Your Questions About Recycling

The Expert answers:

The city does have a limited recycling program that derives from street pick up on at least one of the garbage collection days: http://www.nyc.gov/html/nycwasteless/html/recycling/recycle_what.shtml

The present mayor has a keen eye for profitability and suspended the fall leaves recycling when it was found to cost money and not make money for the city. As 100% of NYC garbage is hauled somewhere else it would seem prudent to have an intense recycling program: http://cooperator.com/articles/1323/1/Where-Does-the-Garbage-Go/Page1.html

The only bins you will see for collection will be in store parking lots for the collection of clothing but that is not a governmental function. Several years ago the city baned uncovered garbage collection bins from all businesses. They had to be covered with a fence or eliminated in favor of using bags. Some business collection went from 2-3 times per week to daily with increased costs. There is room for improvement.

The Expert answers:

First of all, thank you for trying to do your part to recycle. There are opportunities available in most communities in the USA. Here are a few places to start looking:

1. Go to Earth 911 and enter your zip code. Http://earth911.org/recycling/

2. Look in the local yellow pages under “recycling”.

3. Visit the website of your state, county or city environmental agency. If that doesn’t have a section about recycling, compose an email to them and ask them about recycling. Always be polite.

4. With the help of a parent, visit the Freecycle website at http://www.freecycle.org/group This is a good place for local folks to donate and ask for things that would typically end up in the landfill.

Don’t forget, there’s more to recycling that just cans and bottles. Pay particular attention to wastes known as “household hazardous wastes”. You probably could toss these wastes, (like unused oil paint, solvents, pesticides, and even burned-out fluorescent bulbs) into the normal trash, but it’s best to take them to the special collection events that many communities have nowadays. It’s better to keep this stuff out of landfills and garbage trucks rolling down the highways.

Even better than recycling is doing what you can to avoid making more waste. One thing to consider is to try and eliminate most of the junk mail that is sent to your house. Visit http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs4-junk.htm and try to do at least a couple of the things they suggest to reduce the junk mail that comes to most of our homes.

Use a mulching mower to cut your grass…never bag grass again. Leave it on the yard or start a compost pile. You don’t need a fancy compost bin, you just need a spot, a turner and a little water every day or two.

Look for opportunities to donate stuff like computers and old paints to charitable organizations like Goodwill http://www.goodwill.org/page/guest/about or Habitat for Humanity http://www.habitat.org/ .

I hope that you find something useful in all of this….best of luck to you and to your family. And remember, the more people you can involve… the better! Some people take a little kind coaxing, so be patient.

The Expert answers:

I recycle everything I can. And not only is it good for the environment, but it saves a lot of room in the garbage can so I use less trash bags as well. : )

The Expert answers:

You should move to Ontario. They’re crazy about recycling here. We get taught how to recycle in school and I swear to God, if someone in this province sees you litter they will death stare you like there is no tomorrow. It’s in our blood haha.
We also, in the city I live in, have garbage laws that state we are only allowed to have ONE full bag of garbage per household each garbage day. The rest must be our recycling (we can have as many bags and bins of that as we want) and our green bin (compost..also a law that we put all used food and food stuffs in a green bin).

I can’t imagine not recycling. I have friends in a small town in Ohio who I visit often, and they don’t have a reclying system there. I actually have so much trouble throwing out bottles and cardboard etc…it bothers me !! Hahah

The Expert answers:

Theoretically, you should have no need for garbage. You can use reusable items, recycle you aluminum glass and plastic, have a compost pile and burn the rest if necessary. We have a woodstove to heat the house so burning come natural. We have a compost pile with all food items, paper, egg shells, coffee grounds etc. We recycle as above and go to the store with canvas sacks. About once a month or more, I do take a small bag up to the dumps with stuff that has somehow slipped thru the cracks.

The Expert answers:

Collect the plastic bags and return them to the store to recycle them.

You are probably not going to convince your parents… But you can reuse plastic bags for other purposes (lunch bag, garbage bags, shoe covers, doggie doo receptacle, kitty litter trash bag, etc.)

You can also return them to stores where they are collected and recycled.

I know almost all places that have plastic bags also have bins to take them back and recycle them.

The Expert answers:

One thing that we all have to do is recycle always, no exceptions, and if possible, compost. Consequently doing those two things should help a lot.

Here is an article on how to compost:
http://www.toptipspot.com/tips/green/howto/compost.php

Also, avoid products that come with a lot of packaging.
Avoid plastic bags..

Here are the worst “Eco Sins”:
http://www.toptipspot.com/tips/green/howto/avoid-eco-sins.php

I am not using plastic bags at all anymore.. It took some getting used to, but I’m there now.

The Expert answers:

High Density Polyethylene and Low Density Polyethylene are the same in terms of chemical ingredients however the structure of their polymers differs.

HDPE is durable, resistant to chemical change and tougher than LDPE. HDPE is used in buckets, garbage bins and many other applications.

LDPE is used mainly for its flexibility at the cost of durability and strength. LDPE is used in glad-wrap, shopping bads and drink bottles.

Polyethylene wether it be high density or low density is a thermoplastic so theoretically is could simply be melted down in an environment absent of oxygen and remoulded into a new product. Also if they are heated more the polymer itself will break down becoming its original monomer (ethene) or other alkanes or alkenes depending on various factors. Ethene can be used to make more polyethylene or potentially PVC, polystyrene, polypropene and many others.

LDPE is different at a molecular level to HDPE as a result of their different styles of production.

LDPE uses a three stage process involving the introduction and then termination of a free radical that causes the monomer ethene to polymerise into polyethylene. The production involves backbiting and results in backbiting of the chain leaving large amounts of branching. This branching means the polymer cannot pack tightly together so it is less dense and as a result weaker this also means that as the chains are not aligned and are more “tangled” it is more flexible.

HDPE uses an ionic catalyst called the Ziegler-Natta catalyst this process is much more complicated but it is done by slowly adding the monomer to stop branching and producing much less branching and more parallel chains resulting in a strong, inflexible plastic.

This is all I can remember off the top of my head. I have tried to simplify it as your question is very vague and the answer could be 500 pages long if you let me go on but thats a condensed version.

The Expert answers:

Yes, I think so.

There is a lot of news stories about the plastic bags we get at the food market, but I think the bigger problem is the garbage bags we use when taking out the trash each day.

I recycle a lot and have done so for years even when it was not popular to do so. And I have a large composting area that I’ve used for almost 20 years. All for the sake of environmental reasons.