Your Questions About Recycling

The Expert answers:

I have for years, i am constantly taking cans, glass, plastic, containers out of the trash that my family keeps throwing in there, i keep telling them leave it on the kitchen counter or in the sink and i will take care of it, feel guilty if i don’t, and its easy.

The Expert answers:

Plastic bags and containers take years and years to degrade and they release toxins into the soil when they do. Kind of like the toxins that are released into your food when you heat your lunch in plastic.

It just makes sense to use the least amount of plastic that you can so we don’t have so much of it leaching toxins in our dumps. Reduce, reuse and recycle makes an awful lot of sense to me.

The Expert answers:

According to the Stillwater Recycling Guide, you can recycle glass containers and plastic milk jugs at the HEW Waste Systems.

For plastic containers – make sure that you rinse them, separate by color (clear, brown, green), and don’t include lids or caps.

For plastic milk jugs – there should be a #1 or #2 on the bottom of the container. Rinse and collapse it and don’t include lids or caps.

Here is the address and phone number for HEW Waste Systems:

2417 N Marine Rd
Stillwater, OK 74075
(405)377-3880

Happy Recycling!

The Expert answers:

You will have to check with your specific recycle center, but most won’t take them.

Something you may want to consider if you buy a lot of take out. To reduce waste bring your own containers. I love the tiffin dishes. Or at least check the bag and give the restaurant back their plastic ware before you leave.

The Expert answers:

We should cut down even though we are recycling these things because energy goes into processing them. It’s not as simple as putting an old bag into the factory and getting a new bag out. For instance, with containers it takes gas in a truck to bring materials to a processing center (polluting air along the way); water and energy to convert containers into usable forms (with the addition of chemicals that may have released pollutants while being made themselves); more gas to transport to a manufacturing plant; and the re-manufacturing of the raw plastic/glass/metal into new containers again releases pollutants and uses energy.

While it’s a good thing to recycle, if we reduce the amount of waste we produce by reusing things a few times before recycling them and by using cloth bags where we can, we reduce the amount that needs to be processed. This in turn leads to a reduction in pollutants and the energy use associated with processing.

In short, reducing the things we recycle reduces the energy and resources it takes to recycle.

The Expert answers:

A lot of time it just comes down to rebellion. HAH! Most states regulate recycling and people think it is dumb to recycle. They are being MADE to do it and as such it’s just another non-freedom that they can stand against. It’s time consuming and they don’t want to take time out and the biggest issue is lack of educations about recycling and the law governing recycling. The public doesn’t see the + to it. As sad as it is it starts in school. In NJ 80% of the schools were NOT recycling or doing very little recycling. (76% don’t recycle even paper!!!) Even many colleges don’t even encourage recycling. They don’t allott budget money for it and they don’t encourage it. Then they make the excuse that no one will recycle so why waste the money on containers. If the older generation doesn’t agree and doesn’t push it, then the younger generation only can learn so much through demonstration and can only do so much given the resources. It seem that the older generations don’t see the point and the younger generations are making a stand now. I’m sure in the next 10 years things will turn around. We just have to be that person to encourage it.

~We must be the Change we wish to see in the World~
Ghandi

The Expert answers:

First, save yourself some money on the potting soil, unless you have no problem wasting that kind of money to fill that many containers for no particular reason. Tomatoes have taproots but they go down any which way they can get there. I’ve grown good size grape tomatoes (which are indeterminates) in soil no deeper than 4 inches deep. And, oddly enough (it was an accident, but I can’t kill plants I was planning on growing anyway, even if it over crowds them. Too many years of not being able to grow anything to adjust my mind to I can grow anything now. Lol) I ended up growing three tomatoes (one was a patio) in that same container and it was only 18 inches long. (The patio suffered.) So, if you want to save money, start saving your recyclables to put in the over-sized containers you bought. We drink a good amount of canned soda, so we put the cans upside down in the bottom. (Upside down so water doesn’t fester in them and cause unhealthy organisms in the soil.) When we run out of soda cans, we also used soda bottles, and other containers that would have otherwise gone in the recycle-trash. They fill up the unneeded spaces. (And, yes, I have a couple of your size nursery containers, so I have an idea how deep and wide they are.)

Second, yeah two per container for typical size tomatoes. You might (probably) can put in three determinates in one container. Technically, you can put three indeterminates in one container and they’ll do fine, but that’s the problem. You have yet to figure out how much trouble you’re in for this plan. Ever see a movie set in the thickest parts of the jungle, where a machete is needed step-by-step? That’s what you’re setting yourself up for if you put three in. They’ll grow. They’ll grow so full you can’t reach in to get the tomatoes when they’re ready. (More frustrating is squirrels can get to them. Lol)

Third, are you NUTS? 40+ tomato plants in one season? Lol My dad grew 16, in the ground, and that was enough tomatoes to eat tomatoes every single frigging night from July 4th until first frost, PLUS have enough to can a couple of bushels somewhere along the way. There were two adults, and 3-4 love-to-eat kids in my family. It wasn’t like we were against eating them every night, and I’m still growing them, so it’s not like I’m still against it, but what are you going to do with that many tomatoes? AND, exactly where are you putting all those containers? You do know you need lots of walking space in between each container right? It’s not like tomatoes are mannerly produce that understand they’re supposed to live within the invisible lines along the sides of the containers. It’s not like they know they aren’t supposed to still grow 8-10 feet high even in containers (and you’ve already started at 2 feet high, so it’s really 10-12 feet high.) If you can’t spread all those containers out in such a way that you can stick 6 same-size containers around each one, you’re going to need that machete just to walk through your yard.

So, you started gardening this year, and want to up how much you want to do next year. Cool. Do you know what you’re getting yourself into? Unless you plan on becoming a tomato farmer, I think you’ve over done. If you were planning on being a tomato farmer, you wouldn’t be using containers.

The Expert answers:

Recycle almost anything, one said cannot recycle thin plastic bags, though you can reuse as bin liners for waste then throw in bulk bin. All metalriferous products, plastic bottles , newspapers, phone books old cars, old bikes, old computers or any electronic device. People need to be less greedy and have less waste. When I was young; flour, sugar, washing powder came in bulk containers at shop and they would put in your container. Before the new age wasteful society came into existence. Also no one had air-conditioning in cars or home. Maybe that is why they never had global warming, how many units of energy are used daily by air-con in buildings and cars over the whole earth. How many cubic meters of soil and waste are washed into the seas/oceans in 1yr by all the countries of the world. Maybe that is why water level rising???????

The Expert answers:

Well, the golden rule is Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

The first thing to do is to buy less stuff! All stuff comes with packaging and that’s not the half of it… It generated a huge amount of waste before it ever got to you! Try buying in bulk at the grocery store and bringing your own containers. At most stores you just bring your container to the customer service counter so they can weigh it for you before you fill it with bulk foods.

Don’t throw away anything that could be used either by you or by somebody else. Take things to a thrift store.

Recycle whatever is recyclable, and compost everything that can be composted!

I’m on a mission to create less than 100 gallons of garbage this year. I’m nearly 6 months in so far and I’d say I’m right on track. Here’s a link with more suggestions as well as details about my garbage challenge: http://www.greeniacdigest.com/the-great-garbage-challenge-of-2010-part-2/2010/05/19/

You might also want to check out the Clean Bin Project… It’s a blog done by a couple who have produced virtually no garbage in a year: http://cleanbinproject.com/

Good luck!