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Post by itsajeepthing on Jun 21, 2018 1:07:19 GMT -5
We have curbside single stream recycling, but we have to pay $3/month. Nobody should bother to recycle glass, broken glass is a disaster AND we are Not running out of sand.
I retired after working for 23 yr with Pima County. During three years, I was assigned the task of setting up and managing a Waste Tire Recycling Program. We recycled over 3,000,000 used tires from cars, light trucks, heavy duty (18 wheeler) trucks and even some tires from Heavy Construction and Mining equipment. All of the highway tires were ground into Crumb Rubber most of it would pass through screening. It wound up being mixed with asphalt to make longer lasting and quieter roads. The Heavy Equip. Tires went to New Mexico where they were made into fist sized or smaller chunks, Then they were mixed with coal and burned at a power plant. SWITCH TO CLEAN, CHEAP AMERICAN NATURAL GAS.
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Post by itsajeepthing on Jun 21, 2018 1:21:27 GMT -5
China just handed the world a 111-million-ton trash problem
Few people consider used plastic to be a valuable global commodity. Yet China has imported 106 million tons of old bags, bottles, wrappers and containers worth $57.6 billion since 1992, the first year it disclosed data. So when the country announced last year that it finally had enough of everybody else's junk, governments the world over knew they had a problem. They just didn’t know exactly how large it was.
Now they know. By 2030, an estimated 111 million metric tons of used plastic will need to be buried or recycled somewhere else—or not manufactured at all. That's the conclusion of a new analysis of UN global trade data by University of Georgia researchers.
Everyone's bottles, bags and food packages add up. Factories have churned out a cumulative 8.3 billion metric tons of new plastic as of 2017, the same Georgia team reported last year. Even 1 million metric tons, the scale that this material traffics in every year, is hard to visualize in the abstract. It's 621,000 Tesla Model 3s. It's 39 million bushels of corn kernels. The world’s 700 million iPhones make up roughly a tenth of a million metric tons.
Nearly four-fifths of all that plastic has been thrown into landfills or the environment. A tenth of it has been burned. Several million tons reach oceans every year, sullying beaches and poisoning vast reaches of the northern Pacific. Just 9 percent of the total plastic ever generated has been recycled. China took in just over half the annual total in 2016, or 7.4 million metric tons.
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goldie
All Star Member
Posts: 19,808
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Post by goldie on Jun 21, 2018 3:03:44 GMT -5
* * * Reduce * * * Reuse * * * Recycle * * *
Great post, Warren.
#1, Reduce is especially important in regard to plastics. Start thinking twice before you take that plastic bag at the grocery store, whether it's at the checkout or in the produce dept. You're going to wash that piece of fruit or veg before you eat it anyway, aren't you? So just put it in the paper sack with your other groceries. You don't need a separate plastic bag for it.
Besides plastic disposal problems, consider that it's made from petroleum. Do we really need to waste more of it?
It's all about a mind set. Thinking about the implications of your choices will lead to better decisions.
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Post by Guest User on Jun 22, 2018 18:36:43 GMT -5
I'm not sure if I want my vegetables and fruits that I may eat raw next to Escherichia Coli laden foods like meats.
Plastics have done a huge deed towards health that some are quick to discount.
Also anything diverted from a landfill allows space for other stuff, at minimum. If used glass was respun into fiberglass insulation, would that at least less mining and more space in landfills? (and saving energy as the intended use of fiberglass? Or should we do away with fiberglass insulation too?
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Post by CampKohler (Sacramento CA) on Jun 27, 2018 21:11:10 GMT -5
I'm not sure if I want my vegetables and fruits that I may eat raw next to Escherichia Coli laden foods like meats.... I see a lot of the heavier (125-use) shopping bags being tossed out after one use now that the single-use bags are banned here. When I get a dozen or so of them, I wash them in a bucket of soap and water, air dry them, and fold them up into neat 4" × 5" bundles that are stacked into a box. I use them for whenever I need a bag for something (books, etc.), and they don't rip up like the single-use bags did. I use insulated bags for groceries, which can be washed out periodically. But for vegies and other little stuff, there are usually small thin bags available nearby, because they can't really expect you to put a handful of berries, etc. in your shopping basket. Does anybody know how to recycle old videotapes and audio cassettes? The first thing that comes to mind is to find people that still use them and give them away. That is a matter of communications. Craigslist? Even if you were willing to disassemble them into recyclable plastics, it would be a shame to do that when they could still be used for the intended purpose. How about retirement places/community centers, etc. that have VHS/cassette libraries to loan them out? Try starting one.
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goldie
All Star Member
Posts: 19,808
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Post by goldie on Jun 28, 2018 3:37:00 GMT -5
CK, thanks. But I was thinking mostly about ones that I recorded things on, not things that others would want. But I do have others, too. There are a whole bunch of movies that were recorded from t.v. or something, not sure. They were my mom's and I don't have any idea where they came from. She wouldn't have recorded them. But they are not authorized recordings so I couldn't take them to a store that sells used media. Craig's List is a good idea for giving them away. My guess is, and it's only a guess, that someone gave them to her to watch after a surgery. But for the useless ones, I'd have to take them apart in order to recycle them? There are some that were "eaten" by the players, and I'm not sure I even know which were which any more. It's not always easy to be "green". ;(
Craig's List reminds me of something. Some years ago I had a neighbor friend who was moving to an assisted living facility in another city. I went to say good-bye to her after the moving van had come and gone. There was still a ton of stuff in her apt. and I knew she wouldn't be able to take it all in the car that was going to drive her. I stayed and helped her for hours. I recycled what I could, and in a pile of stuff to be thrown away I saw something that I thought was a shame to throw away. It was a Bible study book in braille. I took it home and offered it for free on CL and got several responses. One was someone who wanted it for her blind neighbor, and another was someone who was losing her vision and said it would give her something to look forward to. I was glad I hadn't thrown it away.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 12, 2019 8:32:53 GMT -5
Mom in Largo, .. Fl has the Recycling Bin picked up once a Week, I wish we did too...Ours is done E/O/W, which ONLY means I have to waste a lost of recycling material B4 the 2 weeks are up, because the Blue bin is full way b4 the 2 wks are up
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Post by Interesting on Feb 20, 2019 4:09:18 GMT -5
Now those people who do artistic castings of anthills by melting down aluminum and pouring it down to the demise of fire ants, are they doing the world a favor by recycling aluminum or are they killing off fire ants and burning fossil fuels to melt the aluminum down?
BTW aluminum is one of those metals that should always be done. While the purity may not be as high as before, it at least does not need to go back through the expensive cost of electro-refining.
Fortunately VHS tapes and audio cassettes are easily erasable if they have questionable content on them. Of course the prerecorded tapes can still be used as-is though it seems that even thrift shops have stopped offering them (even though I do see people buying them, probably just not fast enough!)
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 20, 2019 17:03:16 GMT -5
Aluminum, and the only encounter I would have would be canned beer, BUT in my homestead ALL BEER must be bottled, per the Mrs Instructions.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 25, 2019 14:03:53 GMT -5
Well...The Blue recycle bin is fuller than me today after lunch, and it doesnt get picked up until Friday, 4 more days, I start now putting in the garbage good recycling material...
A WASTE, literally !!!
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weaslespit
All Star Member
Social Liberal, Fiscal Conservative - Usually
Posts: 11,468
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Post by weaslespit on Feb 26, 2019 13:45:42 GMT -5
Well...The Blue recycle bin is fuller than me today after lunch, and it doesnt get picked up until Friday, 4 more days, I start now putting in the garbage good recycling material... A WASTE, literally !!! Our waste retrieval company allows folks to get a second bin if needed...
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 26, 2019 16:08:03 GMT -5
Ours does not, but in a few instances I will ask neighbors that do not have the problem I have with recycle bin and I put extra stuff in theirs.
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Post by edindetroit on Mar 12, 2019 11:57:43 GMT -5
We just got a letter from the city saying that it's too expensive to recycle now so they are sending it all to the landfill.
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Post by Mudrunner1976 (NE_Ohio) on Mar 12, 2019 21:40:13 GMT -5
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 14, 2019 13:07:52 GMT -5
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