Overheard my neighbor say he doesn't believe in recycling because 'it all ends up in the same dump anyway'

I was out watering my garden in Portland last Tuesday and heard him say this to his friend over the fence. It really got me thinking about how many people might share that view and just don't talk about it. Has anyone else run into this kind of thinking, and how do you even start a conversation about it without getting into an argument?

2 comments

2 Comments

chen.casey23d ago

Man, that's frustrating. Here's the thing nobody talks about - recycling is mostly a scam run by the plastic companies to make us feel better while they keep pumping out single-use garbage. But that doesn't mean you should just toss everything in the trash. It actually matters more for the stuff that DOES get properly processed, like aluminum cans and cardboard. Tell him to look up how many times a beer can can be recycled and come back with a straight face.

jamie_white23d ago

Yeah, I just read something similar the other day. Apparently aluminum cans can be back on the shelf in like 60 days if they're recycled right. That's way better than plastic which basically just gets downgraded into something else until it's trash. But yeah, the whole system is a mess, most of what we toss in the bin ends up in a landfill anyway.