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Recycling in New York: Urban Myth?
At a Super Bowl party yesterday, a highly unscientific poll of attendants revealed that the vast majority of these New Yorkers worked in offices or lived in apartment buildings where recycling was essentially a ruse. That is, offices would have clearly marked bins for paper, plastic, metal, and trash, but at the end of the day the cleaning staff would come and mix everything together. A similar thing was recorded in large apartment buildings. When those polled inquired why carefully sorted materials were ultimately piled in together as trash, they were told one of two things: (a) we can't recycle here; (b) trash collectors re-sort the stuff we just un-sorted.
This poll was prompted by a lawyer friend of ours who works for the City and who said he was fairly certain that the City doesn't actually recycle -- that it's all a charade, including the (very real) fines people receive for NOT recycling.
I don't believe in such a massive conspiracy (NYC's recycling website has video and everything!), but the overwhelming number of people saying the same thing about their workplaces and apartments is strange. Businesses in New York have to use private companies for waste disposal and are required by law to recycle. So what gives? Do private collectors pretend to recycle? Does ratting out offending businesses work? Or is our sample skewed? Is this all an urban myth?
Posted by carrie on 02/05/2007 | Permalink
Comments
Wow. That would be amazingly difficult to pull off if it was all a hoax, But of course, I can easily believe that lots of folks have figured out a way around it to save time, money, and effort.
Also, how does one actually get in touch with you all? I have a "blog tip" but your mail is apparently not good... has been returned twice. --Daephex
Posted by: Daephex | Feb 5, 2007 6:10:46 PM
Carrie, why are smart people like you going to parties for stupid jock shit like the Super Bowl. If I wanted to see latent home stuff like football - with a bunch of men rolling around each other, patting each other on the ass, and then taking a group shower together (Tight end! Wide reciever! Put it in the endzone!) and pathetic male fans all but jerking themselves off to players ("I have him on my FANTASY team!) - I'd would have joined a frat back in college.
You're too good for that shit.
Posted by: KingsLeadHat | Feb 5, 2007 6:25:29 PM
I was told the same thing happened in my office building - that everything was put in the same place and sorted later.
Posted by: Erica | Feb 5, 2007 9:00:58 PM
I live in rural Mass and work in a significantly suburban town nearby. There are recycling ordinances in place, complete with hefty fines. Everyone recycles. Bins are neatly placed by the sidewalk in front of every home that has trash pick-up. Those of us who use the transfer station are routinely checked by staff to make sure we're sorting correctly. I do not know of a single business that actually recycles based on my informal polling and direct experience. Trash and paper and cans and bottles in businesses and offices are collected in their seperate bins inside the building and then co-mingled for disposal. This includes disposal of unwanted products in town and public buildings.
It's obviously an east coast conspiracy.
Posted by: fred | Feb 6, 2007 7:50:12 AM
I'm in Pittsburgh and I've heard the same thing...that they mix all the garbage together or that the city can't afford recycling right now so the recyclables just go to a separate landfill for now in the hopes that they will someday be recycled.
I don't know what to think. I imagine that if the separate landfill or other scenarios were true that we would hear more about it. On the other hand, I can't help but wonder if it's just a smear campaign started by anti-environmental conservatives. But typing that out sounds just as outlandish...or does it?
Posted by: Kelly | Feb 6, 2007 9:39:37 AM
Football is awesome.
Also, Carrie, good tip...maybe email the Daily News or NY Post so they can follow up. It'd be a good story!
Posted by: Jersey Girl | Feb 6, 2007 11:28:50 AM
I am totally inviting KingsLeadHat to my Super Bowl party next year.
Also, the office building I work in has a big campaign going to get people to recycle "office paper." But when you check the list of things they can't (or won't) recycle, it's pretty much everything except plain white paper. Paper towels, napkins, colored paper, cardboard...you're out of luck.
Posted by: Timmy Mac | Feb 6, 2007 11:30:05 AM
King's Lead Hat was Eno's anagram for Talking Heads - did everybody know that but me?
Posted by: Holland Oats | Feb 6, 2007 4:20:33 PM
Read Garbage Land by Elizabeth Royte. She follows the trail of trash (and recycling) in NYC from start to finish. The recycling seems to be pretty real, but not a great system overall.
Posted by: Noah | Feb 6, 2007 4:21:02 PM
As far as I can tell, it all gets mixed together where I work. I've never even seen people try to separate the recyclables, and the people who collect the trash just put it all together. But the trash in our building where we live is kept separate.
P.S. We would've watched the super bowl but we live on the 7th floor and get no TV reception.
Posted by: Andrew | Feb 6, 2007 9:42:30 PM
The recycling myth is a myth. There are people in every city who swear their city doesn't recycle.
Hmmm, so maybe the myth of the myth is a myth.
And Hall & Oates were once asked "Which one of you is Holland Oates?"
Posted by: Dwight Hewson | Feb 7, 2007 9:24:50 AM
From what I have seen in the UK, good intentions do not always stretch as far as the businesses at the end of the chain. For example rubbish from my local Government was being exported to Indonesia, some of it ending up in landfill!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/real_story/4493728.stm
Posted by: Iain | Feb 7, 2007 10:25:07 AM
Noticed the same thing at my office. I was told that the recycling contractor the building uses separates everything themselves. 95% of what we throw out is office paper, so probably they just pick out the random garbage and recycle the bulk of it. Or not. Maybe Chuck Scarborough or Kaity Tong could go undercover and find out.
Posted by: Damian | Feb 7, 2007 6:59:04 PM
I don't know what exactly is going on in New York, but it's common for local gov'ts to keep the signs of recycling going while the process itself is stalled or stopped completely. Sometimes their budget gets tight and they can no longer pay for a service once provided, sometimes the market for certain materials changes and isn't cost-effective anymore, etc. This is all in line with recycling's main purpose of allowing people to feel better about doing little to significantly change their lives as consumers.
I also recommend Elizabeth Royte's book. Focuses specifically on NYC.
And I'd rather spend three hours drinking beer and watching football than think I'm too good or too smart for that "latent home stuff".
Posted by: Hauling Secrets | Feb 10, 2007 4:48:58 PM
I have been trying to get recycling going in my office and find the same thing. Supposedly, the building does not recycle, and my company would have to pay for the service. We go through so many bottles, cans, and paper...it drives me crazy what a waste it is...I have brought the recycling back home to my apt bldg in Brooklyn as a result!
How can we get action going on this!??
Posted by: Janie | Apr 16, 2007 5:28:45 PM
Mayor Mike is now touting his new plan to, using the latest and somewhat dated buzzword, "Make New York a sustainable city" with the new congestion/driving tax initiative and currently still is not even attempting to address the basic issue of trash and recycling. Recycling in NYC is wyswyg. How many recycling plants are in NYC that process and and render post consumer waste? Zero. How many recycling bins do you see on the street, in the parks, in subway stations? Pretty much none. You think that people down at the dept. of sanitation are sifting and sorting out plastic and glass etc. from the tons of commingled garbage before it gets shipped (all of it) down to landfills in Virginia? Hummm? (You think that's air you're breathing?). Tons and tons of recyclable material from NYC gets dumped into landfills out of state (all the landfills here are closed) every day. We are living under an expensive and huge myth that there is anything even resembling an effective and comprehensive recycling program in New York City and vicinity. Time to start uncovering this and protesting I think.
Posted by: Duane G | Apr 21, 2007 10:52:46 AM
Recycling in NYC is a marriage between the mob and politicians. It shows precisely how powerful the influence of the mob was. The power produced recycling laws and fines forcing businesses to pay the mob. Its modern day extortion that with the help of corrupt politicians was made legal. If a business doesn't pay to have their garbage removed by "waste management" companies then they have to pay even bigger fines. Either way you pay the mobsters or the gangsters. Take your pick.
Posted by: roy | May 13, 2007 4:59:09 PM
I live in a huge building and tho we have a garbage can for recyclables in our compactor room I have been told that maintenance eventually just mixes the whole thing together which means that we as a building may not even have a separate pickup for recyclables - something traceable and worth investigating. I hear stuff going down the chute lots of times and I hear the cans and the glass. It is up to everyone's efforts to make recycling work. People have to get used to it and want to do it. As for my office, I have to admit that I constantly throw paper in the garbage and the garbage goes in the garbage. We do have separate recycling for paper but on a huge floor there are only two collection spots. We don't recycle plastic or glass in our office in NYC. We still use styrofoam cups.And the funny thing is that we have a huge green initiative going on in terms of how we invest. ultimately it comes down to human efforts regardless of if it is a person running things or just a common citizen - everyone needs to follow thru. It should be more stricly legislated.
Posted by: PJ | Jul 28, 2007 8:20:02 AM
In fact trash from commercial premises (such as office bldgs or stores)is usually collected all in a bunch--recyclables and trash, but the law in NYC requires that the hauler separate it or bring it to a recycling operation that can separate it. in fact, with the cost of tipping at a landfill now so high, and the resale value of most recyclables pretty healthy, a hauler who does not do this is at a distinct economic disadvantage. this doesn't mean that all follow the law religiously, but it is a strong incentive, and in fact the recyling operations now thriving in nyc show that the tonnages handled are very high.
This doesn't mean all participate, or that all do it equally thoroughly, but there is a great deal of commercial waste recycled each day in New York, and this was not so only a few years ago.
for residential waste, including apt. bldgs, the Dept of Sanitation is of course the hauler, and IF the bldg puts out the waste separately--as is required for residential waste--it is reycled pretty assuredly. these public programs are audited with some frequency.
recent surveys of the residential waste stream show that only about half the residents of a typical neighborhood recycle. those that do seem pretty good about keeping things separate and putting them out at the right time in the right containers (yes, this includes many maintenance staff of big apt bldgs). but for those who don't, and they are--you're right here--too many, it may be that nothing short of summonses and violations will work. the City has been reluctant to take this approach, but it may have to.
Posted by: brendan | Aug 7, 2007 5:50:25 PM
I really hope that we are all doing our part to at least help the environment. I am visiting my family at a new location in LI, they just moved from Queens. Never recylcled at the old location, very much in to the process at the new as the Sani Cops are visible. The program is a pain, although worth it, I live in Howard County, Md where all items are mixed for recylables, easier, by far. I do my part, hope others will do theirs, although I doubt that it will be universal.
Posted by: Curtis | Dec 26, 2007 2:46:20 PM
Recycling in NYC is not a myth, thousands of tons a day of paper, metal, glass and plastics are collected from residential sources by the hard working men and women of the Sanitation Department, hauled to NON-mob controlled recycling processors, and recycled. I have seen it thousands of times with my own eyes.
Commercial recycling is not perfect, and needs improvement. Before getting too bent out of shape regarding what you witness at your office, bear in mind two things. First, since the vast majority of recyclables generated by offices are paper and cardboard, offices, by law, are only required to recycle paper and cardboard, not cans and bottles. Second, it is certainly possible, of a businesses waste is 90% or so paper/cardboard, that they don't ask employees to recycle, and that the valuable paper is sorted out and recycled post collection. Feel free to be dubious about how effective this is, but don't blow matters out of proportion with conspiracy theories related to sham recycling or organized crime.
Finally, to report problems in your office or residential recycling, go to www.nyc.gov/nycwasteless. There you can read a great deal about the real, true actual recycling that goes on, posted by those of us who work hard every day to make this not so simple activity work reasonably well (not perfectly).
Posted by: Samantha | Mar 18, 2008 4:48:50 PM
