It is a job to gross for humans in my view.
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u/WeaknessCertain4685 1d ago
If you don't want microplastics in your body then don't recycle plastics [this is how most of it is created in the 1st place]
Don't buy stuff with plastic packaging!
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u/undergroundknitting 1d ago
Mate. I spent 10 years carefully separating recycling vs landfill only to find out my council was just chucking it all in landfill. So, that ruined it for me. Fuck that and fuck them. Its all going in the bin
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u/BusyUnderstanding330 1d ago
Yep. If there’s non-recyclables with recyclables straight to landfill.
We don’t do landfill properly, we didn’t do redcycle properly, people put Tetrapaks in the recycling because they assume they’re recyclable.
Most of it is around under-education, the fact that it doesn’t affect us directly but also remember that even ‘recyclable’ products aren’t often recyclable or recycled, as it isn’t cost effective as well as being ‘Big Oil’ propaganda so they can justify selling u recyclable materials.
Recycling, the way it’s done in Australia is mainly a scam for companies like Visy to make a dickload of money as well.
Our waste management is an absolutely joke all-round.
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u/Ancient_Skirt_8828 1d ago
Landfills take up a tiny, tiny proportion of our land. It's not a real problem but recycling makes people feel good.
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u/Ornery-Practice9772 NSW 1d ago
Started? Weve had 3 bins for over a decade in nsw. The general waste bin is smaller on purpose so the nappies go in recycling cause where tf else am i sposed to put them?!?
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u/Ornery-Practice9772 NSW 1d ago
Thats hard waste🤷♀️
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u/Ornery-Practice9772 NSW 1d ago
Fr? I thought they all did? Call a scrapper. Theyll take it for free. Thats how i got rid of my faulty fridge
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u/Thick-Access-2634 1d ago
Bc some people just don’t care.