People are always expected to recycle themselves, but wouldn’t going through the garbage be easier in the dumps themselves to sift all recyclable waste from non-recyclable waste and sending it to the appropriate places be a more efficient and reliable way of doing things? Is this being done in any country, and if not, why not?
In: Earth Science
Essentially, *you* are being used as “extra help” when you’re being asked to recycle/separate your garbage.
Imagine the level of effort that the garbage people would have to expend if everyone just dumped every type of waste together, and we dropped it off into a big pile. The job of separating types of waste *within* a type of waste (say, kicking cans or bottles out of *other* recyclable waste) is quite the effort already. We have some automation that can *help*, but most is still done by hand.
The effort of separating the *sheer volume* of organic waste from *the mind-boggling volumes* of recyclables would be a gargantuan tasks nowadays–hence, asking the generators of waste to at least *try* to help out on their end is more efficient.
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