Still, all of that household recycling comes as a bit of a surprise
Few American recycling companies will accept plastics, but many American recyclers place them into their recycling bins anyway, and some recyclers, who’d rather sell them than pay to landfill them, offer them to scrap brokers with customers in China.
Still, all of that household recycling comes as a bit of a surprise: Josh had mentioned to me that Wen’an County imports plastics from abroad, as well as Beijing, but I wasn’t expecting to see what basically amounts to my mom’s trash riding through town. But in retrospect, that was just my scrap-metal-centric shortsightedness getting the better of me.

I cannot fully understand the sentences of "Still, all of that household recycling comes as a bit of a surprise" and "but I wasn’t expecting to see what basically amounts to my mom’s trash riding through town.". Please kindly help me explain them. Thanks.

Question

Still, all of that household recycling comes as a bit of a surprise
Few American recycling companies will accept plastics, but many American recyclers place them into their recycling bins anyway, and some recyclers, who’d rather sell them than pay to landfill them, offer them to scrap brokers with customers in China.
Still, all of that household recycling comes as a bit of a surprise: Josh had mentioned to me that Wen’an County imports plastics from abroad, as well as Beijing, but I wasn’t expecting to see what basically amounts to my mom’s trash riding through town. But in retrospect, that was just my scrap-metal-centric shortsightedness getting the better of me.

I cannot fully understand the sentences of "Still, all of that household recycling comes as a bit of a surprise" and "but I wasn’t expecting to see what basically amounts to my mom’s trash riding through town.". Please kindly help me explain them. Thanks.

Answer

The writer is saying that the "surprise" came from all of the recycled trash piling up in China because Americans won't throw it away themselves.

The second sentence is the same kind. But, it's something called an "analogy" which is a comparison of two similar things. "Mom's trash riding through town" is a comparison to the huge amount of plastics in China.

Answers · 1

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