Why is recycling not done at the level of the dumps themselves by professionals as opposed to individual people?

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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

13 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

This is done in some places, it’s called “single stream recycling”. it doesn’t scale as economically, so it’s more common in rural areas where the fuel costs to send two trucks to your house isn’t worth it, or vacation areas where visitors don’t have time to learn all the local rules.

SSR benefits from the facts that machines are great for extracting metals and plastic isn’t really recyclable. They can snatch out the metal and glass, often just burning the rest for power or dumping it in a landfill.

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