EV experience so far

Originally posted by offgrid I agree that there should be regulatory controls, but the burden should be on the manufacturers not the public. If they're producing a product they need to be responsible for it cradle to cradle.

 

What you're suggesting is what is done in the EU with E-waste with one exception. The waste is not just sent back overseas to where it came from, because the EU has no jurisdiction there. The importer/distributor that brought it in that the EU countries can go after has to deal with it. There is a long history of developed countries dumping their waste in undeveloped countries with no regulations. Or worse, it never gets there but gets dumped in the ocean instead. There are giant Sargasso Seas of plastic in both the Atlantic and Pacific now and that stuff didn't get there by accident....BTW, the EU has recently implemented plastic waste regs too, including a single use plastic ban.

And only a few recyclers take 5 so I wouldn't count on that being recycled either.

I agree that there should be regulatory controls, but the burden should be on the manufacturers not the public. If they're producing a product they need to be responsible for it cradle to cradle.

One intriguing thing is to look at rates of recycling by state. Maine has the highest rate at around 72 percent based on whatever criteria the study I looked at used. VW wins the booby prize at 2% based on the same criteria. So there's something like a 36x difference between the two. That's crazy. No one recycles in WV basically. Most states are somewhere in the 20's it 30s.

Which makes you wonder how VW can be so dang bad at recycling. Can't be just because it's very rural since Maine is really rural too.

I would guess that it's because there aren't community programs making it convenient and expected to recycle. Most people I think will do it if its easy and your neighbors do it too.

Here in SWVA which probably has a similar recycling rate to WV, if you show up with your own grocery bags thats weird. Half the time I go to the transfer station the recycling bins are full and everything is going in the dumpster except cardboard. There's no awareness of the benefits of recycling to the community or the environment.

When we lived in CA not only was it easy and expected to recycle but you really didn't have much of an alternative. The gray waste can they emptied weekly would only fit one 13 gallon garbage bag, maybe two if they're not too full. Nowhere to put any more unless you went to the transfer station and paid a fee (or found a dumpster when no one was looking). Meantime you got a full size blue recycling can plus a full size green waste can. And now a little brown food waste can. You paid for paper bags at the grocery store and ppl thought it was weird that you didn't bring you own. No plastic grocery bags.

So there doesn't really have to be any kind of law that says you have to recycle, you just need to make it easier than not doing it, and get the message out that it's something your showing pride in you community by doing it.

i pay a good penny to get mine picked up........i think its time to invest that money in the market.  jon

   I beleve all Walmart stores has the soft plastic recycling bins as you enter their stores. We collect all our soft plastic ( plastic bags, bubble wrap, and plastic wrapping ) and drop it off in the Walmart plastic recycle bins. I don't know how much gets recycled but my thinking is the plastic will hopefully be kept in one location and if it can't be recycled now hopefully it will be in the future. There are companies working on ways to recycle plastic I watched a program on TV that a bacteria was being researched that would eat the plastic. Hopefully someone will find someway to process the plastic to make use of it or destroy it because I don't think there will be a substitute for plastic anytime soon.