Your Questions About Recycling
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Filed under Recycling Q & A
James asks…
How will you personally change this?
Hello:
I’m wondering if you personally have any ideas, or how you will change the fact that wearing unused/recycled plastic garbage/trash/bin bags as outfits/dresses? If you do will you actually try your ideas, if so when?
Thanks
The Expert answers:
Check these gorgeous gowns: http://fabgreen.com/2009/09/06/fashion-remarkable-recycled-dresses/
Nancy asks…
i have 9 bags of recycled for pop and bottle cans how much money do i get? like to ask?
i have 9 garbage bags of pop can and bottles and a few mile carton, i would like to bring it to a near by can collected, i wanted to know how much money i would get before i turn it in.
The Expert answers:
How big are the bags? Nevermind. Weigh each bag by weighing yourself on the scale, then with the bag. See how many pounds of cans you have. Right now aluminum is going for $1.54 a pound here at our local recycling center.
Paul asks…
What can cities do with garbage that can’t be recycled or composted?
This means things like garbage bags, other plastic items and unfortunately I can’t think of anything else. I’m ‘making’ a Green City for an assignment and I know that even though people will try to reduce the amount of products that cannot be recycled or composted, there will still be a little, right. Well what can a Green City do with that type of garbage that’s environmentally friendly?
And can you give me more examples besides garbage bags and other plastic items that I can use as examples in my assignment? lol
The Expert answers:
There’s a process called plasma-gassification. It’s still in the experimental stages, but it turns all waste into a glass material that could be used on roads. There’s also waste to energy incineration, but there are still air pollution issues with it.
Lizzie asks…
Apartment storage solutions? for garbage and bikes?
The apartment we live in is a decent size but theres nowhere for storage in it. We have no garbage bin outside to put our garbage in, so when our garbage bags are full we have to keep them in our apartment, so they just lie there in our kitchen and stink up. Same with recyclables, our blue bags just lay there in a corner in our kitchen being an eye sore until recycling day ( every 2 weeks.. it rotates). And we have like bikes and stuff and nowhere to put them. Along with any other junk that we’re not using at present time – no where to put it. We have one closet other than the ones in our bedroom, and our shoes and coats go in it. So if anyone else is in the same situation what did you do? or what would you do?
The Expert answers:
I would freeze the smelly garbage each day in plastic bags. Double bag it if necessary. Then put it in the bins on the day your rubbish gets collected.
You could purchase a large wicker basket to put the recyclables in so it doesn’t look so bad as the blue bags. Or make a closed off section in the corner with some material strung on a curtain wire to hide them behind.
Consider renting some off-site storage space for things you don’t need now or see if any of your friends have garage space they would lend/rent to you.
Ask the landlord for permission to place large hooks on a wall out of the way for you to hang your bikes so they don’t clutter up the walk ways.
If you have room to put in some wardrobes or cupboards then buy some new or second hand. Buy one with internal shelves so you can organise some of the stuff that is left out at the moment.
If you have a step ladder put it in a corner and use it as shelves. The more you can get off the floor and organised the better your place will feel.
Sandra asks…
To preserve natural resources, which of the following should be recycled?
coal, oil, and copper
paper, glass and rubber
food, clothing and furniture
aluminum, steel, and natural gas
If oil spills continue, all of the following should be expected except
death of aquatic life.
polluted groundwater.
decreased soil productivity.
increased global temperatures.
All of the following are examples of recycling except
buying used furniture from a thrift store.
using aluminum scrap to make aluminum cans.
reusing plastic bags from the store as garbage bags.
buying compact fluorescent light bulbs instead of incandescent bulbs.
The Expert answers:
Coal, oil, food, and natural gas cannot be recycled in the conventional sense. I suppose carbon dioxide produced from burning coal and oil can be recycled and converted to methanol. Food waste and human and animal waste (the product of food) can be composted. Natural gas produces carbon dioxide when burnt and that could be converted to methanol and reused. In the conventional sense of recycling none of those choices is actually possible. In the unconventional sense, almost everything is recycled eventually by geologic cycles whether we make any effort or not. Nature has been recycling for about 14 billion years now.
Oil spills do contribute to increased global temperatures in the strict sense because most of the oil evaporates and is broken down by photochemical reactions in the atmosphere to carbon dioxide and water vapor, both of which are greenhouse gases. There is technically no correct choice for that question. Oh, and oil spills will continue because they are naturally occurring events that have taken place for at least the last 400 million years or so, often catastrophically, but commonly on a daily continual basis.
The third question has three examples that are not recycling: reusing plastic bags or furniture, which is actually repurposing or reusing, not recycling. Buying compact fluorescents is not any sort of recycling or repurposing. It is simply different technology that has its own serious environmental issues and can easily be argued to be much more hazardous than using an incandescent powered by solar, wind, hydropower, or natural gas fired power plants due to the mercury vapor that eventually escapes from the compact fluorescent bulb. Only in the case of coal generated electricity does the mercury become a net gain, and the distribution of the mercury emissions will be much more widely distributed and much more difficult to contain, so it represents a long-term hazard from my point of view. The whole promotion of compact fluorescents is simply a statistical lie based on the false assumption that electricity is produced only from coal and the myth that there are actually ways to prevent the mercury in them from entering the environment. I myself am stocking up on incandescents before they are banned in the US at the end of this year. I don’t like mercury in my indoor environment no matter how diluted it becomes after the bulb breaks or leaks- and I’ve experienced both of these issues already. Hopefully the whole compact fluorescent industry will go the way of 5 1/4 inch floppy disks and whale-oil lanterns in a few years and be replaced by LED’s.
Richard asks…
punjabis in my flats wont take out the garbage. what is going on?
in my block there are 12 flats. in seven of those 12 single bedroom flats live punjabi families or in some cases groups of single people staying together somehow.
always i have found them to be polite and seemingly gentle to your face. and i have been friendly to them and visited one of the houses for some chai a while back. those have moved out though.
anyway, for a very long time, when ever it is rubbish bin night, many bins are not taken out, and then when they are taken out there are many that are left for days on the nice grass nature strip in front of our flat.
at one time there were about five bins that were full to overflowing that were not being taken out. it got to the point where me and one other white guy in the flats had to organise the overflow and take out the bins.
this guy thinks that the punjabis look down on the white people and think that it is our duty to clean up after them – because of their concept of a class system. i’m not sure about that, but i am sick of these guys not sorting their bins out.
one issue is that this guy is a strange fellow and has a system of keeping water in recycled bottles – about 300 – out the back of our block so he can water plants he rescues from hard rubbish. he also has an old car on the property that he has covered in tarps, and is filled with aluminium pots and pans that he finds for recycling.
so i thought maybe the punjabis don’t see that he has a system of organising this stuff and just think that it is normal to leave rubbish everywhere – ie 5 garbage bags of styrofoam from new electronics were left up the back of the flats near the bottles.
i am going to start speaking to each of them when i see them and tell them to sort it out. what do you think?
The Expert answers:
Eww that is gross.. I also am a punjabi and where as i know most Punjabi’s a very clean but then there are some that dont do anything. Who cares, its their garbage and they should be the ones takin it out not u. That is simply gross… Try talkin to them, but to tell u the truth if they r Punjabi’s then i dont think talkin to them is gonna work. Well still try and if it doesn’t work tell the landlord to talk to them, cuz its not fair that u have to pick up their shit. And yaa i dont think its a caste thingy problem its just simple laziness… They prbly work till night and sleep durin the day and then go off to work again, and not care about anythin else around them, but still this is no excuse. All i think is that u shouldn’t be the one pickin up after them.
Donald asks…
My garbage company says they go through all the bags and pull out the recyclables….?
Is this true? So I really don’t need to recycle anything, because they already do it? I am in California, and I do take in all my glass bottles and soda cans for the money, but when I took in bags of other recyclables, they said they didn’t take them because they go through all the garbage and pick out the recyclables??
The Expert answers:
Some companies do use what is called single stream recycling with this process you do not need to sort. Wish they had it here, I have attached a great link that explains it better than I ever could.
Ken asks…
Would you wear a wedding/bridesmaid dress made out of the following material?
Hello:
I’m wondering if you personally will or have worn/wear a wedding/bridesmaid dress made out of unused/recycled plastic garbage/trash/bin bags at or for a wedding?
Thanks
The Expert answers:
As long as it will be comfortable when i wear it. Your friend has a wide imagination or low budget?
Mark asks…
Is it legal for an apartment complex to go through your garbage?
They went through the garbage that I threw in the dumpster, obviously read the mail inside the bag to identify the garbage as mine, and then left a note under my door complaining about its contents.
(if your wondering, they didn’t think I was doing a good enough job recycling).
Is this legal? I feel like my privacy has been invaded and I am not comfortable with this at all. Is this grounds to legally break my lease? I don’t feel comfortable living in a place that is invasive like this.
Thanks.
The Expert answers:
Once you put it in the trash it actually becomes public property, any one can go through it. Gross.
Going through trash is not an invasion of privacy.
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