yes especially in denver - where recycling is a total joke - I mean I even think now htat they just toss the recycleing in the ocean on it's way to china - but I grew up recycling so it amazes me that denver does not even try to recycle - if you live in a building of more than 7 units you don't get recycling - what the heck is up with that?? and zero waste - we have a zero waste store over by the natural grocers on tennyson and 38th - it's good in a lot of ways but I agree with you that there really is no zero waste living in the city. If I was in the country living totally off the land and using up eveyrthing I used and not shopping, well then maybe, but there just is no zero waste living in the city...
My building thankfully has recycling, which it didn't for the first several years I lived here, but yeah - Denver's recycling rates suck. Just because I sort it correctly doesn't mean it's actually recycled, what with a) people putting things in that don't belong ALL THE TIME like plastic bags which contaminate the load; b) most glass in the single stream is so destroyed by the time it gets through they don't recycle it but use it as landfill liner; and c) China not taking our plastic to recycle anymore.
Which is why I try and reduce as much as I can, but am not perfect.
I tried to get my building to sign up for composting service, and their response was no, because they were afraid it would attract the mice. But the mice are attracted to rotting food in the open dumpster whereas if we had a compost bin, it would be sealed with a lid. But the dumpsters are not where we see mice, they're in apartments, they said, and people's collection bins would attract them. Well same argument - their trash can or leaving it out on the stoop (which they do) would attract them, and the little bins in our apartments WOULD HAVE LIDS. But still no. I compost in dual buckets on my balcony. Never had mice.
yea my building has over 7 units so I have to take my recycling to arvada which is just way out of my sphere so it piles up in the kitchen. When I worked at home depot and just saw how much stuff got thrown away everyday I knew that this is the Denver way -
Yeah before my building opted to pay for the service (we have like 50+ units, so we're not in the city system, either), I used to carry my bag of recyclables to work and dump it in their bin. LOL. Everyone thought I was nuts, but I don't have a car and I was determined.
I used to work at HD too. I still take CFL bulbs there to recycle, and have cans of paint I bought from the returns shelf where a quart was $1 and a gallon was $5. It's mad how much paint gets returned (I used to work the returns desk). Had a guy once return over $300 worth of paint because he had left it in his trunk overnight in subzero temps and it froze. Well no shit, Sherlock, what did you think was going to happen? BUT THE MANAGER TOOK THE RETURN. I was like ...someone's dumbassery is a valid return reason? OK.
that is the kind of crap that has ruined us as a culture - when the bottom line is so important that we reward people for doing dumb shit instead of letting them learn something and be responsible next time - I saw at home despot and at king stupids and slave-away - all my crappy jobs...LOL - but back to recycling - yea I used to take my recycleables to my friends purple bin in Longmont - till she got sick of me -