The waste pros have a lot to say about recycling. But the technical aspects such as determining the percent of actual aluminum in my Hershey wrappers is above my pay grade. I don’t care about making certain I remove the bottle caps from the bottles because for some unknown reason the don’t melt at the same temperature.

Recycling is nowhere near as effective as it’s supposed to be. The bureaucrats aren’t sincere, and neither is the public.

We have one large dumpster for the entire town. The dumpster is supposed to be collected once a week by Waste Management but no one knows if Waste Management will show up.

The recycling folks show up with their carefully sorted and packaged plastic, cardboard and newspapers only to return home because the dumpster has been packed full.

I live close to the dumpster so I’ll stop and slide one of the doors open to see if it’s been emptied. Last week I made 6 trips to the dumpster before being able to recycle. Finally I saw all the clues indicating the dumpster had been emptied. I raced home, loaded all my stuff, and raced back. When I got to the dumpster 3 cars were in front of me and the dumpster was about 20% full.

Moral of the story: The folks are eager to recycle, the bureaucrats and the recycling industry are not. This unholy alliance raises its ugly head once again.

Tim Houghtaling, San Marcos, FL