[SerenityRick]

Originally Posted by upthesaukee

We go to the dump...er landfill...er transfer facility (terms used to describe the place over the years)...once a week. Our facility is open on Fri, Sat, Sun, and Mon, excluding holidays.

We recycle plastic, glass, tin cans, aluminum cans, paper other than cardboard which includes chipboard such as cereal boxes and like material, and cardboard. We have separate areas for larger metal, electronics, construction materials, and other things.

Personally, we have separate bins at our house for cans, glass, cans, and paper. Makes the recycling process quite easy.

SerenityRick, what you may not realize is that the recycling done at your facility is undoubtably the same as it is in Alton: there are monetary proceeds that the transfer station receives for the recycling. Speaking for Alton, this recycling significantly reduces the operating costs of our transfer facility. It is more than "what is good for the economy", but has to deal more with keeping refuse costs down as low as possible. With no recycling, the cost to dispose of the "rubbish" increases dramatically, as does the availability of locations at which to dispose of the trash.

Alton has about 4 or 5 Saturdays during the summer to dispose of hazardous wastes. The governmental regulations, both State and Federal, are significant, and we do our disposal in conjuction with Wolfeboro.

Recycling, regardless of where hazardous or not, is simply a matter of money. In fact, Alton has had to build roofed areas over concrete with waste water collection in conformity with Regs.

Sorry you feel so intimidated or having your privacy invaded. If you came to an Alton deliberative session, you would hear about the warrant article each year for the transfer station, and how much of the money requested is for the mandated testing via test wells that Alton has to do each because of ground water contamination in years past when we didn't care about that sort of thing.

Reverse Rant...no finger pointing...just want to give an opposing view to the dump...er landfill...er transfer station stuff.

I understand the benefit that recycling may have for the town and strongly urging citizens to recycle is something that I have no problem with. Again.. we recycle..

The problem I have is the "guilty until proven innocent" stuff... I don't know how often they do random bag checks but it's written in bright red font on their website: we reserve the right to randomly check bags of trash to ensure compliance with our mandatory recycling policy. I'm sorry but that's messed up. Especially since it also says that failure to comply with this will result in being asked to leave the premises... So if I don't want some guy poking through my trash I'm made out to be the bad guy? Ridiculous. I don't care if I know that with 100% certainty that there is no "contraband" in said bag of trash, that is beyond my personal comprehension.

I could MAYBE understand if I'm walking up with a bag that's CLEARY filled with nothing but plastic or glass bottles where they would ask me to sort it out. The whole 'eye-balling' of trash bags in the off chance of maybe seeing a distinctive red cap of a plastic coke bottle and then forcing me to tear open my trash where I have to sift through rotten meat and moldy garbage is a whole other deal. One that I am in no way comfortable with.