I am curious as to what Buffalo Rising readers feel regarding recycling in the region. Over the last few weeks I’ve heard concerns that Buffalo is not doing enough as far as recycling goes. I’ve been wondering if that’s because the individual resident is not doing his or her part, or is it the system? I’ve been hearing horror stories that the majority of office buildings don’t offer recycling. I recently heard from a resident living at a nearby hotel that there was no recycling offered, and complaints went unregistered. The restaurants around town throw away mass quantities of wine bottles. My girlfriend’s mother has no recycling options in her apartment building, and the landlord apparently could care less. Some people are still adamant that they have seen garbage trucks dump recycle bins into their trucks on the West Side. The list goes on and on.
So what’s rumor and what’s the truth? It all depends on whom you talk to actually. Are we on top of our game, or is there an inherent problem within the system? How do we really figure out what’s going right and what’s going wrong? To me it’s completely baffling. I want to think that I’m doing my part by separating my bottles and paper. Is it all for naught, or are people just being paranoid? And do we even think about adding increased recycling measures (wine bottle, Styrofoam, etc) to the list, or do we fix the low hanging fruit first in order to fine tune the process?