Recycle or charity for the poor

[bornagainbiking]

Citys make money off the recycle program. This was set up so the beverage companies would not have the responsibility for the collection of their products. They set up the blue box systemand washed their hands. Just pay an annual fee to the program.
People used to get a deposit on pop bottles or the boy scouts had bottle drives.
In Nova Scotia there are local private vendors that collect beer bottles at a reduced rate and eliminate the collection of "garbage" or (germs) from the retail locations.
In New York they they have giant machines mounted in grocery stores that count, collect and crush pop cans, 16 oz and 2 litre plastic bottles and give a in-store credit to redeem. I see people with shopping cart's full feeding the machine.
So are we far behind.
Today in the Star:
"Within the next few weeks, The Beer Store will install bottle-return machines – for LCBO wine and spirit bottles – at two stores in Toronto and one in Brampton, in a pilot project that gives consumers a chit they can use against the cost of their next Merlot. And, this week, Canadian Springs, one of Canada's largest bottled water suppliers, jumped ahead of the debate on banning plastic water bottles, by offering a 25-cent deposit return for its 500-millilitre single-use bottles."

If we were install depots or machines that collect, crush and count cans, bottles and cups would it be such an insult to let peple derive some income from collecting the refuse. I have people going through my garbage for metal, wine bottles and cans. We pay garbagemen(people) and parks staff as part of their duties.
I believe that it is less degrading to collect bottles and cans then to force them to panhandle on street corners looking for hand outs.

[SteelTown]

There's this guy that literally bikes across the Mountain collecting pop/beer cans or glass bottles, he has like a newflyer attached to his bike.

[geoff's two cents]

My first time in Toronto, I was struck by the sheer number of pop bottles and cans washing up on the lakeshore. As a Vancouverite, it simply does not make sense to me that there isn't a deposit on bottles and cans. Not only are recycling bins downtown Vancouver a lot more common than in Hamilton or Toronto - Even many garbage cans have these little shelves built into them to hold cans so that people who make money off them have easy access. What an easy and relatively painless way to keep the city clean, and give the unemployed or homeless a means of subsistence to compliment social assistance or lack thereof. . .

There are a lot of things I like about Ontario vis a vis BC, but recycling here is positively archaic. Apparently, however, so I hear, the situation is similar in many parts of the eastern US.

[adam]

In NYC, I was surprised that nobody recycled. When I asked a few people, they weren't concerned in the least with the lack of recycling bins. They told me it was good to throw cans and bottles into the trash because homeless people would always go through them and return them to the recycling plant for cash. I think our system is far superior. It provides actual jobs.

[SteelTown]

Many cities in the states don't have recycling programs, some can't afford the system. They usually provide a drop off centre but really no one collects their recyclables and drives to the drop off centre.

Hamilton probably has one of the greatest recycling program in Canada.

[MsMe]

In NYC, I was surprised that nobody recycled. When I asked a few people, they weren't concerned in the least with the lack of recycling bins. They told me it was good to throw cans and bottles into the trash because homeless people would always go through them and return them to the recycling plant for cash. I think our system is far superior. It provides actual jobs.

Plus it educates us on learning how to treat this earth more green.

[geoff's two cents]

Hamilton probably has one of the greatest recycling program in Canada.

How so? Compared to other cities in Ontario, perhaps? The paucity of recycling bins (even at McMaster), coupled with the number of bottles and cans in downtown garbages is - well - not one of the city's stronger points, vis a vis other provinces anyways. Even among students in the PhD program in my department at Mac, most of them have no idea how to recycle, and routinely toss recyclables in the garbage - even if a recycling bin is close by.

You can check out Ontario's bottle-refund inferiority here: http://www.bottlebill.org/legislation/canada/ontario.htm

"Ontario is the only province without a strong producer responsibility policy. Instead, it relies on a municipally funded curbside recycling system for most beverage containers and an industry funded deposit-return system for beer containers. All containers except beer… are recycled through the Blue Box. There has been a major ongoing battle over deposits in Ontario, with soft drink producers and grocery retailing companies resisting deposits."

Information on deposits in other provinces can be had here:
http://www.bottlebill.org/legislation/canada.htm

[drpgq]

How so? Compared to other cities in Ontario, perhaps? The paucity of recycling bins (even at McMaster), coupled with the number of bottles and cans in downtown garbages is - well - not one of the city's stronger points, vis a vis other provinces anyways. Even among students in the PhD program in my department at Mac, most of them have no idea how to recycle, and routinely toss recyclables in the garbage - even if a recycling bin is close by.

You can check out Ontario's bottle-refund inferiority here: http://www.bottlebill.org/legislation/canada/ontario.htm

"Ontario is the only province without a strong producer responsibility policy. Instead, it relies on a municipally funded curbside recycling system for most beverage containers and an industry funded deposit-return system for beer containers. All containers except beer… are recycled through the Blue Box. There has been a major ongoing battle over deposits in Ontario, with soft drink producers and grocery retailing companies resisting deposits."

Information on deposits in other provinces can be had here:
http://www.bottlebill.org/legislation/canada.htm

I think Steeltown means the household Blue box recycling.

Mac has historically been pretty mediocre on recycling. I remember a story years ago in the Silhouette where a reporter followed one of the recycling trucks and found that they went to the same place as the garbage trucks and no actual recycling was being done, the program was a sham.

[geoff's two cents]

:previous: That occurred to me as well. I was responding with the theme of the thread in mind, though it does seem easy to confuse municipal recycling with bottle deposits - recycling culture in general, if you will.

. . . In which case, Hamilton's municipal recycling doesn't fare badly against Vancouver's. I'd say the two are almost identical - There are some items Hamilton accepts that Vancouver does not, and vice versa.