Also, it all goes in the same pile in the skip in the end anyway.
As an occasional paper-collector: Migros bags are better because they're easier on the fingers than string.
where I live you pay for "standard" household trash as well as plastic, though you can choose to separate the two. There are different trash bags for the normal stuff and plastic.
You pay nothing for glass, paper and cardboard. We actually have containers for the latter two in our building which they pick up once a week, so I don't even have to tie up the paper and cardboard. Can't say I'm unhappy about that
No one is enforcing this, but it'd be fairly stupid to keep paying by throwing everything into the same bag when a fairly significant part of it is actually free of charge. Since I've started separating, I've actually saved a bit of money and don't have to take a bag out every few days (particularly due to the ridiculous amount of newspapers and advertisement I get every day despite having the "No Werbung" sticker).
They will search your trash only if you've disposed of it incorrectly and/or didn't use the right bags as in those you actually have to pay for. I've never heard of anyone being fined for throwing paper into a standard bag, and on the off chance that does happen, it's certainly the absolute exception rather than the rule.
Around here, we NEVER pay extra for the bag!
Tom
And here, no collections at all, and we pay by weight - wonderful. It vertainly concentrates the mind, for sure, and I have 8 very active compost bins.
This isn't the Sahara. You've obviously never tried to lift a filled wet bag.
when I was a kid, and until not very long ago- part of the funding for school trips, ski trips and other extra-curricular activities- where paid for by twice yearly collection of those neat, tied with string, paper parcels. In the 50s- with the Père Berthoud and his horse and cart (the one used for funerals too) - and us kids running from door to door to pick up said parcels and throwing to the line of kids to the cart, then neatly piled on top. A couple of days a year full of fun rather than sitting on school benches - hurrah.
Now that so much paper is advertising and different sizes, and because of creeping 'elf and safety- + kids growing hair in their palms- this is no longer the case. But yes, picking up a wet paper bag full of wet paper - does NOT work- for sure.
I think it's not just that. Newspaper paper, if you could afford the subscription price, was often used as toilet paper or to wrap stuff (what plastic is now used for), as a ground to put the freshly shined shoes on, to cover the gaps in these wooden boxes , to faster dry your wet heavy leather shoes, etc.
So yes there was less supply but also more demand/uses (relatively speaking). As a result collected paper had a positive market value whereas today it needs to be subsidised to make collecting wort the while.
... and window cleaning, with vinegar
My commune left all my bags filled with paper on the road. According to the lovely note left behind, the paper shopping bags from the Migros/Coop are to be recycled with cardboard, not paper, because of too much ink.
I was a little annoyed.
We have paper collecting only every 2 months, and they left my neatly filled bags behind because the bags have too much ink.
No such problems here, you just live in the wrong part of the country!
Tom
Have you moved to Sicily?
The note left in our mailboxes for the whole building said it was because of the glue, not the ink. The newspaper has far more ink, I would guess...
In Belp, we recycled newspapers in shopping bags. In Winterthur, we tie up paper in bundles and recycle shopping bags with cardboard.
I like to go to the big recycling center and toss all my paper into the big bin. No ties needed.
Every week though, someone try to tosses drink boxes and cardboard boxes full of styrofoam and plastic in the cardboard bin. The trash collectors separate it out and leave it in a pile......i hope it‘s not the same person.
How do you explain the tied plastic bag with compost inside in a compost trash than? I guess it is illegal to do it because who will remove the plastic stuff away?
The first step in the recycling process is to dissolve the paper in water. Contrary to ordinary paper, paper bags are somewhat water resistant and dissolve much less easily so it tends to clump and clog the filters.
However, probably the important aspect is the fact that paper bag fibres haven't been bleached. That leaves them brown and makes them stronger and longer than those of ordinary paper. Depending on how it's processed afterwards that distinction may matter, or not.
It's like Gravensteiner and Golden Delicious - both are delicious apples but still they're clearly distinct.
simple to explain - one of your neighbours is a lazy idiot.
But now-a-days, isn't the newspaper ink fake?
Ok but then in that case it is NOT the ink as Helm was told when they refused to pick up her papers. Instead it's the composition of the paper and the glue. Fair enough.
I bundle my paper appropriately now, and place in paper bags to haul out to the curb. Then I remove the bundles from the paper bags and stack nicely with all the other bundles, like a good little Swiss.
What I wrote above is what I managed to memorize and what survived a few years of dwindling memory, it's what made and makes the most sense to me. I don't claim for it to be comprehensive, even more so when waste handling is a communal task first and a regional/cantonal one second, so requirements may well change by region as well as over time.
That said and though it would be unusual for Helm, there may be more to her story. It seems she had used paper bags before, and without any issues up until then, so perhaps something changed.
What has that to do with this thread?