Pro tip: Our lounge chats made me rethink plastic bottle bans.

Hearing different opinions here changed my mind on how we handle waste.

3 comments

3 Comments

Wait, nobody talks about how confusing rules make people give up. If sorting feels like a test you keep failing, you just toss everything and hope. Maybe the real problem is we need systems simple enough that nobody can mess them up?

brooke_miller1mo ago

Ugh, the broken glass thing is a perfect example, but it's not really a flaw in single stream itself. That system can work, but towns cheap out and don't get the right sorting machines at the facility. They just give out bins and hope, which is the real failure. It needs the whole setup, not just the simple rule for us at home. Making it easy for people is pointless if the back end can't handle the mix.

xenaroberts1mo ago

Watched our town's recycling center try single stream collection last year. They gave everyone those big blue bins, told us to just toss everything in together. Ended up with a mountain of broken glass mixed in with paper and plastic. Made the whole load useless. Sometimes fixing one problem just gives you a fresh new problem to figure out.