Why are some people so resistant to reducing waste? (ie. recycling, compost, etc.)

For some people, the effort to do these things is more than they are willing to invest. They don't see any immediate benefit to it, so they think "why bother"? For others, its a matter of lifestyle issues. I live at an apartment complex so composting isn't practical. And since there are no recycling facilities nearby, we don't do nearly as much as we could.

First & foremost, and sorry to say.. we tend to be an apathetic, and rather lazy society. That is, most of us want to leave the dirty work up to someone else, and we're also great at finger-pointing as well.. the old "I didn't make the mess, so why should I clean it up!?" is just another excuse for relenquishing responsibility onto others. Also, we're always hearing about how our society truly 'cares' about future generations, but do they ..really? ~ On the other end of the pendulum, maybe more people would recycle, etc., if waste disposal was more convenient than it is.. after all we're a nation of convenience lovers.

I would guess that to a lot of people it is not something they think about much, low priority. Some people don't think it does much good.(I tend to think that if I had to take my stuff to a recycle center, it would probably use more resources(gas etc.) than would be saved.) for city people things like composting tend to impractical and unless you know what you are doing will probably attract undesirable critters. Some people are probably just too lazy. Oh yes, sometimes it is hard to find out how to recycle items, such as electronics.

The reason waste is such a big problem is that there are simply too many people. Religious beliefs and just plain stupidity cause most people to "breed without heed" of the consequences.

So now we have a tremendous overpopulation problem. Remember, everyone's sh#t has to go somewhere. And the more sh#t, the bigger the problem of conveniently disposing of it

I can't speak for most people, since they are ignorant illiterates, but for me, my reasoning is simple: "I didn't contribute to overpopulation and the resultant pollution and waste disposal problems. YOU did. So YOU deal with it."

One example, batteries: Yeah, sure, they and a lot of other things contain chemicals "harmful to the environment". But for me to spend a lot of time and/or gasoline money to "safely" recycle -- fuggedaboudit.