They don’t make money on what’s in the can, they make money on what you and the city pay them to pick up the can.
We have a "town run" recycling center. Plastic, glass, tin/alu cans, cardboard...they all go to the recycler. I don't get particular about plastics...too many classifications and the near invisible little embossed icons on each item isn't conducive to an efficient sorting, let alone do I know what any of those symbols mean. Paper, food cartons/wraps/pkgs, etc. go in a kitchen trash bag. "Wet" food and meat packages get well rinsed. ALL food debris from prep/leftover gets tossed off the balcony. I ain't frickin' composting. "Buzzards gotta eat, same as worms." For the last 12 years, I haven't paid stupid monthly money to have someone pick up the kitchen bags on the curb. I burn 'em on any of several huge piles of natural vegetative debris that I create from deadfalls. These fires burn for days (it's the size of 'em) and the heat pretty much incinerates any kitchen/household debris that gets tossed in periodically throughout the burn. No burn? Once, I loaded the dually, drove to the dump and unloaded it. Paid by weight. I did this when I couldn't coordinate a burn of deadfall. The kitchen bags had been accumulating for a year or more with no smelly decomposition odor cuz I don't put food in the trash. That load weighed 640lbs, I paid $40. As to electronics and tires...and styrofoam. Tires, gotta pay for disposal - I won't burn 'em. Three dozen takeoffs collected over the past 4-5 years was just under $100. Why three dozen? That's how many fit in the bed of the truck without securing them. Electronics, or any disabled electrical tool/appliance gets piled after I scavenge them for any potential use of their components. It's a slow building pile, will have to make a trip to the dump...some day. Styrofoam, for the few times that I get backed up with it and the relatively low volume of it, it burns. $140 for the last twelve years of garbage removal? Yeah, recycling kinda works for me.
Regulation usually takes up the void created by unpriced externalities. It’s a difficult problem to solve. Price and the market are the best way to determine cost and value, but externalities definitely exist and have measurable societal costs. Burning trash for power seems to be one of the best solutions VS recycling IMO.
It’s highly dependent where you are. Toss food debris out your window on the street in an urban environment and you bring out the rats. Burn trash in a barrel in an urban environment and you’re a cold Chicago hobo.
60 Minutes Australia did a piece on their recycling problems. Sad to think how bad it's going to be for the couple generations if we don't start fixing it now.
Recycling basically depended on dumping the shit into countries that lack the environmental laws we have here which allowed us to feel good while the world was desecrated in far-off lands. Things changed. Glass is trash. I recycle paper and cardboard because it's the easiest way to handle it. I don't save aluminum cans anymore but when I did I always threw the steel cans in with them. That creates a job for some kid down at the transfer station sorting out the steel cans from the aluminum. Just my way of giving back.
At current scrap prices around me (.38 cents/lbm), the number of cans to get that $6 burger would be over 500. Factor in the gas to get to the scrap yard, another 120 and that's not round trip! All in the can cost of that $6 burger equals ~25 cases of beer. We don't drink soda in our house so that'd have to be made up for in beer. Challenge accepted.
Sure, spread out over a long enough time and that doesn't seem like a lot, but I like to eat more than once a year.
