The Brian Lehrer Show

I've recently moved to the bronx and I am the ONLY person on my block to recycyle!! How do you think recycling can be made into something everyone does? Do you find that certain areas recycle more than others? Is this a socioeconomic issue?

On the US City Sustainability List, we rank #6:

Top 10 Greenest US Cities *

1. Portland, OR

2. San Francisco, CA

3. Seattle, WA

4. Chicago, IL

5. Oakland, CA

6. New York City, NY

7. Boston, MA

8. Philadelphia, PA

9. Denver, CO

10. Minneapolis, MN

What's up with that? We're richer by far than any of these other cities, and we can't even get it together to sort our recycling in an efficient, consistent way.

The top 3 cities also COMPOST. They're way ahead of us.

http://www.sustainlane.com/us-city-rankings/

I live in NJ, but I work in NYC. Currently I bring all my bottles and cans home because my office doesn't recycle. THe whole building doesn't recycle. It's a huge 40 story building. How come they don't making recycling mandatory? Think of all the recyclables going, literally, to waste!

What are the city's plans with regards to on-street recycling? I.e. a bin next to trash containers where pedestrians could recycle the millions of water bottles (and other refuse) that are otherwise thrown out.

Is it really OK to mix cans, glass and plastics or should I be separating them?

I too have been recycling EVERYTHING, or so I thought. Take out containers from wanton soup, plastic tops and the aluminum tins from take out. Aluminum foil when it's done being used. All this is mixed with the glass, plastic soda bottles, aluminum cans because I thought that it was supposed to be in there. Did these foreign objects mixed in with the desired recycleables hinder the process and thwart the benefits of recycling?

I recently was investigating my companies recycling practices and went to the recycling plant that we employ to take care fo our office buildings recycling. This place, Sprint recycling, takes all plastics 1-7. If they can create and maintain a profitable business with customers from around the globe taking a majority of what the city would classify as trash and recycle that, why can't the city?

What about compact fluorescent bulbs? They are highly toxic (containing mercury), yet the city does not provide recycling for these bulbs while at the same time encouraging the public to use them.

Please get your facts right. Yogurt & margarine are #5 not # 2.

what about my neighborhood, the lower east side, that DOES NOT recycle? any plans?

It says on the nyc department of sanitation's website that the MTA temporarily attempted to place recycling bins at subway stops and that they determined that it was not worth the extra cost because people did not use the bins correctly, however what was the length of the trial period and what was the education that went along with it?

Wendy, actually some yogurt and other wide mouthed containers are from #2 as well (as per the NY department of sanitation's website) http://www.nyc.gov/html/nycwasteless/html/waste_faq/waste_faq.shtml#plastics

Hello,

Did you just mention that TVs can be thrown in garbage? I have a TV stiing in my driveway for so long because I don't know what to do with it.

Any comment is highly appreciated.

Thanks,

recycling is a good thing but i think we need to stop the making of these plastic containers, or any other material that cannot be disposed of properly and without doing damage to the enviornment. time is running out for our planet to make the changes needed to save it for the future.

can you post an mp3 of this segment? it sounds really interesting.

Terra, there is an mp3 to listen to and download... just scroll on up.