Love this guy, hes like the drunk uncle version of John Oliver

You want to make a dent in recycling? Get landlords to get with the program!

It's no wonder that climate scientists say we don't have much time left...

what kind of system do you have? here in Germany it is just paper in the paper bin plastic in the yellow sack glassbottles in Glascontainers all the rest in the mixed bin and Multiuse Bottles get returned at the Supermarket.

LOL meanwhile in japan, you have to segregate your own garbage with very strict rules

One of the best ways to make recycling work in Germany was the implementation of deposits for nearly all drinks. Yeah, you can just throw away those bottles and cans but you'll lose a lot of money by doing so. We also mark our packaging with a green point logo if it is meant to be placed in a recycling bin. So you don't have remember many rules. Paper goes into the blue bin, everything with the green point on it goes into the yellow bin, garden waste goes into the brown bin and everything else gets into the black bin. On top of that everything that has a deposit on it like glass bottles and tin cans goes to the supermarket you bought it in.

In Sweden we even pay a pawn fee on most plastic and aluminium (and even some glass) containers. You get the pawn fee back when you recycle, and every convenient store has a recycling machine to redeem this fee.

Because actually doing recycling properly takes a bit of work, and it pretty much seems that American's are averse to unpaid work.

This should have been REGULATED AT CORPORATE LEVEL.

I remember the very first time (2010) I went to USA. The first evening I went to a bar, got beer in a bottle. Later that evening, the bar was going to close. - where can i put my bottle? * just throw it in the bin on the parking lot - ok Couldn't find the glass container on that parking lot, only a general trash bin. I awkwardly put the glass bottle on the ground, next to the trash. I felt so bad doing so because I couldn't find the glass container.

2:10 when you want to bleep word "asshole" and you bleep the wrong word instead

One way to make it easier is to have color-coded recycling bins and matching color-codes on the recyclable materials. It'd simplify the do's and all people would have to learn is the don'ts.

In Denmark in some towns and cities have you have to separate your trash so we have a bin for compost, one for glass, one for paper, plastic and aluminium, and one for the rest

I say if we cannot recycle it... Do Not Make It. That should be the world standard. As for the current problem with recycling, separate it all. From each household/business to the truck picking it up. There should be separate bins in the trucks and at each plant. Yes, it's more costly. Yes it's time consuming. Yes we can... and yes we should. There's already too much plastic in our food already. (fish for example) E-Waste is even more deadly. We as humans need to take responsibility. This is getting out of hand.

The funny thing is how things have changed. When recycling first became a big thing in my area they paid us to recycle. Quite well actually a single pop can would get you 5 cents, which wasn't too bad then. Then it went to maybe 25 cents for a freaking pound of cans, and paper had always sucked. To the point it wasn't worth the gas to drive to the recycling center. Now a lot cities/states require you to recycle, and you pay them for the service. Never mind that you are expected to do all the sorting and prep yourself still. Don't forget to make sure that plastic is okay, they have numbers and all that.

Manufacturing companies dont' want people to recycle often.. But where I used to live, it was mandatory to recycle, we had to read the triangles on all plastics and segregate accordingly.. Pizza boxes had to be recycled even if they had pizza stuck on the inside.. or we were fined on our sanitation bills..

One of the problems is the notion that recycling is supposed to make a profit. If it was viewed as a service to the public then it would not be an issue. Why should everything be privatized or at least not in a government fonded program?

Keep them coming

I keep streaming this because Jim needs to stay on AIR.

This video deserves a comment good job Jeff. :)

No joke. At the work cafeteria, one of the cleaning crew was cleaning out the bins. I wanted to toss my plastic container to the recycling bin, but the lady just said "look...it don't matter". People were tossing trash to recyclables, recyclables were toss to trash. And the cleaning staff toss all in one big bin together.

Very informative thanks

Nice work.

We here in Denmark have pictures on the inside of the waste bin lid, with examples of what garbage belongs where. The scrap bin is divided into two sections (1s) glass, metal, hard plastic (2s) paper and soft plastic (bags). The second garbage bin everything else, thats it.

Brit here. One bin for ANYTHING recyclable, one bin for food waste, one bin for landfill waste. How hard is that, seriously, how hard ? Why make it complicated ?

What? In my Country (Sweden) it bean done without problem for 20 years.... And we have also started to help other countrys by bying there trash... I don't have the exact numbre, but Its about 95% that are recycled in our country... Come on LaLa-land, ceep up 😜🤘🏻 (sorry for any spelling misstakes, I am dyslexic)

It may be going not so well in the US, but here in the UK we're going from strength to strength. America, IT'S NOT CONFUSING.

My community just outside of Paris send me a credit card size, fridge magnet with the instructions for recycling Everything! 👍 I was so happy until I found out that inside it, is a booklet and in all, if you print it with normal size letters it will make at least 4 full pages 😱 also how am I supposed to know what is made out of what? The manufacturers have to put the number of the corresponding recycling bin on the package. If you have to wash the paper labels from the container, then maybe they should print it directly on the container. Also the container and it’s cap should be made out of the same material. The soap bottle, the soap pump and the pump’s straw have to be dismantled and put in separate bins. What do you mean,? I only have one bin for plastic.

One of the main reasons Germany is so effective at recycling is the cash for recyclable machine everywhere. They have machine for all 10 recycled varieties. You put glass or plastic in a machine and you get money back up to 20€ max per transaction. Each bottle goes for 2-10 cents and it builds up. Other machines go by pounds of materials for the money. America only has these machines for three kinds of recyclable in only ten states. You know how many people would consider collecting recyclable for money if these machines were every where.

A green Garbageton for Paper only, one for Bio only, a yellow Bag for all the recycleable Plastic and a black Ton for all the Rest. Is that so hard?

The main problem I have with recycling is that all those different bins take up so much space in my teeny tiny little house. I like separating the plastics though. There is so much plastic packaging and in the Netherlands we can throw away the plastic in the plastic bins for free. Normal garbage is taxed. That is why many people dump normal garbage illegally in the woods. Which nobody notices between the dumped druglab and weed plantation garbage.

You know you could just force people to recycle and to sort their garbage. Just don't pick it up if it's not sorted.... It's not going to take long ;D. Oh and fine the people that burn their trash.

It blows my mind what big of a deal Americans make out of recycling. Paper -> paper bin, plastic -> plastic bin, and so on. What's so hard about that?

It just feel like the recycling companies should be literally sorting this stuff out if they want us to put it in one bin. We used to have multiple bins with labels and instructions and now we get one with no instructions and now they come and check and if you don't do it right they just don't pick up your garbage.

I always recycle lol just set my bins out front for the trucks to pick up in the morning

Oops. I think I've been a bit sloppy all these years. I was just of the opinion that I was doing good by putting more in the recycling bags and less in the normal rubbish bags. I haven't been washing out cans and jars. I haven't been carefully removing the plastic windows from paper envelopes or removing the parcel tape from cardboard boxes. And I never check labels for recycling status. I thought that the strictures were so fussy because the recyclers were lazy jobsworths. 'Contaminants'. Jim is spot on. Make recycling simpler. Stop packaging things in mixed materials. Make all plastics recyclable. Get on to the packaging manufacturers and order them to innovate for the sake of life on earth. Perishable items, like fruit and veg, could be packaged in perishable organic materials which could go in the compost bin because we don't need 1000 years containment on some oozing carrots. Tree hugging, soy (actually prefer almond) girl here is signalling her lack of virtue! I will try harder in future. In return, though, industry needs to try harder because they're the ones that are making the stuff, selling the stuff, making all the money.

what i "learnt" in germany is - one bin for packaging "grüner punkt", one for Glass , one for Paper and one for the rest is it really that hard? oh and reusable drink container like soda cans and beer bottles have a deposit (pfand 8 to 25 ct) and u bringt those to the supermarket or leave them for the homeless...

I've been doing it in my state since 1992! Required in 1994!

It's too hard, so fuck it. Way to embrace and reinforce the American way, Jim.

Damn. Jim got me a few times on this section. (Pushing them down for spoilers) Losing his brother. The Germany joke. Good on ya.

I used to be a militant recycler until I realized that there was no separate recycling truck in my area to pick up recycling. Nope I watched week after week the trash truck pick up both bins and chuck it in the same compactor. It was disheartening. I still recycle but it feels pointless and futile and I can't help but feel I'm being scammed.

Purchasing water in plastic bottles was the beginning of the end.

The problem are the plastic contamination stop over packaging and store plastic bags

I think Germany only ranks that high in recycling because every bottle seller has to take back the empty bottles and recycle them. And the people are only willing to take the hassle of giving all the bottles back because for every bottle you give back you get 25 cents. There are people who recycle everything, but you have those people in every country. Me and everyone I know doesnt separates the trash, and I dont know if the company is doing it who is collecting the trash, but probably not. My landlord doesnt even have an option for the tenant to separate trash and I live in a major German city. If you want to motivate the american people to recycle, use money. make every bottle cost 1 dollar more and give the people for bringing back that bottle one dollar back. If you want to go crazy, you can do that with all sorts of products, but plastic bottles and cans are probably the biggest problem. You dont even have to put people in charge of taking back bottles, there are machines for that, machines that are standing already in every German supermarket where you put your bottles in and get money out. No human interaction required xD

Also in certain places, least near me. You cant even legally recycle unless you go to the town, buy trash bags FROM them, at a dollar or two per bag,an obviously seperate them, so you have to buy more. Towns are just robbing people of money for their own budget loss.

I won’t forget the first beer bottle in the US. I asked people where to throw them and they told me as laughing that it goes to trash bin. I thought that was ridiculous but they thought I didn’t understand English so just grabbed my bottle and threw them to the bin full of all sorts of trash and I was so shocked lol I love simplicity and convenience of America, though that felt to be as too fucking lazy like over the top.

The UK has fairly decent recycling and companies are incentivised to. You can’t just throw away electronics either.

Penn and Teller called this outcome 10 years ago on Showtimes "Penn&Teller Bullshit"

As long as you were on the subject, you could've discussed ways to reduce and reuse... Ah well...

All it takes is rinsing out whatever plastic food/beverage container your recycling...

Oregon has recycling sorted out. Check out Garten services.

There are places in the US that recycle though. I'm from Oregon and that "how to" video about recycling was easy to follow for me because I've just been doing all of those things my whole life and everyone else around me did it, too. TL;DR wash stuff out and sort it into the correct bin, that's it. That's all there is to it.

Lol, liked this. We have to recycle in the uk, but lucally since it's come in, I've always had a child in the teen years. So it's always been their job. Our local council makes it quite easy. By sending out an A4 picture chart of whats what. Sometimes still we get it wrong, celefain!!! Is usally way we fall foul of. The issue is, the blue bin is take fortnightly (every two weeks), so if your bin fails, you then have to empty the contents (luckily it's clean), find the offending item(s), then crush and shrad everything, to make more room.but enevitably you'll run out of space in the blue bin so then you end up dumpling the plastics and glass in the general bin. So yeh, it's a bit of a pain. But it is the right thing to do. Luckily I have kids that want money, so they are in charge of rubbish.

What are you even doing in the US, It's really not hard. In Norway we put paper in the paper bin, compost/food in a seperate bin, plastic in a bin for plastic. And finally if there is leftover trash that can't be recycled, we put that trash in a seperate bin for trash.

Can someone explain landfill finances and how the game is so strong that it's more lucrative than reusing products? I'm serious here and can't comprehend how running out of room to put garbage and the toxic fumes the decomposing items make when they decompose together is the logical, money making way to go.

China's policy towards waste import is NOT a result of trade conflict with USA. They stopped importing waste even from Hong Kong

You could just change almost all packaging to either glass bottles or paper bags or cardboard boxes, then you've got some damn simple recycling methods; if it burns it goes in the combustibles bin (or next to your fireplace, whichever relates to your life) and the rest is just recycled glass bottles which go in the glass bin! Simples! The hardest part is getting everyone to participate in this plan

for everyone wondering why this is now a problem, its because US recyclers relied on Chinese companies to buy their bulk mixed paper/plastic. That system doesn't work much at all anymore because China introduced new laws limiting what recyclables they will accept into their country to help minimize waste created by and taken in by their country understandably so

If we sent everything to a recycling plant and had them sort it out, it would take away a lot of confusion for consumers, combine 2 types of business (trash and recycling) into one, and likely create more jobs in the process whilst helping the ecosystem. Win win win if we throw it all in one bin and let the recycling company sort it out then!

The trick is regulation on how packaging is made because they are the professionals, we are not.

As a Dutchie, I wanna send my compliments to the neighbours. They know we appreciate their ultra-super-recycling and I hereby wanna invite some of them (not all at the same time again, please) to motivate and educate more Dutch people on recycling. Because we're doing it kinda, but not good enough. Also, we're still kinda mad about the recycling of our bikes, so that was not good. But your Brezels are delicious. Tschüß!

how is this show not nominated for an emmy?

You know those 2 million truckers that are losing their job because of automation? Give them and everybody else a job in recycling! If I had some money I would open a recycling company!

In the states our land fills are heavily polluted with used condoms and plastic bottles.

I keep waiting for John Oliver to do a show on recycling!! This is good too, though.

Missed out on a pepperoni nipple joke

It is great over here in Germany, but everything seems to be so confused and backwards in the USA. Over here it is Papers, Plastics, and Glass in glass containers, a truck comes to pick up the plastics one day, papers another, and trash on it's day. simple.

Hemp is the answer to our recycling problem.

A somewhat clever dig the Corncob-in-chief. I'll take it. Not a bad overall segment, sir.

what you need imo is general laws about what to recycle and that should be easy to follow for everybody. it will still not have 100% success among people but it serves as the first phase of sorting garbage components. afterwards the pre-sorted stuff has to be sorted again by advanced machines and sometimes by hand. first thing however is getting some general notion out, that EVERYBODY has to follow and that is easy to understand.

For recyclable materials make it a color like blue to be placed on them by enacting federal law so everyone will know which one is recyclable and which one isn't.

At some point we'll have to sacrifice convience and cost for more sturdy reusuable materials like glass and cardboard. Maybe the mega-corps like coke and pepsi can sell soda in the form of refills instead of cans and throwables

USA - I don't understand what is difficult? In the UK 'recyclables' (plastic/glass/cans) go in a green bin, everything else the black bin. The council (gov't) do the rest. Simple, and it's much better for the environment etc.

Hes in California, in California they actually provide you with multiple designated trash cans so you can seperate things and the trash guys take care of it....it makes sense, everwhere else Ive been is still just one trash can type of places.

some day when it's way too late everybody's gonna start to recycle. FUCK YEAH!

Plus there is a company making buildings, Germany. In Alabama Mercedes plant runs off burning trash for power. They introduced them to China for their trash problem. I'm sure they're using them. Why not, recycle, reuse, and burn the rest. I used to have more reycles than trash. This country has some sensitive and backwards people you try to enforce recycling they'll cry. This clean stuff, just rinse it out. I let a peanut butter container sit with water, shake it and pour it out, same with milk. These landfills are horrible and privately owned, just like SC and GA, they are trucking the trash from NY down because of the land for landfills. Not to burn, lazy way just cover it up. They've dug up landfills and the way they pack them, they found a paper from 1940's perfect to read. A time capsule. Plus landfills are a perfect way to dispose of someone. The fill they used to cover can be used for the roads. I'm passionate about recycling, using free sun and wind. This is a world issue and all players need to be in. Believe me, this turd is trying to destroy America physically. Benson Arizona and Alaskan wildlife refuge, these stupid bulbs, getting out of the Paris deal and on. America has rolled back to damn there the 60's.

Correction (i think): America has a consumption problem

America is so great, it made jim jefferies relevant.

Too much thing LOL 😂

Well you could start by eliminating plastic bottles altogether and use glass returnable to your favourite supermarket.

I have a problem with tissues after they have been sneezed in and the nose was blown. is it paper? is it compost because it's all organic? is it trash because paper and organic are mixed?

I always believed that I was well informed on recycling 101 and made sure to try and recycle as much as I could. So after eating at a Costco's outside dining. I go to throw away my stuff and felt like an utter dodo suddenly standing in front of their trash system. I felt like everyone had to be staring at me as I stood in confusion and began to read the damn directions on how to throw away my trash. I guess I was only familiar with three 3 colors of recycling: green, blue and gray.

3:55 As long as it's more than 80% semen, it goes into the compost.

I'm from Curitiba Brasil, we use to be the greates recycling city in the world, is not hard if the goverment try a little, just make places for glass, metal, plastic and organic and have a pre recycle factory, the effort in your city, after is installed, is none, everyone get use to it! just please make an effort!

Somewhere in California is handling the situation.

1st like gotta mean sommert tho😂😂

Why not do an episode on the 100 companies that contribute 71% of the carbon emissions. Or the fact that these companies need to have different policies on the materials they need.

Dont tell. Germany got most of their industry from scandinavia. But we are small they are big... Metal, glass everything else... I confess. We used to just throw metal and batteries into plastic bags. And 1 time a month deliver to the local recycling plant. Honestly how many batteries do you USE! Now the tuxedos decided a japanse model. Noone can read it (Not even the norwegians!) And people just toss everything in the same bin...

Love the way he calls all Americans dumb as hell and they all laugh love it 😂😂😂

If companies want to make new products for consumers, they also need to come up with a solution for its disposal that doesn't involve polluting the environment.

To bad that pizza isn't pepperoni.

I wish I could recycle my trash but my city doesn't even give the option

Penn and Teller have said America can’t recycle well enough for it to be something to keep doing

Recycling is so bad in my neck of the woods, I have to leech off other sources to do it.

Almost every Asian country uses water to clean their butt and uses small water shower if anyone do not even want to touch their butt ! It very hard to find toilet paper because of the same reason and tourists from the obvious toilet paper country gets freaked out by this fact alone ! No wastage of paper/tree/unnecessary recycles and probably the death of huge toilet paper industry in the west !

I fucking died

I love ur channel I subbed turned on post notifications on and liked every video u made

Goddamnit, we're super precise at recycling stuff (even better than the Swiss) but somehow someone makes a connection with concentration camps. Funny joke, but let us feel good for some time at last :)

It's not THAT confusing. I recycle metal, glass, paper, cardboard and plastic at home, and return bottles and cans (because you get payed for those, woohoo!). And I compost most of the food waste. You get a routine pretty fast. Plastic recycling is a bitch though, I'm never quite sure what goes where...

Does 3rd mean owt?😂😭😂