5 Tips That You Might Not Have Known About Recycling

5 Tips That You Might Not Have Known About Recycling

I’m amazed at how much great information there is on recycling. Unfortunately, there is so much information that it becomes overwhelming.

After searching the web, I have come up with 5 tips that will help you become a better recycler.

1. Know Your Plastics. Not all plastics are made the same. Even though it is sometimes hard to read, the little number that goes with the recycle symbol is really telling you something.

One of the best links I have found to explain the differences between the numbers is below. This website has great pictures and tells you what can be done with the item after it’s been recycled.

1. Rinse Your Containers. This sounds simple but it really helps out the recycling world!

By rinsing your items correctly, you will be removing all impurities, including food scraps, that must be separated from the glass, plastic, tin or aluminum to ensure a high quality material that will be used in a new product.

1. Recycle your Styrofoam. Yes, it can now be recycled. I had no clue until I started doing some research on it. Styrofoam is some of the worst stuff on earth. Just think about how much space it takes in the landfills.

I found a site that has a list of recycle centers you can download.

Go to: http://www.epspackaging.org/info.html (under locations download PDF)

Don’t forget most of the neighborhood shipping centers like (UPS Stores) will take your clean shipping peanuts.

1. Get money for Computers (E-Waste). Everyone has to have the fastest, best new gadget right! I am very guilty of this and always want the new model. Until recently I would just sit on my old stuff or sell it on an auction site. But now I have started to trade it in.

The link below is for a company Costco works with, and they will pay the shipping for the old product to their warehouse. Based on the estimated value they will give you a Costco gift card for that amount.

http://costcotrades.greensight.com/Common/equiptypes.aspx?SiteXfrMsg=0

Another recycle program is at Game Stop

Game Stop will trade in your old games and systems. Just bring your old systems/games to them, and they will give you money towards a new system. My daughter just got a new Nintendo and I was surprised by how much she saved by trading in her old one.

http://www.gamestop.com/

1. Recycle your Clothes. Think of all the stuff in your closet and your kid’s closet. How much are you really wearing? What fits? What doesn’t fit? When you start to think about it most people wear about 35% of their total wardrobe.

There are many different ways to recycle clothes:

Trade them on sites like www.uanditrade.com. This site is the best site for parents to trade their families’ used items. I say this because I am the Co-Founder of the site. Trading items with other people online is great because your network of available items is that much greater. The site is free for members to use, and no money is ever exchanged between members.

Another option is to donate your clothes to a woman’s shelter. They are always in need of clothes for moms and children. Most moms come to the shelters with only the clothes they are wearing.

Other options include putting them on consignment, donating them to a thrift store, or giving them to a friend. Whatever you do, just make sure they go to someone who will use them.

I hope you find this information helpful and useful for your day to day recycling habits. If you have any comments or suggestions, please send them my w

Table C&D Materials and Markets

Table 1: C&D Materials and Markets
Material	How is it recycled?	Recycling Markets
Concrete	The material is crushed, the reinforcement bar is removed, and the material is screened for size.	Road base
		General fill
		Drainage media
		Pavement aggregate
Asphalt Pavement	The pavement is crushed and recycled back into asphalt, either in-place or at a hot-mix asphalt plant.	Aggregate for new asphalt hot mixes
		Sub-base for paved road
Asphalt Shingles	After removal of nails, asphalt shingles are ground and recycled into hot-mix asphalt.	Asphalt binder and fine aggregate for hot mix asphalt
Wood	Clean, untreated wood can be re-milled, chipped or ground.	Feed stock for engineered particle board
		Boiler fuel
		Recovered lumber re-milled into flooring
		Mulch and compost
		Animal bedding
Drywall	Drywall is typically ground or broken up, and the paper is removed.	Gypsum wallboard
		Cement manufacture
		Agriculture (land application)
Metal	Melted down and reformed	Metal products
Cardboard	Ground and used in new pulp stock	Paper products

Recycling Challenges

Recycling Challenges

What do you do with all your construction materials? If you have a contractor, they put up a dumpster and you don’t worry about it. Many contractors will reuse and resell the products. (especially now) But what a waste to see brand new products going to landfills! UGG.

So what do you do when you have small remodel projects, don’t have a truck and don’t want to spend $55.00 to make a trip to the dump? It is so easy to put small amounts in the trash. The answer of course is to try to reuse, re-think or repurpose as much as you can.

For instance Here is a Gecko Cut out from baseboad

Things such as bricks, copper parts, countertops, faucets, tile, are very easy to get rid of via places like habitat, freecycle and craigslist. But how much re-purposing can you do with old baseboards, drywall, leftover wood? It’s not just landfill space at a premium and dealing with guilt over putting anything into the landfill, It’s where do you store everything so you can re-think, re-purpose, re-use? Cities such as Encinitas will most probably mandate the recycling of construction debris. Will you get fined? How bad is it to put in 1/2 a trashcan of old wood? All these thoughts - Not to get off on a tangent!

In the case of recycling ignorance is sometimes bliss. I have separate piles of batteries, lightbulbs, eyeglasses, paint, painted wood, baseboard and old electronic parts, cables to go to recycling centers somewhere.

The first thing is to check what your local recycler will take. As an example: King County (WA), and MA have great information on their websites. In California go to California Intergrated Waste Board for the recycler database

You can also go to the EPA for information about your region.

Try Earth 911 and find any recycling center

Here are the materials that can be recycled from construction debris. Always check with you local Waste Management Company as they may take more than this.

RECYCLE tips to save MONEY

Recycling can save our money. And collecting and sorting metal, glass, plastic and paper recyclables not only helps protect the environment — it benefits the city’s bottom line where we live.
Read some facts which can help us understand why recycling is so important for our envirnment:
- According to the EPA, recycling cuts global warming pollution by the equivalent of removing 39.6 million passenger cars from the road.
- 31 percent of plastic soft drink bottles, 45 percent of aluminum cans and 67 percent of all major appliances are now recycled.
- Only 13 percent of water bottles are recycled. In 2005, Americans purchased 30 billion water bottles, and 26 billion of them wound up in landfills.

Recycling is one of the most feel-good and useful environmental practices around. The benefits go way beyond reducing piles of garbage — recycling protects habitat and biodiversity, and saves energy, water, and resources such as trees and metal ores. Recycling also cuts global warming pollution from manufacturing, landfilling and incinerating.
Successful recycling involves minimizing waste along the entire life cycle of a product, from acquiring raw materials to manufacturing, using and disposing of a product. Buying products made from recycled materials is just as important as sorting waste into the right bins.

And when we reduce the amount of stuff we buy in the first place, and reuse what we can, we reduce the environmental harm associated with acquiring raw materials and manufacturing.

Here are some tips that will help you cut down on waste and boost your recycling skills:
* Shop smart:
Purchase paper and other products for your home and office that are made with post-consumer recycled content and packaged in recyclable materials. (See our paper guides for businesses and consumers) Buy in bulk when you can to reduce the amount of packaging that gets thrown away.

* Convenience is key:
Put collection bins in various places around your home and office to make recycling convenient. Use different bins that follow your city’s recycling policies, (see New York City’s recycling guidelines as an example) so you don’t have to separate it out later. If you tend to forget what’s recyclable and what’s not, make a sign like this one and post it near your bins.

* Don’t forget to reuse:
Paper, plastic, glass and cans aren’t the only items that should be diverted from incinerators and landfills. Reduce the environmental impacts of organic waste by composting food scraps, and by leaving short grass clippings on lawns to decompose. Donate old clothing to homeless shelters, thrift stores, animal shelters and other community organizations. Take advantage of manufacturer take-back programs for your
unwanted electronics.

* Make waste an endangered species:
Bring your own reusable bags to local stores. Keep a ceramic mug for water or coffee at work rather than using disposable paper or plastic foam cups. Most cities in the United States have clean, drinkable water, so use tap water (you can filter it if you’d like) and refillable water bottles instead of buying bottled water.

* Talk to your local government and businesses:
Encourage local officials to consider incentives and more ambitious recycling initiatives. Give positive feedback to store managers and manufacturers who are making good environmental choices.

* Take your good habits on the road:
Recycling policies can vary from city to city and from state to state. A plastic container you recycle at home might be garbage-bound in another community. Or something you can’t recycle at home might be recyclable in your school or workplace. When traveling away from home, learn the local rules (from the city’s website or by reading signs) and follow them.

Types of plastic

Types of plastic

There are about 50 different groups of plastics, with hundreds of different varieties. All types of plastic are recyclable. To make sorting and thus recycling easier, the American Society of Plastics Industry developed a standard marking code to help consumers identify and sort the main types of plastic. These types and their most common uses are:

	PET	Polyethylene terephthalate - Fizzy drink bottles and oven-ready meal trays.
	HDPE	High-density polyethylene - Bottles for milk and washing-up liquids.
	PVC	Polyvinyl chloride - Food trays, cling film, bottles for squash, mineral water and shampoo.
	LDPE	Low density polyethylene - Carrier bags and bin liners.
	PP	Polypropylene - Margarine tubs, microwaveable meal trays.
	PS	Polystyrene - Yoghurt pots, foam meat or fish trays, hamburger boxes and egg cartons, vending cups, plastic cutlery, protective packaging for electronic goods and toys.
	OTHER	Any other plastics that do not fall into any of the above categories. - An example is melamine, which is often used in plastic plates and cups.

- plastic

Plastic process scrap recycling

Currently most plastic recycling in the UK is of 'process scrap' from industry, i.e. polymers left over from the production of plastics. This is relatively simple and economical to recycle, as there is a regular and reliable source and the material is relatively uncontaminated. Process scrap represents some 250,000 tonnes of the plastic waste arisings in the UK and approximately 95% of this is recycled. This is usually described as reprocessing rather than recycling.

Post-use plastic recycling

Post-use plastic can be described as plastic material arising from products that have undergone a first full service life prior to being recovered. Households are the biggest source of plastic waste, but recycling household plastics presents a number of challenges. One of these relates to collection. With over 20 million UK households, kerbside recycling systems are required to regularly collect relatively small quantities of mixed plastics from a large number of sources. Currently, just over half of local authorities offer some form of plastic bottle collection service, and only an estimated 15% of UK households are served by kerbside collections that include plastic bottles. The densest network of plastic bottle collection schemes is found in the South and East of England and the Midlands. East Anglia, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have the least coverage. There are approximately 4,000 plastic bottle collection banks in the UK.

RECOUP (RECycling Of Used Plastics Limited) undertakes an annual survey of plastic bottle recycling activity in the UK. Results of the most recent survey indicate that an estimated 24,000 tonnes of plastic bottles were collected in 2003. However, this still only amounts to approximately 5.5% of all plastic bottles sold.

Mechanical recycling

Mechanical recycling of plastics refers to processes which involve the melting, shredding or granulation of waste plastics. Plastics must be sorted prior to mechanical recycling. At the moment in the UK most sorting for mechanical recycling is done by trained staff who manually sort the plastics into polymer type and/or colour. Technology is being introduced to sort plastics automatically, using various techniques such as X-ray fluorescence, infrared and near infrared spectroscopy, electrostatics and flotation. Following sorting, the plastic is either melted down directly and moulded into a new shape, or melted down after being shredded into flakes and than processed into granules called regranulate.

Chemical or feedstock recycling

Feedstock recycling describes a range of plastic recovery techniques to make plastics, which break down polymers into their constituent monomers, which in turn can be used again in refineries, or petrochemical and chemical production. A range of feedstock recycling technologies is currently being explored. These include: pyrolysis, hydrogenation, gasification and thermal cracking. Feedstock recycling has a greater flexibility over composition and is more tolerant to impurities than mechanical recycling, although it is capital intensive and requires very large quantities of used plastic for reprocessing to be economically viable (e.g. 50,000 tonnes per year).

Plastics recycling in the UK

In 1998, a pilot feedstock recycling plant went operational at BP's Grangemouth site in Scotland, with a capacity to process 400 tonnes of mixed plastic waste per annum. A feasibility study into its viability concluded that a 25,000 tonnes per annum plant could be supported from the area's municipal waste sources alone.

In 1991, LINPAC Plastics Recycling opened a unique plant with the ability to recycle post-consumer polystyrene products. The plant, based in Allerton Bywater, West Yorkshire, has a capacity of over 14,000 tones per year, which is set to increase to 25,000 tonnes per year by 2005. The plant is able to process fast food boxes, meat trays, egg cartons, yoghurt pots, vending cups, and a range of other polystyrene products. In addition, the plant processes a range of polyethylene and polypropylene goods, such as bottles, crates, sheets, caps, pipes and fibres.

- Bio plastic

Degradable and bio-plastics

Degradable plastics

A number of UK retailers have recently introduced degradable carrier bags. These bags are made from plastic which degrades under certain conditions or after a predetermined length of time. There are two types of degradable plastic: bio-degradable plastics, which contain a small percentage of non oil-based material, such as corn starch; and photodegradable plastics, which will break down when exposed to sunlight.

Degradable plastics are already being used successfully in Austria and Sweden, where McDonalds has been using bio-degradable cutlery for three years. This enables all catering waste to be composted without segregation. Carriers for packs of beer cans are now being manufactured in a plastic which photo-degrades in six weeks. There is also potential to use such plastics in non-packaging applications such as computer or car components.

There are a number of concerns over the use of degradable plastics. First, these plastics will only degrade if disposed of in appropriate conditions. For example, a photodegradable plastic product will not degrade if it is buried in a landfill site where there is no light. Second, they may cause an increase in emissions of the greenhouse gas methane, as methane is released when materials biodegrade anaerobically. Third, the mixture of degradable and non-degradable plastics may complicate plastics sorting systems. Last but not least, the use of these materials may lead to an increase in plastics waste and litter if people believe that discarded plastics will simply disappear.

Bio-plastics

A number of manufacturers have been exploring alternatives to plastics made from non-renewable fossil-fuels. Such alternative 'bio-plastics' include polymers made from plants sugars and plastics grown inside genetically modified plants or micro-organisms.

Health and safety concerns have arisen over potentially hazardous chemical additives to plastics and consumer pressure has contributed to manufacturers switching to plant-based plastics in such cases. For example, the world's largest toy manufacturer Mattel announced in 1999 that PVC would be replaced with plant-based plastics in new products from 2001 onwards. A range of other companies, including LEGO, IKEA, Nike and The Bodyshop have made similar pledges.

Use of recycled plastic

There is a wide range of products made from recycled plastic.This includes polyethylene bin liners and carrier bags; PVC sewer pipes, flooring and window frames; building insulation board; video and compact disc cassette cases; fencing and garden furniture; water butts, garden sheds and composters; seed trays; anoraks and fleeces; fibre filling for sleeping bags and duvets; and a variety of office accessories.

The Recycled Products Guide (RPG) is a listing of products made from recycled. Buying recycled products is a practical way of supporting markets for recycled products and 'closing the loop'. In addition, a list of suppliers of goods made from recycled plastic is available on RECOUP's website