Vent: my neighbor said my recycling bin was 'wishful thinking' and she was right
I used to toss pizza boxes, greasy takeout containers, and plastic bags into my blue bin every week, feeling good about it, until my neighbor Karen watched me wheel it out and asked if I actually knew what happens to contaminated loads. She works at the MRF in Fresno and told me one greasy box can send a whole truckload to the landfill, so I started rinsing everything and keeping a small bin for the stuff that can't be recycled. Has anyone else had a neighbor call them out like that, and did it actually change your habits or just annoy you?
Funny how the people who bother to say something are the ones who actually know how it works. The rest of us just sort our stuff into bins and assume the city handles the details, which is kind of how we treat a lot of things. We trust the system is doing what it says until someone who works inside it tells us otherwise. Same deal with food labels, fire alarms, all that "check the battery" stuff we ignore for years. Karen did you a favor even if it stung, because now you're one of maybe five people on your street doing it right. Most folks won't hear it from a neighbor though, they need a sign taped to the lid or a fine in the mail.