Your Questions About Recycling

The Expert answers:

Yes they give you cash for your cans but it depends on what state you live in btw what state do you live in because you did not add that to your question to know what recycling center are near you,

The Expert answers:

Try using www.earth911.org to find a recycling center.

The Expert answers:

In my area, the recycling center is operated by the solid waste district. The funding to operate the recycling center comes from generation fees, which is the money that landfills and transfer stations are taxed when they receive waste. In the U.S., all counties either have a waste management district, or fall under the jurisdiction of one, though these districts do not all operate recycling centers. However, one commonality is that, because of the economy, people are buying less stuff, and therefore throwing away less stuff. This means that less waste is being taken to the landfills and transfer stations, so there is less funding from generation fees. If the recycling center to which you are referring is similarly funded, then they are more than likely also suffering from decreased revenue because of lower generation fees.

That being said, many recyclers dealing in metals (e.g. Scrap yards) are seeing a real boom in business because of the economy. As folks struggle to make ends meet, more and more are collecting aluminum cans, scrapping old cars and appliances, and (unfortunately) even turning to theft. Most scrap yards pay by the ounce or pound, by material, for metals brought in for sale/recycling.

The Expert answers:

Do you not have a blue box/bin for recycling ?

Otterspool tip in that case

The Expert answers:

I just started a recycling program, and I had some difficulties too. Get people involved. Tell them your mission and if they are interested, they will hopefully join, and tell them what they should do.

The Expert answers:

Check with your local city or county to see if recycling is available for apartment complexes. Many do not offer such services, but sometimes there is a drop-off location you can use, or other outlets for certain recyclables. Another site to visit is Earth911.com.

As for cartons, you found the best site for carton recycling information. The Carton Council, who sponsors that site, has established a mail-in program that has yet to be added to the recyclecartons.com site. If you email me at acollinson@recycle.com, I can provide you the information of where you can send your cartons for recycling, if you are interested in taking that approach.

Thanks and good luck!

The Expert answers:

At the AT&T store I got to they have a spot you can bring them to recycle your old phones so maybe yours does too

The Expert answers:

The link below should give you the information you need.

The Expert answers:

This is by far the best question I have ever seen posted to Yahoo Q & A.

I do not think environmentalists, or the American public in general really understand rural America.

I’m a rare person who has lived on both sides of the pasture. I was born in Chicago, and grew up wealthy, lacking for not a single thing. My parents never worked, as the family was independently wealthy.

Since I was a six year old I knew I was going to live on a farm, and be as self sufficent as possible…quiet a difference from a girl who grew up in the middle of peers who were nothing but consumor’s. I’m married, my husband works on the commercial wind turbines (the true income for us).

We live on a small farm, where I (a stay home wife) raise meat goats and rabbits. My husbands father built this house we live in back in the 70’s. We live in the high mountain deserts (4700 plus feet) of Idaho, in the heart of potato country. I’m surrounded by farms, many belonging to families. There are six major farming families around here. The families are huge, and messure their land by the mile. I concider them agra businessmen. They bring in millions of dollars with farming and by recieving farm subsidies from the Government.

The ground and ground water around here has been made toxic, by the use of chemical fertilizers. At a neighbors house just 1/4 a mile from me, a crop dusting plane over sprayed their 5 acres, and killed their honeybee hives overnight.

There are signs posted on ranches all around here, warning people to keep off their property, BECAUSE OF THE MEDDLING OF ENVIRONMENTALISTS. These farmers/ranchers are NOT kidding, and will meet you with a shotgun.

I’m always taken aback by the reaction of both “environmentalist” and vegans (often they are one in the same) to me, and my lifestyle. Rabbits can produce more meat, with less food than cattle. They also cause much less damage.

I do not breed my rabbits during the summer when the heat stress would be hard on the does. I can see them all right now. They are in cages sitting in the shade, on my lawn, with full waterbottles, and nice clean alfalfa hay. They are able to nibble the grass also through the cages (which are about three times the reccomended size). Yet city people, vegans, and environmentalist have all told me how cruel I am to be raising rabbits for meat and slaughter.

By the way, all of my customers come to my farm…my animals are never shipped. All butchering is done right here, under my watchful eye.

Meat goats can also provide more meat, with less food and environmental damage than cattle. Best of all, my pasture quality has improved a hundredfold since bringing goats here. There’s hardly a weed to be seen, just highly desirable clovers and grasses.

When I first arrived with the goats (to my Mother-In-Law’s dismay) this was a land of invasive weeds, and RoundUp was heavely used here, along with chemical fertilizers (petrolium based).

Not a drop of any of that garbage has touched the land since I arrived. In three short years the transformation to the pasture has been miraculous.

Despite being a small farmer, and having the best interest of my family, my animals, and our land in mind, our way of life is threatend.

People in cities unthinkingly pass laws about the NAIS (National Animal Identification System) and COOL (Country Of Origon Labeling). They don’t stop to thing that agra businessmen have powerful lobbiest who get loopholes made in those kind of laws, so they can use just one I.D. Number for an entire batch of animals raised in confinment. Yet the small farmer who know the name, and personality of each of their individual animals, must tag each of their animals, AT THE SMALL FARMERS EXPENCE.

Environmentalist push city people all the time into voting for laws which actually make America a little weaker. The more dependant we become upon our food coming from other contries, the worse off we will be. I watch farmland being gobbled up at alarming rates, and rows of houses being built.

I moved to Idaho, from very liberal Washington State. I now live in a very concervative area. I’m “amused” at people who scoff at traditional family and church values. City people who do not understand folks who get excited about growing the perfect tomato, or making a beautiful quilt by hand.

My husband and I are looking at buying more farm land. We will raise a wheat or barley crop. It’s not the grain we want…it’s the straw. We will bale the straw, and build our own straw bale house.

We will live on a permaculture farm, with the manure from the livestock fertilizing our hay and other crops. We will raise something like canola (rape seed) and make our own biofuel right there on the farm to power our tractors and trucks. The left-overs from the canola will be fed to the goats.

We will live off grid, with solar and wind. We will raise most of our own food as we do now.

We will keep “environmentalist” OFF our property. I have rarely found one who truel understands, or has a good grasp of reality.

As far as I’m concerned, the environmentalist should all rush up, to spray paint the baby seals, so they are useless to the fur trade. (By the way that actually kills way more seal pups than the fur trade ever would, since the polar bears find and kill all the spray painted seal pups)

My husband and I would prefer to be left alone by environmentalist, vegans, and most city & suburb folks. They rarely have a clue. We will just continue to live our truely earth friendly lifestyle (which include habbitats and plantings for native wildlife) and the rest of the world can just KEEP OUT.

By the way, recycling is a big deal, and hard to do around here. It is about 100 miles for us to recycle. We smash cans, and save them, taking them in once a year in a single pickup load. Since we buy in bulk, and produce so much of our own food, it’s not that big a deal.

I’ve enjoyed reading the posting of almost everyone who posted an answer to this question.

~Garnet
Homesteading/Farming for over 20 years.