Your Questions About Recycling

The Expert answers:

No its not a virus
C://RECYCLER is basically a location where a users deleted files are stored. After a user empties their Recycle Bin the data will stay in the RECYCLER location. This could be viewed as a kind of hidden back-up for deleted files (99.9% of users don’t know about it) or back door to track a user if ever needed. I would imagine its purpose is in the event a user deleted a critical system file that needed to be recovered.

The Recycler folder contains deleted files. On an external drive, the Recycler folder is not visible unless enabled (in Windows Explorer uncheck: tools/folder options/hide protect operating system files).

The files contained in the Recycler folder on an external drive can be deleted if, while the drive is mounted (connected) the user right clicks on the Recycle Bin on the DESKTOP (the main desktop, not the external drive) and selects “Empty Recycle Bin”).

Note that the Recycler and the file contained therein will remain apparently unchanged. To confirm the deletion, right click the file within (the name will be a long string of letters and numbers) and select “properties”. An empty file will be something like 8kb in size.

The Expert answers:

Yes, metal recyclers will accept those appliances. The fridg may need special handling, for freon, and possibly to have the door removed on it. Children have become trapped, and died in the old friges, with the locking doors, so it became law that the door had to be removed.

I’m very currious about your range/oven though. The very best oven I EVER had came out of an old house. It was huge. It was a double oven, so you could cook in either side. It had four burners on top, and over one side of the oven it was just bare enamel that was and outstanding place to set pots and keep them warm (if the second oven was on).

Sometimes the other side is a grill (next to the burners) on the older stoves.

If you have one like I’ve described, you might actually want to give it a trial run….you might find you love that thing! If you have that type of oven, but just cannot stand it, then put an add in the paper. People actually love them! (and they are hard to come by) That stove was heaven, especially at Thanksgiving, and other big cooking times.

~Garnet
Homesteading/Farming over 20 years

P.S. Don’t forget to check out your water heater…it may well need to be updated too!

The Expert answers:

Only one recycling bin is needed these days. They found out that with consumer sorted bins, they still had to sort them because it took just one consumer ignoring the rules or accidentally mis-sorting just once for them to require hiring a sorter to sort through the recyclables so they might as well save money by collecting just one stream of recyclables instead of three to four streams. This is called single stream recycling and is why you’ll often see the pickup crew just toss it all, even trash into the same truck. The only reason why people still have sorting bins is that the bins were designed before single stream recycling was even thought of.

Unfortunately, modern recycling is often more about economics instead of the environment. The best recyclers would crush the recyclables between heavy steel drums, chop them into particles, pick out the valuable ferrous steel with magnets, drop the remainder through a steady flow of air which deflects them by density hence sorting them in the same fashion as a mass spectrometer would, repeat drop the plastics in a single stream through lasers that would detect what type of plastics they were and deflect those plastics with puffs of air and they would repeat this process until they get the purity they want. Unfortunately there are smaller lower cost contractors that sometimes underbid these recyclers. The lower cost contractors either use inexpensive labour to hand sort or they would ship the recyclables to China and India where hand sorting is less expensive. Minimum wage hand sorters in North America aren’t environmentally motivated so they tend to just direct batches to the landfill if there’s any question about the quality and contamination hence soggy and wet bins get tossed out just because the cardboard and paper is soggy etc. Shipping half way around the world is not exactly environmentally friendly as there’s a huge carbon footprint involved with all that shipping. They argue that the shipping containers have to go back anyways whether empty or not but that just means it’s economically viable, a full container takes more fuel to ship then an empty one.

Research into who picks up your recyclables and find out what they recycle. Chip bags are aluminized plastic so in theory they could be recycled but the lower cost recyclers probably won’t bother with them, nor will they bother with styrofoam due to the low amount of material in styrofoam. Find out what your recyclers do with the recyclables, it may be better to drive your recyclables across down then to use your neighborhood recycling pickup service.

The Expert answers:

Hi,

More than likely your deletion attempts deleted the infected file, however this will not remove the virus from your computer because there is a carbon copy on your root directory, housed in a shell folder called recycler. This is hidden normally but can be viewed and removed by doing the following:

1. Click START | select computer (or My Computer)

2. Open C Drive

3. Select folder options and check the option to show hidden files.

Now reboot PC and tap F5 continually till you get the black command screen where you can choose to boot to Safe Mode.

Use the down arrow on keyboard to select:

  Safe Mode with Network Support

Press ENTER

In this mode your desktop icons will appear larger than normal because it is using a lower screen resolution; this is normal.

4. Now update any antivirus software you are running. If you are not running any, then open your browser and download and install one; for example AVG; or alternatively, visit a website that offers a free online scan; for example McAfee, Symantec etcetera.

5. Which ever option you chose, do a full system scan while still in Safe Mode with Network Support. Allow the antivirus program to quarintine any infections.

Assuming the antivirus program does not delete the recycler folder, then right click on it and select delete; now empty recycle bin.

Note: c:Recycler (is the folder to delete if antivirus does not do this for you)

OK, now reboot pc.

Plug in phone card and scan it.

Issue solved.

Regards,

TgTips

The Expert answers:

Go to command prompt by clicking start menu then selecting run and then typing cmd and click OK.
Go to the drive which has virus: Recycler.exe
Type:
attrib -s -h -a recycler.exe
This will make recycler.exe visible if it is present and clear its System file property.
Next you need to right click on My Computer and select System Restore tab (Windows XP) and check the option for ‘Turn OFF System Restore on all Drives’, enable this option so that virus cannot restore itself once you have deleted it.
Next, restart the computer under safe mode by clicking restart and then pressing F8 key while the computer is restrating. Select Safe Mode (Command Prompt only).
From command prompt goto the disk which has virus.
Type: del recycler.exe
Restart the computer by typing shutdown -r.

The Expert answers:

Recycler virus comes with autorun.inf therefore formatting does not work.

First I would run free flash disinfector by sUBs:

http://experi3nc3.wordpress.com/2007/05/10/flash-disinfector-by-subs/

(when the program tells you to connect usb you connect external hard drive)

(Now you can format the external hard drive if you so wish.)

If you dont wish to format, show hidden files on external hard drive & check whats there. (this is where recycler virus hides)

The Expert answers:

When you delete a file in Windows Explorer it’s not only moved to a RECYCLER folder, but it’s moved into a user-specific folder within it. So the files you delete are in the Recycle Bin and they’re kept separately from the files deleted by other users on the same machine.

And when you empty your Recycle Bin You’re only emptying your Recycle Bin. The other users Recycle Bins are not affected.

The appropriate way to truly empty all of them would be to login as each user and empty their Recycle Bins.So you cannot really remove a
recycler as such,but you can remove what is in it.

Your Q lacks detail,but i think this is the info
you are looking for.Hope this helps.