[Vocabulary] collect garbage

[heyt]

Hello,

Could someone tell me if the highlighted part of the sentence is correct in terms of vocabulary?

In my country people collect garbage in 4 categories (plastic, metal, glass and paper).

Thank you,
heyt

 

[Masood_S]

Hello,

Could someone tell me if the highlighted part of the sentence is correct in terms of vocabulary?

In my country people collect garbage in 4 categories (plastic, metal, glass and paper).

Thank you,
heyt

Hello,

In terms of vocabulary, it is fine. Personally, I would replace the number '4' with its word equivalent 'four'.

Cheers

 

[heyt]

Thank you, I meant ot express that we put garbage into these categories in order to recycle it.

 

[magimagicE]

I assume what you are trying to say is:

In my country, people separate garbage into four categories (plastic, metal, glass and paper) ready for disposal.

 

[Barb_D]

In my country, items for recycling are collected in four categories: a, b, c, and d.

The garbage is not usable. The recycled items are.

I would not use garbage.

Solid waste is another option.

 

[SoothingDave]

It's still garbage to me. You have no use for it. You are not being paid for sorting it into categories. Rather, you are under a mandate from the government to sort it.

I would say that garbage is sorted into four categories.

 

[Barb_D]

Except that none of those categories is just plain "garbage" (landfill or incinerator bound).

The more I think about it, I'd go with solid waste or trash.

 

[Rover_KE]

Rubbish.

(Not your post, Barb - my word for trash.)

Rover

 

[Tdol]

Wouldn't it be better to say that people sort/separate 4 categories of rubbish, because they would also have other rubbish, like kitchen waste.

 

[Barb_D]

I love the way it sounds when a British speaker says "rubbish" as a dismissive response. There's no way it would ever sound natural here.

 

[Tdol]

Do you use it as a verb? Can critics rubbish a show in the US?

 

[Barb_D]

No, I"m not even familiar with that usage. We barely use it as a noun.

 

[apex2000]

So, if you do not use it as a noun then, presumably, you use it as a verb. In what context, please?

The word is used frequently in the UK mainly as a noun or a mild expletive.

 

[euncu]

In my country people collect garbage in 4 categories (plastic, metal, glass and paper).

I'd like to ask a question to our native-speaker members about this sentence. The verb "to collect" here made me think when I read it that the people of that country are so poor that they have to collect garbage for living. Is "to collect" a good choice of word to express what the op meant to say? How did you understand it when you first read it?

 

[opa6x57]

I'd like to ask a question to our native-speaker members about this sentence. The verb "to collect" here made me think when I read it that the people of that country are so poor that they have to collect garbage for living. Is "to collect" a good choice of word to express what the op meant to say? How did you understand it when you first read it?

=============================
Not a teacher, 53-year-old American.
=============================

No. Not in my opinion.
Collect infers that the person is acquiring something of value. I suggest 'separate' as an alternative.
I collect commemorative spoons. I collect stamps. I do NOT collect trash.


Instead of:

In my country people collect garbage in 4 categories (plastic, metal, glass and paper).

I would use:

In my country people separate trash into 4 categories (plastic, metal, glass and paper) for recycling.

 

[opa6x57]

So, if you do not use it as a noun then, presumably, you use it as a verb. In what context, please?

The word is used frequently in the UK mainly as a noun or a mild expletive.

=============================
Not a teacher, 53-year-old American.
=============================

We don't use that particular word much - if at all.
I seem to recall my grandparents having a 'rubbish' pile at the back of their property. It's where Grandpa piled up branches/leaves/etc. from doing yard work. But, the stuff that he threw onto the rubbish pile, he called "debris" or "yard waste" or "trash".

The stuff from the house which was destined for the dump was garbage or trash - never rubbish. (Of course, this was way before there was any consideration to recycling household waste.)

 

[euncu]

No. Not in my opinion.
Collect infers that the person is acquiring something of value. I suggest 'separate' as an alternative.
I collect commemorative spoons. I collect stamps. I do NOT collect trash.

Thanks for your answer.

So if we were to say something like this,

The old homeless guy was ...ing garbage from streets to make a living.

Would we use "collect" ?

 

[SoothingDave]

I'd like to ask a question to our native-speaker members about this sentence. The verb "to collect" here made me think when I read it that the people of that country are so poor that they have to collect garbage for living. Is "to collect" a good choice of word to express what the op meant to say? How did you understand it when you first read it?

That is exactly how I thought of it when I read it. I suggested "sort" as the verb to use.

 

[SoothingDave]

Thanks for your answer.

So if we were to say something like this,

The old homeless guy was ...ing garbage from streets to make a living.

Would we use "collect" ?

Collect is OK. Gather is probably better.

 

[Rover_KE]

No, I"m not even familiar with that usage (using 'rubbish' as a verb). We barely use it as a noun.

But in BE we use 'trash' as a verb.

'The drunks trashed their hotel room (not 'rubbished')'.

Rover