Disheartening

[janelane]

How do we know what we think we are doing is getting done?

My mother works in the special ed department at a high school. She was telling me last night that although there are recycling bins around the school and they tell the kids to recycle their bottles and paper, at the end of the day it all goes out back into the same trash dumpster because the district simply won't (or can't as the case may possibly be) pay for it. This pretend game of using recycle bins for what is really trash bins goes on at all the schools in the county and the BoE. When I think about just the amount of reusable paper alone being chucked into a landfill because of this it makes me cringe.

It just makes me wonder, how many other things are run like this? How do we know our recycling is really being recycled or our "green" products are truly safe? It's very disheartening, to say the least.

[earthymom]

Wow. That is disheartening. But I don't understand why recycling would cost the district anything. My place of employment recycles aggressively -- but we make money from it (not a lot) but some.

Could it be the BoE doesn't get it sort of like the people/stores described in the reusable grocery bag thread?

[IntlMom]

Wow! Just wow, that's so frustrating. Sounds like the school board has a case of "do as I say, not as I do". What a bummer.

[geckoace]

our trash service does "single stream" meaning it all goes together but it is actually recycled (except for glass apparently) and it SAVES the city money

[Momto2Boyz]

I caught the custodian at my son's school doing this same thing. So I called him out on it. He says they simply said that Waste Management (the company here who collects garbage/recycling...and so happens to be the employer of my DH ) won't give them a second bin for recycling.

Hmmmmmm...I told DH this, he talked to his manager, and was told that the school district had never asked for recycling bins, so they had never been delivered. But that they are free to anyone at no extra cost.

So, I called the Ed. office, told them this and told them to call and who to talk too. Within 2 weeks, they had the bins. I think sometimes, people assume that just becuase things aren't hand delivered on a silver platter, they aren't do-able! One phone call is all it took!