Last week I hit my 500th recycling drop-off trip

I keep a tally on my phone of every time I take recyclables to the center instead of tossing them. Last Tuesday I crossed 500 trips over about 6 years in Portland. It just hit me how much plastic and cardboard I've hauled around, but I also wonder if it even matters with all the news about recycling programs shutting down. Has anyone else kept track of their own small efforts and felt conflicted about whether they make a real dent?

3 comments

3 Comments

violar351mo ago

but like do you actually track what kinda stuff you're hauling or just the trip numbers? cause i feel like plastic vs glass vs cardboard all matter differently depending on your local center's rules. portland's pretty good about recycling compared to some places i've lived, but i heard they still send a bunch of stuff to landfills. what percentage of your loads do you think actually gets recycled vs just burned or buried?

sean_cooper581mo ago

man 500 trips is wild, props to you for actually keeping count lol. @violar35 brings up a good point about the plastic vs glass thing because I've def noticed my local center here only takes certain plastics now and it changes all the time. I mostly haul cardboard and aluminum cans since those actually seem to get processed, but I've got a whole stash of plastic containers in my garage that I'm too paranoid to toss or recycle because I can't get a straight answer on what they do with it.

jenny471mo ago

My husband and I have been doing the same thing here in Denver for about 8 years now, and I've got a little journal in my kitchen drawer where I jot down what we take each month. It's gotten to be a sort of ritual, but I can't help noticing how many people in my neighborhood just toss everything in the regular trash because they say it all ends up in the same dump anyway. I think that kind of thinking spreads like a weed, and pretty soon you've got a whole community feeling like their effort doesn't count, which makes it even harder for recycling programs to work. That's the bigger pattern I see, how one person's disillusionment or laziness can quietly chip away at what others are trying to build together. It doesn't mean your 500 trips are wasted, but it does make me feel like the real change has to come from more than just our own car trunks.