Showerthought: My town's 'green' recycling program is mostly a lie

I got so mad seeing our bins go to the same landfill truck that I tracked one for a week. Turns out our local center in Springfield only processes about 30% of what we sort, the rest gets shipped out and often dumped. The fix? I cut my plastic use in half by switching to a milkman-style glass delivery for basics. Anyone else found a local program that's actually honest?

4 comments

4 Comments

kelly6382mo ago

Tracking it for a week is wild, but not surprising. When you say your local center only processes 30%, is that number from their own reports or did you have to dig for it? I'm trying to figure out how to get real data for my own town.

seth_singh202mo agoMost Upvoted

Honestly @kelly638, it's always buried deep.

riverw172mo ago

Found it buried in a budget meeting transcript from last year. They never make it easy, do they?

the_wesley1mo ago

Check the meeting minutes for your city council or county board. That's where I found the real numbers after hitting dead ends on their main website. Had to search for "recycling facility throughput" in a PDF from a public works update. Like @riverw17 said, it's always buried. My local one had a line item showing 28 tons collected vs 9.5 tons actually processed, which is how I got the percentage. Took some digging but it's all public record if you know where to look.