> I reached out for clarification on various policies - what about bonded plastic + paper, how clean, mixed plastics in bottle assemblies, unlabeled products, etc and they weren't able to answer.
If you want to get the real answers to these questions, you need to reach out to the organization that hauls your trash and recyclables. Bonus if they also operate the sorting, but either way, they should know.
California has high targets for solid waste diversion, in genreral and for specific categories. [1] I don't know how many sanitary districts meet 2011 AB341's policy goal of 75% by 2020, but in light of that goal, I don't think San Jose is an outlier within California. With high goals, the trash haulers are doing extensive sorting, figuring out what items are common in the garbage stream and finding ways to recycle them.
It is a function of priorities and volume though. Where I live now in WA, there isn't enough volume to justify a lot of effort in diversion, especially since there's no state mandate making it a priority. It's easy and not very expensive to send everything on a train to Oregon, so that's what happens.
> Where I live now in WA, there isn't enough volume to justify a lot of effort in diversion
Big cities generate enough volume in waste that an automated sorting plant is a win. There's some interest in mini recycling plants, but not all that much progress.
Agricultural areas that put plastic film over fields as a sort of greenhouse generate square miles of plastic film waste. That's worth recycling, because they have to collect it anyway and what's collected is mostly uniform plastic film.
Yeah, I don't live in a big city, but we're sort of close. It seems like it might make sense to ship to a nearby big city operation, but I guess once you're shipping, may as well go out of state.
If you want to get the real answers to these questions, you need to reach out to the organization that hauls your trash and recyclables. Bonus if they also operate the sorting, but either way, they should know.
California has high targets for solid waste diversion, in genreral and for specific categories. [1] I don't know how many sanitary districts meet 2011 AB341's policy goal of 75% by 2020, but in light of that goal, I don't think San Jose is an outlier within California. With high goals, the trash haulers are doing extensive sorting, figuring out what items are common in the garbage stream and finding ways to recycle them.
It is a function of priorities and volume though. Where I live now in WA, there isn't enough volume to justify a lot of effort in diversion, especially since there's no state mandate making it a priority. It's easy and not very expensive to send everything on a train to Oregon, so that's what happens.
[1] https://calrecycle.ca.gov/StateAgency/Requirements/LawsRegs/