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My previous employer just put signs on all the trash cans that they were processed for recycling after collecting. That always sounded like bullshit.
It’s called “single stream recycling”. We have it where I live. I wish I could have confidence in any recycling these days. Too many stories of separated trash all ending up in the dump anyway.
The problem is that mixing everything means massive contamination, so only metal is going to really get pulled out.
Only the metal should be pulled out. Plastic recycling is a scam invented by the bottling companies and there's not a single plastic bottle that couldn't be replaced by paper or aluminum. Even the plastic lines cardboard cartons use less plastic overall.
There's plenty of paper that could get recycled as well that can't in a single stream. I agree plastic going to a landfill is better though.
Plastic can be burned and be used for urban heating.
At the very least, paper is renewable and biodegradable.
It doesn't really degrade in a landfill though. Industrial composting is something I wish was more popular though, that would probably reduce my actual trash by about 50%.
I actually separate my burnables and compost the ashes, but I understand that most people can't diy that. I think Japan has separate receptacles for burnables.
Japan separates burnable stuff like paper and food waste from the non-burnable plastics and styrofoam type things. I believe they end up burning both though, but with different methods or temps or something like that. Metal and electronics etc doesn't go in with the rest of the non-burnables. The only plastic bottles they separate for recycling are the PET kind.