12/14/2009

Sometimes, when we put items in our recycling bins, we don’t even second guess ourselves because it’s obvious. Paper, plastic, cardboard boxes, and aluminum cans among many others are common items that we recycle everyday. However, if we’re not careful, we may be doing more harm to the environment by recycling items that are not recyclables. I’ve compiled a list of everyday household items commonly mistaken as recyclables.

1. Shredded Paper and Paper Towels: If you thought whole paper and shredded paper were alike, you’d be wrong. Shredded paper are less valuable because longer fiber lengths can be recycled to be made into stronger higher grade paper as opposed to shorter fiber lengths. For the same reasons, paper towels and napkins have very little recycling value due to short fiber lengths. Also, paper mills that buy recycled paper sort according to quality. When the paper is shredded, it’s becomes impossible to determine quality and is tossed into the lowest quality paper pile. Recycling facilities also use a filtering process to weed out all the non-fiber contaminants and small bits of shredded paper often becomes filtered out. For these reasons, many facilities do not accept shredded paper. If you must recycle shredded paper, bag them separately in a clear plastic bag so the recycling personnel can see what’s inside the bag. Many recycling centers train their employees not to open any bags unless it can be clearly seen what’s inside them. Otherwise, they are tossed into the landfill.
2. Plastic Bags: Plastic bags can be recycled but recycling trucks won’t collect them. Plastic bags are the top nuisance at recycling facilities. They get caught in the machinery and they eat up valuable staff time, since workers have to remove them one by one. Instead, most of the plastic bags that are at the recycling facilities end up at the landfill. However, most grocery stores these days offer plastic bag recycling. Just bring in your extra plastic bags with you next time you go grocery shopping and drop these bags in. When these bags are handled properly, they can be easily recycled. It takes about 90% less energy to recycle a pound of plastic than to recycle a pound of paper.
3. Plastic Bottle Caps: Plastic caps usually are not recyclable due to a different melting point than the bottles they come with. Most plastic bottles are made of polyethylene which are easily recycled. However, the caps are made of different material that may not be deemed recyclable. What you can do is remove the caps from the bottle and then toss the caps in with your normal garbage. Another available option is to collect them separately and recycle them at your local Aveda stores. They will recycle these caps and reuse them for new Aveda products. They only accept polyproplyene plastic for recycling (plastic #5). You will usually see a number on the the side of the cap or inside the cap. If you don’t see #5, toss them away.
4. Frozen Food Containers: Although common sense tells us that a simple food cardboard box can be placed in our recycle bins along with other recyclables, frozen food boxes should not be placed in the bin. Actually, they cannot be recycled due to a thin layer of plastic liner sprayed onto the box/container to prevent freezer burn. The extra coating prevents the paper to break down properly for recycling. Another carton that cannot be recycled are soy milk cartons. They also contain an extra layer of plastic coating that prevents the carton to break down prooperly. Next time, don’t think twice and just throw the frozen food box and soy milk cartons away along with your everyday garbage.
5. Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs: These compact fluorescent bulbs contain mercury so placing them in your recycling bins can be very harmful to the environment. Instead, place all unbroken bulbs separately and drop them off at your local recycling center. They will properly handle the bulbs not to release any mercury toxin into the atmosphere.

When in doubt, it’s best to check with your local recycling center and ask them if the item in question is recyclable. Usually, even if it’s not recyclable, you may still be able to drop it off somewhere where it will be properly handled that will be environmentally non-hazardous.

Overview

I was sitting at my desk with my monitor obviously displaying moneygreenlife.com. I was working on fine-tuning my earlier post on programmable thermostats when I looked outside my window and noticed that almost every house in my block had recycle bins placed outside their curbs along with their regular garbage. It pleased me to see so many people recycling nowadays. Then it dawned on me that I don’t own a recycle bin myself! I immediately went to they county’s website and discovered that I can pick up a free bin at the nearest recycling center. I plan on picking one up during one of these days soon.

Facts and figures

Wherever you go nowadays, whether it’s an office building, mall, or convention centers, you can probably find a recycling bin sitting next to the typical trash bins. People are learning to recycle more and more every day and rightly so. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, a typical person produces about 4.4 pounds of garbage every day or 1,600 pounds a year. If you do the math, the numbers can be extraordinary. There are approximately 250 million adults living in the United States. That equates to 40,000,000,000 (40 billiion) pounds of trash generated ever year. This is a conservative estimate because people under the age of 18 produce trash as well. Where do all this trash go? Some are recycled and used to make something else, some are burned and converted to biogas (renewable energy), and most are just buried in the landfills!!

I already do recycle

Since almost 75% Americans recycle on a regular basis, most likely, you belong to that category as well. Even though more and more people are participating in recycling programs, still only 30% of the total trash is recycled. 15% is burned, leaving 55% of the total trash getting buried in the landfill! We can do better as 80% of what we throw away are recyclables, and only 30% are being recycled. This means that our landfills can be reduced by 50% if we maximize our recycling habits.

It’s ok, I can’t save the world by recycling more

I found some interesting tidbits at ecocycle.org, an organization devoted to recycling.

1. Americans throw away enough aluminum to rebuild our entire commercial fleet of airplanes every 3 months.
2. Recycling creates 6 times as many jobs as landfilling.
3. Recycling glass instead of making it from silica sand reduces mining waste by 70%, water use by 50%, and air pollution by 20%.
4. If we recycled all of the newspapers printed in the U.S. on a typical Sunday, we would save 550,000 trees–or about 26 million trees per year.
5. The energy saved each year by steel recycling is equal to the electrical power used by 18 million homes each year.
6. If every household in the U.S. replaced just one roll of 1,000 sheet virgin fiber bathroom tissues with 100% recycled ones, we could save: 373,000 trees, 1.48 million cubic feet of landfill space, and 155 million gallons of water. You can find more tidbits at ecocycle.org. Yes, you certainly can make a difference!

Contact your local recycling center

Recycling is so much easier today than it was 20 years ago. It seems like you can find recycling bins sitting next to the typical trash bins everywhere you go these days. I was at my local mall the other day and noticed two more bins next to the typical trash bin. One for paper, another for plastic and glass, and another for regular trash. My local county makes it real easy for me to recycle as well. First they give out free recycling bins for me to use. Once a week, a recycling collection truck comes to our neighborhood and picks up the recyclables. (They send a different collection truck to pick up my trash. ) I place my recyclables in my free recycling bin and they take it. I don’t even have to sort them. I just place them all in there without a single worry.

They have the following instructions posted on their website:

• Put all recycling into the same container, no need to separate.
• You don’t need to rinse or clean recycling and you can include labels, caps and lids.
• You may put out an unlimited amount of recycling.
• Use the yellow recycling container or any other container of your choice marked with a large ‘X’.
• Place large recycling items next to your recycling container.
• When in doubt, place the item in your recycling container and we will handle it!

They also listed all the items that can be placed inside the free recycle bin to be collected by the recycling collection agency:

Paper

• Milk and juice carton/boxes
• cardboard
• boxes (cereal, cracker, pizza, etc)
• books
• paper
• newspaper and inserts
• magazines and catalogs
• junk mail
• file folders
• envelopes

Metal

• aluminum foil and pans
• aluminum cans
• tin/steel cans
• empty aerosol cans

Plastic

• plastic bags and shrink wrap
• plastic cups, plates, utensils
• plastic buckets
• storage totes
• plastic flower pots
• plastic furniture
• trash cans and old recyclying containers
• plastic toys, pools, playsets
• bottles, jars, jugs, tubs, and trays

Glass

• All glass and jars

Please check with your local recycling center to inquire about their recycling program. Additionally, if you have old compact fluorescent light bulbs, please contact your local recycling center for special handling instructions.