Junk Mail

[cjsmith]

Sunnyvale has an "approved method" of recycling junk mail. It is this.

1. Put all the junk mail in a sturdy paper bag such as you might get at a grocery store.
2. Put the bag in your trash container and put the container out at curbside.
3. Their hand-sorters will go through all the trash at the dump and sort out your junk mail for recycling.

Some questions come immediately to mind. Do they WANT the junk mail flying like confetti all over the interior of the garbage truck as soon as the trash container is upended? Just how well-sealed is my kitchen garbage bag? How much do these sorters get paid??

[Poll #481647]

Comments

[dr-scott.livejournal.com]

The idea that someone is looking through every bit of our garbage is creepy. I can't believe it makes economic sense -- no doubt it's motivated by heavy penalties from higher governments if they fail to reach their target percentage of recycled trash. Since I assiduously recycle, I'd prefer inspection-free garbage and lower bills.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

*nod*. Lots of government-mandated stuff doesn't make economic sense. :-/

It's creepy in more ways than one, too. I have a litterbox... I seal that stuff up, but I have no illusions about the strength of those bags versus the forces within a truckload of randomly-shaped objects.

[rfrench.livejournal.com]

OK, I called the recycling center to get the real answer. Yes, it gets contaminated in the truck. They don't have a great solution right now, they're just trying to make it a little less contaminated. All bags are ripped open for sorting at the dump. Sealing the bag would help it not get contaminated in the truck, and is thus a fine thing to do. There's no advantage to writing anything on the bag because they rip it open anyway.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

OK, I called the recycling center to get the real answer.

That's cheeeeeeeeeating!

...but thanks. :)

[drdaly.livejournal.com]

For the past year we've been here in Oregon, we've dutifully separated out our recyclables based on the strange, mystical, and occasionally ambiguous city guidelines. A month or so ago I happened to be around when they came by to pick up, and I watched as they dumped everything together into the back of the truck.

It turns out that a sufficiently high percentage of citizens either don't bother separating, or do it incorrectly, that it's just easier to collect it all and sort it at the plant.

Why they don't tell us this is a good question. Perhaps they think that if people *think* they're making a difference, it's just as good as *actually* making a difference.

I think recycling and trash collection should be privatized anyway, but that's another story...

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Same thing happens at my workplace. We have recycling bins and trash bins, and when the cleaning staff shows up they throw everything together.

I believe Sunnyvale's recycling and trash collection is done by a private company, but I now can't find a reference confirming that. Darn this vague aging memory anyway. O'course, the city contracting with one company is not the same as (say) having competition.

[hanov3r.livejournal.com]

I'm in the middle of _Inside the Spam Cartel_ which, while fanciful in some places, has me thinking about privacy issues. I *hope* that you're shredding your junk mail before it goes in for recycling...

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Some of it. Anything related to accounts, statements, bills, or offers. Of course, much of the bulk is stuff like catalogs.

Anything that has only my name and address I don't shred -- half the time I think my address is already public so there's no need, but the other half of the time I think I can't be too careful. Do you shred anything at all that has your name and address on it?

[kennita.livejournal.com]

I don't, partly because my mailing address is not my physical address. Also, the junk mail I get doesn't generlly have privileged information in it. As soon as I see an account number, though -- into the shredder it goes.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

That last is true for me too. When I was cleaning up this past weekend, I used the shredder so much that it started smelling bad. (I had quite the backlog of stoopid things like "Use these credit card checks before May 15 and get n.nn rate".)