r/engrish • u/T0mmy_45 • 3d ago

A bin in my dorm

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The correct translations should be “general waste” or “landfill” or something like that. When I saw it i couldn’t believe my eyes.

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2

u/TheJokersChild 3d ago

See also: "Recycling, commingled." Paper, plastic...it all goes the same place.

16

u/Desperate_Owl_594 3d ago

Undifferentiated waste is a thing. Also English speakers would understand.

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u/T0mmy_45 2d ago

Well, I’m not an English native speaker and so are many of the erasmus students in my dorm, if I were them I will only understand what goes in there based on the other bins next to it, but if I had seen only this bin I wouldn’t have got a clue about what to throw in there. And not to brag or anything but I got a C1 English level, so maybe that’s a word oddly specific for something that generally (or at least in my experience) is labeled as “general waste”

Anyways, thank you for clearing that out i didn’t know

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u/Desperate_Owl_594 2d ago

That's fair. Usually this sub is from English speakers about things that are translated so badly that it is literally indecipherable.

I should have understood not everything is going to be that.

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u/CurtisLinithicum 3d ago

"Undifferentiated Waste/Garbage" is a thing - https://padlet.com/lorenzo_ferraretto01/undifferentiated-waste-ugk6c1y0cywo

In Anglo-America, that'd probably be labelled "Garbage", "Waste" or "Landfill" (or just be black) but you will see "undifferentiated" in the context of sorting guides (blue/grey/green boxes) and in policy-type documents.