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My street hit a 60% recycling rate for the first time this quarter
Our neighborhood group in Tacoma set a goal to cut trash by half in a year, and we just got the city report. Seeing that number felt huge after months of sharing tips on composting and fixing stuff instead of tossing it. We even had a swap meet for old tools and baby gear that kept a lot out of the landfill. It's a tiny win, but it makes the big picture feel less hopeless for a minute. Has your area tried anything similar that actually moved the needle?
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lilyp372mo ago
Did you see that article about the apartment building in Portland that got rid of their big dumpsters? They gave everyone a smaller trash bin and a bigger recycling one, and just that switch made people throw away 40% less stuff almost right away. It's like the setup itself forces you to think about it. Makes me wonder if our whole city would go for that, just changing the bin sizes. Your swap meet idea is way cooler though, that builds community too.
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the_jennifer2mo ago
Actually the Portland program gave people smaller trash cans but didn't change recycling size. The key was making trash space limited while keeping recycling free and easy. It forced people to sort better, not just recycle more. Your point about setup changing behavior is totally right though.
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parkerbrown22d ago
My buddy in Portland told me about this exact thing last month. He lives in one of those older apartment buildings near Hawthorne, and he said the first week after they switched bins, his neighbor was trying to stuff a broken chair into the tiny trash can like a game of Tetris. It's wild how just making trash space smaller changes your whole mindset, even if you don't think about it at first. I guess we're all just lazy by default, so we do whatever takes less effort. Simple psychology, really.
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