The Biggest Deterrent to Recycling is the Recycle Centers

[FreakinDJ]

Just came back from the Recycle Center with my 11 year old son. Wanted to teach him a valuable lesson in Recycling and Earning money on his own.

I have him clean up the Milling Machine and Lathe at night and save all the chip. This is all Billet 6061 Aluminum – the chip is what comes off the tools as is cutting/milling it. Plus a lot of cut outs and rejects.

He washed it all down to make sure it was clean aluminum. Stored it up for a couple of weeks until he had 50+ lbs.

Even though the price is clearly posted @ $1.60 / lb they come up with some lame excuse they will only pay $.05 / lb – after they dumped it in the hopper.

Not worth the gas to take it down there. From now on it goes in the garbage as always



(photo added on edit)

[Oregone]

1. A good way to make people recycle is...

just pick up the garbage every other week. One can, max. Since we moved to BC, we went from recycling virgins to pros, or otherwise, our trash bin would overflow. You don't get paid to recycle here in the CRD, but it pays to recycle in that you don't have to store old garbage, hoping you'll have room in another two weeks. It becomes a way of life.

[kestrel91316]

5. I thiink that's a great idea. In Los Angeles, however, it would have people

rioting in the streets.

Sigh.

[Retrograde]

14. my town does something similar

Palo Alto, CA, charges about $40 a month for the bare-minimum one can service but they'll cheerfully pick up as many recyclables as you put out - mixed paper, glass, plastic, cardboard, compostables. IOW, if you're going to take up that ever-decreasing landfill space you're going to pay for it.

[Warpy]

15. I have a large rolling container provided by the city

and I need to put it at the curb only once every month. Even then it's not usually full, just reeking.

I've cut way down on my recycling by buying in bulk and making my own sodas with recyclable C02 canisters, reusable jugs and syrups. Since I only buy the local right wing fishwrap on TV supplement day, I can go at least 3 months per grocery bag of paper to recycle. Plastic stuff is about the same.

Curbside recycling is great. All my neighbors do it, I've noticed, and most of them are as infrequent with the garbage bins as I am.

[Oregone]

19. "Curbside recycling is great. All my neighbors do it"

Yeah, but every two weeks certain neighborhoods look like landfills from every house on the block putting masses of recyclables on their front curb/lawn. It only lasts for a few hours, but its kind of funny.

[Warpy]

26. I don't give a shit how it looks

as long as it WORKS.

The bad news is that paper and plastic are fetching such low prices that they're probably ending up in the landfill, anyway.

[panader0]

2. $1.60 is a good price. Aluminum cans here are .25c per pound.

Not long ago, even when gas was high, aluminum cans were .60c. At .25c, it's barely worth the trouble of saving, storage, plastic bags and gas for the truck. Ridiculous.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. Please do not throw it in the trash.

OK, so they're cheating you out of the money you should have gotten...

But the lesson your son is getting is that recycling is only good if the money is good. And you know that's not true, don't you?

Recycling needs to be done, no matter what amount of money you get.

Mining aluminum costs a lot more than making new things with old/used aluminum. As you no doubt know already...

Please continue to recycle...

[Orrex]

6. My small city cut back to once-per-month recycling pickup

The argument is that it's not cost-effective, despite state laws that make it mandatory for cities our size to recycle.

Citizens are instructed to use the various recycling sites, with their big blue dumpsters. Fair enough, but those dumpsters get dumped maybe biweekly, and they fill up by Monday morning of the first week!

You're absolutely right--the lesson should be that recycling is a good act unto itself. But it's a shame that some cities and recycling centers make it such a pain in the butt!

[ColbertWatcher]

7. California Peggy is correct. Next time you bring recycling in bring a camera crew.

Call the local TV station and have them go with you.

And call your local BBB and ask them to investigate the business practices of a company that posts one price, but pays out another.

[FreakinDJ]

9. I know CA Peggy is right

But until Calif Lawmakers are willing to address this issue I’m afraid it is a Net Loss for me to even attempt to sort, store, clean, and recycle the Aluminum.

This is Clean Pure Aluminum – why should Recycle Centers be allowed to play “Bait and Switch” and the expense of some one trying to do the right thing?

All the municipalities in the area have “Out Sourced” all the collection centers. I’m afraid there does not exist a legitimate alternative

[ColbertWatcher]

29. You're right.

Does your city have a recycling program?

Where they pick up stuff once a month?

There's got to be a way for someone to take that off your hands and pay the going rate for it.

[Orrex]

4. That sucks, but...

Our local recycler pays different rates depending on how the metal comes in. Cans fetch one rate, for instance, while aluminum scrap gets another rate. I can't guess at the specifics or the justification, but there you have it.

Still, $0.05 per pound sounds like they're ripping you off.



What are you making on the lathe, by the way?

[Believing Is Art]

8. We have curbside, which is both good and bad

It's great because it is as convenient as possible, and they will take pretty much anything. Aluminum, steel, paper, cardboard, plastic, glass, even some types of styrofoam are acceptable. I hardly have any garbage anymore.

But we actually have to pay for it. It's not much, like 17 bucks a year. I figure the money we'd get if we took it to a recycling center is going towards keeping the cost of curbside recycling low.

[FreakinDJ]

10. Curbside pickup would not know what they are looking at

Like I said these are Cut-outs, Rejects, and the Chip off the tools.

Its pure Aluminum - but it doesn't look like a can

[earth mom]

11. You are the reason why our planet is in trouble. You are going to just dump that shit

into a land fill so it can eventually poison rivers and streams because there's no money in it for you?!!! :wtf:

News flash for ya: Recycling isn't about profit for YOU or anyone-it's about saving the planet and environment we all live in! Get a fucking clue!!! :grr:

edited to add: I can't believe more DUers aren't jumping all over this dudes ass about this!!!

[FreakinDJ]

12. From looking at the picture did you know what it was

do you expect the people working in the assembly line at the reclimation center to readily identify it also

Even if I place it in the Recycle can (which is what I have been doing) I'm sure they can't readily identify it and place it in the landfill themselves.

The only way this material is recycled properly is at the recycle center where it can be placed in the appropriate bulk aluminum dumpster

[earth mom]

13. Then recycle it and do the responsible thing. It's not rocket science. But you know that. nt

[hedgehog]

25. The aluminum isn't going to poison anything, although the remnant

machine oil on the chips might cause a problem.


Come to think of it, machine oil shouldn't be rinsed down the drain.

[BlueCollar]

30. The OP said the aluminum was washed

Aluminum dumped in a landfill is non-toxic and will eventually corrode and break down.

Unlike yourself I'm not about to make stupid accusations.

perhaps you should get a clue before you make baseless arguments?

[hedgehog]

16. According to my resident technical expert, prime metal - ingot aluminum is down to $0.60 a pound.

What you have might be worth $0.20 a pound to someone who could both identify it and segregate it. Otherwise, a nickel a pound is the going rate.

[FreakinDJ]

21. Why is chip less then Ingot

The chip came from the Ingot. Its not like wire with insulation on it, or dirty with grease or paint on it

But yes it was washed and scanned with a magnet before we took it down there.

[hedgehog]

22. In order to make an ingot, aluminum prime ingot and/or scrap metal

is melted (without burning the metal) and the melt is homogenized, filtered for impurities and any alloy changes made. Then the ingot must be cast without any cracks or surface defects. The ingot must be reasonably uniform in grain size and alloy content end to end and side to side. The aluminum you buy to machine includes the cost of labor and energy plus profit to make an ingot. The aluminum chips you sell are only raw material for a finished ingot.


On edit - Part of the weight of the chips you are selling is oil, water and oxygen on the surface of the metal. The small chips tend to burn or oxidize because they have a large surface area to pound of material. When melted down using the best techniques, only about 80 pounds of aluminum is recovered for every 100 pounds of material going into the process. When melting ingot, about 99+% of the metal is recovered.



BTW - a good part of the weight of recycled cans is actually paint, not aluminum. The cans smashed into a bundle and sent to an aluminum recycler. There the bundle has to be torn open and shredded. The shredded cans are then baked to remove the paint before going into a melting furnace. So you can see why the price per pound of cans is well below the price per pound of aluminum ingot.

[tammywammy]

17. In my city, you get a recycling bin they pick up once a week

Plus, you're now teaching your son you should only recycle if there's good money in it.

[Contrary1]

18. Many years ago, a city in Arizona tried this:

Anyone who did not separate the recyclables from the regular trash paid more for pickup.

The city (can't remember which one) provided two large trash receptacles per house. Regular trash went in one color, recycles in the other. They had a specially designed one man trash truck that went around picking it up. The driver never left the vehicle. He operated a claw, of sorts, from inside the cab that deposited it in the proper bin. The program paid for itself in a few months.

I don't know if the town is still doing this after all these years, but it sounds like a good alternative to me. Don't feel like recycling? Then you pay more because you are costing more.

I take my recycles to a local grocery store parking lot. They have several large bins for that purpose.

[Synicus Maximus]

24. Where I live they do just the opposite

If you separate your trash for recycling you get to pay more for the pick up.

[Name removed]

20. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[scarletwoman]

23. "...a valuable lesson in Recycling and Earning money on his own." How about the valuable lesson

of doing the right thing simply because it's the right thing, and not because you make money from it?

sw

[W_HAMILTON]

27. I don't doubt that.

We had been recycling for years, using those blue plastic bags to put our recycling in. I know plastic bags are evil, but I figured they recycled them as well. Well, recently they gave us open bins to put all of our recycling in. They said we don't need to sort anything anymore, because "a machine does that for us." Well, we recycle quite a bit, so the container ends up overflowing, so you have to worry about the wind throwing recyclables all over the place; or when it rains, everything getting soggy and then you have to bring back in a wet container.

It seems like they are trying to make it harder on us. We live in an area that gets a decent amount of rain and a good amount of wind, so open containers don't seem the best idea. Between that, and some other decisions they have made, it's like they are trying to discourage us from recycling.

[high density]

28. We had the open containers and they were a pain in the butt

They were too small plus all of the problems you mentioned. Since then we've moved to 55 gal containers that are like our trash receptacles. They're picked up automatically with the trash, dumped in a different bin on the truck, and then sorted by people and machines at the recycling facility. Everything is dry and it has to go to the curb much less often than the smaller tubs we were using.

[RadiationTherapy]

31. Recycling is a bullshit pat on the back. We need to conserve. We need to CHANGE.

Every "solution" I hear to every "crisis" has to do with somehow staying the same.

I don't give a shit about recycling anymore. There is still so much waste, consumerism, traffic, and whiny assholes who don't want to live simply - I don't try anymore.