How Recycley Are You?

[Sayonara]

The company who manage the recycling collections in my area recently changed the list of items they will take away. The only kind of plastic they now take is "bottle-shaped plastics".

 

Grrrr

[ed84c]

plastic pop bottles make great plant pots and gauntlets for when you`re picking berries off thorny plants or weeding out nettles

 

put them over pants to stop slugs also

[Lance]

Our city has spent tons of money on our new recycle program. They took away (stole if you will) all of our trash cans and gave us back a recycling container and a tiny little trash bin. We are only aloud to have this one trash bin and they will not accept any other types on bins. They collect trash every week and the trash bin is full the day after they collect. This forces us to recycle the rest of our trash. Let me say that again, they force us to recycle.

 

Luckily enough people complained (including me) and in a few months we should be getting larger trash bins. Oh and did I mention how much of my/our money they wasted with all of this? The city bought all new trash trucks plus different types of trucks that pick of the recycle bins. Not to mention the bins themselves that are made to be picked up without the trash man even getting out of the car. This way the trash man doesn’t even have to get out of the car.

 

I do strip things for spare parts though like YT said.

[Gilded]

Btw, do you people have... err, return funds for plastic and glass bottles (and metal drink cans) in UK and US? The sort that you get money for when you return them. It's a great way to make some extra money, especially if you know where the local hobos go with their 24 packs of beer.

[DreamLord]

I dunno about the UK, but some states have those in the US. You get like 5 or 10 cents per bottle, depending on which state. I do know Michigan has that. It's quite handy after a party, you can get some money back by turning in bottles.

[Gilded]

We get even up to 0.4€ for 1.5l bottles.

[Sorcerer]

When I was a kid they encouraged us to go collect cans here in NZ, called comalco for kids..... anyway we used to spend hours collecting cans and had a whole heap, the depot was miles away and the gas alone to take them out there was more than what they gave us in renumeration..... well all that money they wasted on the ads and the promotion packs..... got them 1 weekend of recycling from us..... I mean how its THAT economically feasable if the petrol costs more than the cans!

[jsatan]

They did do that with glass bottles year back, but then they stopped it.

 

@lance, I'm happy they force you to recycle. If they dont then no one will and then it would be even more of a waste of their time.

 

There's more things out there that you are forced to do that has no interest, beer duty any one?

[InoBuyBull]

I admit i haven't studied it enough to confrim but i seen an epsiode of Penn & Teller that gave pretty convincing arguments that recycling was bad for the enviroment. They say that the energy consumption it takes to recycle things is worse on the enviroment that if you just threw it away.

 

Penn & Teller has been right about everything else so far so until i have studied into it i am going to take their word for it. Well Teller doesn't talk but you know what i'm saying.

[Sayonara]

If recycling was more energy-intensive than fabricating, nobody would do it.

 

They also fail to account for what happens after you "just throw it away". Land-fills, oceanic dumps and incineration aren't exactly environmentally friendly.

[YT2095]

I think I`de be more inclined to beleive what the Scientists and Industrialists say about it (they make millions from it, and why not!), rather than a pair of television showmen.

 

I`de sooner have the bank ballance of an Idustrialist that`s subject to all manor to Environmental checking proceedures that that of either Penn & Teller combined several times over

[Auk]

Here we have tons of disposal bins all over the place. We always recycle cans, plastic bottles, and other stuff. The car emission relaesing gases into the atmosphere while were driving to the bins kind of defeats the purpose. ;-)

[HNO3]

Of coarse I recycle my solvents, duh...

[Ophiolite]

All the employees at the company where I work are fully biodegradable.

[ed84c]

recycling, does it count if im a horder?

[coquina]

I have always recycled metal. We generate literally tons of metal turnings and drops. I make money off brass, copper and aluminum. I break even on steel - you only get pennies per hundredweight for it, but if I put it in the dumpster I would have to pay to have it hauled away.

 

The problem I have is recycling plastic. I fill dumpsters with turnings of the same kind of plastic that households can recycle, but I can't get anyone to take it. The closest place to recycle it is somewhere in the northeast where they make plastic lumber - the problem is that I have to ship it up there by rail or truck and the freight would cost double or triple the money I would get paid for it. I don't mind breaking even, but I'm not going to lose money on it.

[Sorcerer]

Maybe they should increase the tax on dumping it then, or subsidise the recycling cost so u get paid more . Either way it comes out/goes into tax, look to the stupid American President.

[Sorcerer]

Could u balance it economically by subsidising the recylers and taxing the dumping?

[ed84c]

is their anything potentially useful that you class as waste, i would be a greatful (and paying) recipient, any (fairly) unsual metals for my element collection, zinc, chrome etc?

[coquina]

Most everything I use are alloys -

 

beryllium copper

boron nitride

uhmw (ultra high molecular weight polyethylene)

teflon

nylon

6061 Aluminum

brass

 

Do you know that most metals used to be "leaded" - there was a percentage of lead added to the alloy to make it easier to machine.

 

When I first started working in the shop, in elementary school, we used to use a very nasty black oil as a coolant. You painted it on the metal with a paint brush as the tool cut the metal, it smoked. You breathed in fumes of oil and leaded material. I wonder how many machinists got lead poisoning?

[ffsjoe]

We have 4 bins, green waste a huge green bin built like a tank. A paper and cardboard recycle bin, plastic bottles and aluminium cans, glass bin. And another one for the kitchen garbage waste.

 

Anything else that you would normally go to the tip to get rid of, like computer stuff, small tables, chairs basically crap you dont want is collected by the council. Everyone puts stuff out every couple of months and they come round and collect it all.

 

Thats when you go poking around for treasure.

[Speaker]

I recycle cans, except when its a special can, then I save it.

[Enigma]

I used to recycle glass, but it was too far away to go to the recycling point all the time. If I could, I would recycle everything, because I try to do my bit for the environment as I save on electricity and water as well when I can. At the moment, I recycle paper and oragnic waste.

[AtomicMX]

I live in mexico so guess my answer.

[YT2095]

something I`ve started doing that anyone else can do quite easily also, is helping the local bird wildlife.

 

any bacon fat or beef or pork or lamb, basicly any fat that`s solid at room temp, keep it.

save up any out of date cerials or museli cookies etc... and then when you have enough, crush them all up and add the heated fat and mix it in well, then shape it into little balls about 2 inch around and let them cool overnight.

wrap them in some wire netting or even plastic netting (the sort oranges come in), and hang them out on a tree or a shed or anywhere else in the garden.

then just sit back and watch, it takes a few days for the "word" to get around, but you`ll have an abundance of wildlife to watch and you`ll have wasted nothing!