1 out of 10 people have read and care about the rules. The rest do not care, are not interested and will blame someone else for the inevitable disgusting mess they themselves create. Sad but true. Accept this now and save your sanity.

OP must be an absolute joy at a party.

You live in a world class city now. You are just going to have to get used to a few things like neighbors that don't recycle or occasionally seeing a man stick his bellend into an empty milk carton for a piss.

Come down to Tacoma, where pizza boxes go in the recycle.

Meh. The rules have gotten so complicated it's easier to just throw everything in the regular trash. And as for composting, within a week of trying it my kitchen was infested with ants and fruit flies, and I'm definitely NOT about to run to the curb every time I want to throw away a banana peel.

People don't give a shit about anyone but themselves. Even progressives. As soon as you accept that a decent percentage of people are shitty, the easier life will be.

It's a little ridiculous how much they want us to play with our trash. I have a small apartment and the dumpsters are up 3 flights of stairs. I will not compost. Sorry, the garbage is for garbage. I try and recycle as much as possible (cans, bottles, cardboard boxes) but I'm not going to drive myself nuts making sure my garbage is up to the city standards.

Like all things in life, there is a cost/benefit analysis done. I really don't think my extra food waste in the garbage is stopping the planet from recovering. People really over estimate the savings/impact of recycling.

@5: The grease on pizza boxes means it would take more chemicals and energy to reuse the material than it's worth. So, compost.

As for unwanted furniture, I very much appreciate those who do not Goodwill anything riddled with bed bugs. You never know.

Creative geniuses must not be bothered with menial, organizational tasks.....

Last night, I saw a homeless guy take a shit behind the dumpsters into a paper bag, and then put that bag into the recycle bin. It should have gone into the compost, but I'm not touching that.

Having recently been an apartment manager in the U District, I can assure you that the level of ignorance, apathy, and laziness displayed in regards household waste is staggering. A few confounding common occurances I was left to deal with:

- Cigarette butts in recycling, yes
- Composted food items tied up in a plastic garbage bags and put in the compost bin (without a doubt the worst thing thing to resolve)
- Milk jugs half-filled with curdled milk in recycling
- Snotty kleenexes in recycling
- Entire wardrobes of nice clothes/shoes as well as books, housewares, etc in the garbage instead of being donated (usually international students returning home)
- Dozens of clean cans or bottles tossed in garbage instead of recycling, which was 2 feet away

This isn't even touching on the more nuanced things, like no drink bottle caps in recycling or taking the stickers off banana peels... forget about that!

No degree of "education", email reminders, pictorial notes taped to doors, threats of fines, nothing... nothing would ever solve this problem.

Honestly one of the reasons I quit!

Renters don't give a shit.

Stop snooping thru your neighbors garbage, you nosy lunatic!

This post is Seattle distilled into a single paragraph - an anonymous passive aggressive complaint about recycling etiquette.

I laugh when I see how many people throw recyclables into plastic garbage bags. The recycling centers here in Colorado don't even open them up and go through them... they go straight into the trash.

Doesn't matter how many times you tell people not to put recyclables into plastic bags. They're ignorant and oblivious.

@17: No - this not a your typical elitist lefty Seattle social engineering thing.

Look, if it doesn't pain you to to see crap being buried in our landfills or a plastic six-pack tie thing around a duck's beak then you're not a good citizen.

@18: beyond even that - people put paper sacks full of mixed recyclables in their recycle bins. EMPTY THEM INTO THE BIN. this isn't hard. you just have to read the instructions.

oh, and milk cartons go in recycling, you dumb lazy fuckers at my office. it's right there on the sorting chart.

BTW, the furniture abandoned on the street? Bedbugs.

Burn it.

The worst thing is "enlightened" locals who throw EVERYTHING in recycling, thinking they're valiantly doing their own small part to save the planet.

Don't even try to reason with them.

Recycling is confusing, but it's the compost that should be so easy a child could do it: NO PLASTICS ALLOWED. Easy right? Yeah, people still throw everything in compost. Welcome To Wall-E World.

@13 Actually, it's my understanding that all feces should go into the garbage because of the potential for disease. (Animal and presumably human.)

So no composting or recycling for you, homeless pooper.

@13 - and you stuck around and watched, apparently.

@26 - A homeless person shit in the alley and somebody saw it, therefore it happened.

@actual 26 - I assume you meant me @25. I was noticing that @13 stuck around and watched what the guy did with it when he was done.

For @7 and others having the same problem: if you have the space, a compostable bag in the freezer can hold a good amount of compost. Take that out once or twice a week, replace the bag, and voila: no flies!

Granted, it's been twenty years since I was a renter, and we didn't have the option to recycle in those days, but there's really no motivation for it, since renters don't (directly) pay for garbage and it's all considered commercial waste.

If you own a house it's a whole different matter. Garbage is expensive, so it behooves one to either compost or recycle. Since they went to compost in the recycling bin it's been amazing to see how much we have diverted from garbage.

Now if we could just find a way to save on sewer fees.....

is anon's name oscar by any chance

You really want to do your thing to save the planet? I mean REAAALLLYY WANT WANT?
STOP. BREEDING. Life is parasitic by nature. 2 jobs: Consume resources and make more consumers. No amount of recycling can compare to the impact of having less people wagging their dicks and tits around.

@31- Why not do both? I had a vasectomy 15 years ago AND recycle.

*pats self on back