Monday, November 18, 2024

Your Questions About Recycling

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Filed under Recycling Q & A

Mark asks…

Which quote do you like the most?

I have to speak the “thought of the day” in school – Which one do you think i should choose?

# I laugh, I love, I hope, I try I hurt, I need, I fear, I cry. And I know you do the same things too, So we’re really not that different, me and you.

#The trouble with being punctual is that nobody’s there to appreciate it.

#Experience is that marvellous thing that enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.

#Since light travels faster than sound, people appear bright until you hear them speak.

#One thing you can’t recycle is wasted time.

#Never invest your money in anything that eats or needs painting.

#I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they’d never expect it.

#Seven out of ten people suffer from hemmorhoids. Does this mean that the other three enjoy it.

thanks…^^

The Expert answers:

For School it is

I laugh, I love, I hope, I try I hurt, I need, I fear, I cry. And I know you do the same things too, So we’re really not that different, me and you.
(the message is we are same)

&

One thing you can’t recycle is wasted time.
(the message is never wast time)

Thanks for good Quotes

Sharon asks…

Hello, my fellow P&Sers! Which of these kind sentences do you like the most?

1.Be kinder than necessary because everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.
2.A sharp tongue can cut my own throat.
3.If I want my dreams to come true, I mustn’t oversleep.
4.Of all the things I wear, my expression is the most important.
5.The best vitamin for making friends….. B1.
6.The happiness of my life depends on the quality of my thoughts.
7.The heaviest thing I can carry is a grudge.
8. One thing I can give and still keep…is my word.
9. I lie the loudest when I lie to myself.
10. If I lack the courage to start, I have already finished.
One thing I can’t recycle is wasted time.
11. Ideas won’t work unless ‘ I ‘ do.
12. My mind is like a parachute…it functions only when open.
13. The 10 commandments are not a multiple choice.
14. The pursuit of happiness is the chase of a lifetime! It is never too late to become what I might have been.

The Expert answers:

1.Be kinder than necessary because everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.

Second choice:

14. The pursuit of happiness is the chase of a lifetime! It is never too late to become what I might have been.

You have some good sayings listed here!

Ruth asks…

Is it not about time we banned the production of waste rather than trying to dispose of it?

If the government is serious about preventing waste going to landfill why does it permit unsolicited mail to be delivered to people’s homes?
There has been much talk recently of householders being charged for the amount of waste they generate but no talk of reducing the amount of unsolicited waste being delivered to them. While fully supportting the principal of recycling I fail to understand why householders should pay a levy to allow them to dispose of materials they did not want in the first place. Would it not be better to tax the producers of waste rather than those receiving it?
Business is the source of most household waste with excessive packaging and advertising literature leading the way. A few days ago I received a copy of “Yellow Pages” which was not wanted and not removed from it’s plastic bag before I deposited it in the dustbin; what a waste!
When will businesses be forced to stop producing these vast quantities of unwanted rubbish?

The Expert answers:

The companies should be taxed for making waste but they would only increase the cost of their products to make up for it.and charging people for the amount of waste will only cause people to dump rubbish .

Lisa asks…

Isn’t recycling really just pointless?

It wastes your time.

It wastes your money; trash disposal is cheaper.

It wastes the money of manufacturers who are forced to use recycled material.

It wastes the time of workers who could have otherwise been productively employed.

It does not significantly reduce the use of landfills, nor is there any shortage of space for them.

It does not significantly reduce the use of natural resources, nor is there any shortage of them.

It does not significantly reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, nor is there any reason to.*

It adds needless trucks on the street.

* The Great Global Warming Swindle http://anonym.to/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TqqWJugXzs

The Expert answers:

Recycling metal is definitely worth the effort.

With respect to paper, you are correct. It takes more energy and produces an inferior product.

Linda asks…

NY Times article says recycling is mostly a waste of money. Should 0bama have his Czar bring up charges?

… against NY Times editor?
This was based upon a study that says it pollutes the environment MORE when we recycle (sending garbage trucks around, etc)

The Expert answers:

I thought you guys said the NY Times was nothing but leftist propaganda??? So obviously you don’t believe this report.

Richard asks…

How long have you been recycling your waste?

And what is your fun story about the first time you ever recycled?

When I was younger, there were always bags around the yard overflowing with our aluminum cans. For one reason or another, even if a recycling center was in easy reach of my parents…they just stopped caring. I’ve even tried to persuade them to start back up…with little or no success.

I started recycling my own waste about 2 1/2 years ago, not long after my city’s first recycling plant was finally built. I snagged one of their promotional bumper stickers, but still procrastinated…but then, I stuck it to my car. Even if I drove around advertising for GPS Recycle Now!, I still kept putting off the task of buying my extra garbage cans for the job.

But I put my sticker on the car to push myself into recycling…I figured that if I reminded myself that I have advertised for something good to do, but wish not to be a hypocrite, I’d better get crackin’. Then, I bought my supplies, started recycling, and I have never stopped. I recycle EVERYTHING, religiously, and that’s the way I like it.

How’d it happen with you?

The Expert answers:

The main thing I recycle is paper and aluminum cans.
For me, it all started out when I was little. My parents recycled all the newspapers we received in the mail and bought in the grocery store. Being so little I didn’t understand the concept of recycling. All I knew was that the bin we had in our garage was where the newspapers, and more importantly my comics, went when we were done with them. Every so often my Dad would take the bin and stow it in the trunk of his car before work, and when he got home that afternoon they were gone.
As I got older, I realized what recycling was. I understood that us putting newspapers in the recycling bin meant that less trees needed to be killed.

Later, when my little town in the middle of nowhere started growing, I realized quickly that they were taking trees from everywhere. Every once and a while we would see trucks drive by our house carrying a bed full of pine trees. Companies would come, buy land, clear cut it, and then leave the land there barren and ugly until they could sell it to another company that would develop it.

Then it happened in my back yard. Literally. My family owned a plot of land that was in a forest. Our whole back yard was full of pine trees. I loved it. I had adventures back there when I was a kid! I built forts and brought my friends back there so we could play house. XD The land was owned by an older woman who later passed away and gave the land to her sons who sold it to a developer. They clear cut what I considered an extension of my backyard. And then instead of shipping the timber off to a company that could use it, they burned all of it.

Anyway, to make a long story short (too late…) my family kept recycling newspapers and such, and I grew up always remembering everything that had happened in my community. In high school I helped maintain our school-wide recycling program. You should have seen how much paper our school would have just thrown away…
Now I’m headed off to college, and I plan to be involved in the school’s environmental clubs also. 🙂

I know my story wasn’t funny… At all… But I still hope you enjoyed reading it!
I liked your story too! Oh the power of that bumper sticker!

Nancy asks…

Why do people recycle?

People waste so much time recycling and I can’t understand why. The only recyclable materials that are actually worth recycling, companies are actually willing to pay you for (aluminium & steel). The rest actually do the opposite of what you’re trying to accomplish through recycling, it takes more energy & creates more pollution (the refining process) and costs an enormous amout of money (taxpayer money) and manpower to refine these products.
The 1st story that I read to address this issue stated that “Recycling may be the most wasteful activity in modern America” printed in the New York Times in 1996. America has no shortage of landfills, and the current landfill regulations are very environmentally friendly and are the most cost effective way of disposing of waste.
There is no shortage of trees available in the US the number of trees in our forest has actually increased in the last 50 years according to Jerry Taylor, director of natural resources at the Cato Institute.
I love some of these answers! Incredibly funny.
With the exception of the aluminium & steel recyclers, has anyone noticed that all of the research that supports recycling is done by or supported by persons or groups who have a financial interest in recycling.

The Expert answers:

We recycle to get the most out of our resources and to maintain a sustainable relationship between economics and stewardship for our environment. Besides deriving the maximum amount of value from a resource, recycling also reduces or prevents emissions to air and water, saves energy and natural resources and reduces greenhouse gas emissions from landfills.

While it is correct to assert that fossil fuels are used in the remanufacture of recycled items, research indicates that overall emissions are lower from recovered materials than from virgin materials. Recycling aluminum cans, for example, saves 95 percent of the energy needed to extract an equal amount of aluminum from bauxite, its virgin source.

A recent Executive Order directs all federal agencies to purchase copier paper with at least 30 percent recycled content. As a result, up to 500,000 fewer trees will be harvested annually for the production of paper, and the remaining trees will absorb 16,000 tons of carbon in a year. Energy used to produce the copier paper will be reduced by 12 percent, and an average reduction of 14 percent in air emissions and greenhouse gases will be achieved. Finally, a 13 percent reduction will occur in both water pollutants and the amount of solid waste requiring disposal.

Chris asks…

Are we wasting out time trying to recycle and save the planet?

http://www.greatgarbagepatch.org/

I am not by any means an eco-warrior but I try to do my bit as I imagine many other people do too.

I just came across this report and reading it has made me very worried indeed.

Did anyone else know of this??
I have to add that this report says that no one is doing anything about this!! I am horrified to think that this toxic soup undoubtedly will eventually get into the food chain and no one knows what that will result in.

We only have to remember what most of us saw happened to children in Corby when pregnant women were exposed to drinking contaminated water.

It seems to me, as some answerers have already said the answers lie with action coming from governments and corporate bodies to take action now. We as individuals can not solve what happens to our waste, recycled or not.

The Expert answers:

I have come across articles about that part of the Pacific and it’s worrying, along with so much more about how humanity treats the planet. So much makes me despair particularly for the coming generations. Even so I still do my bit where I can even to the point where I’ve been called fanatical, but I’d sooner be thought fanatical than an ostrich with my head buried in the sand denying the problem or just too idle to do what I see as merely acting responsibly.

Ken asks…

Is this a good argument for *not* recycling paper?

I work at a rural public high school. I proposed starting a program to recycle paper, since we waste an egregious amount of it here. (Let me give you an example: Suppose you want to make a copy of a 100-page document and want to print on both sides of the paper. You forgot to change this setting on the copier, so when your copy comes out, you just toss all 100 pages. This happens many, many times a day.) One of my colleagues dismissed the idea as a waste of time, citing the fact that “trees are a renewable resource.” I didn’t have a good rejoinder, but I can’t help but think that her perspective is shallow.

So is this really a good argument? Even if trees really are renewable, aren’t there other good reasons for recycling paper as opposed to just dumping it?

The Expert answers:

Trees are a renewable resource only when harvested SUSTAINABLY. At the rate we chop down trees, we all might as well have a lung removed since there won’t be enough oxygen to go around to fill two of them per person. Trees provide important habitat for all kinds of animals, provide shade and in masses actually helps to cool the planet, provides much needed oxygen where our air is now being pumped full of CO2 and helps to remove some of that CO2 as well as other pollutants from the air. Just because we can replant a tree doesn’t mean that it will grow fast enough to replace the ones we’ve taken in the time we need it. Next time a truly ignorant arguement such as that happens again, arm yourself with information such as below:

Why Recycle Paper?
——————————————————————————–
Statistics
It is possible to achieve significant reductions in the cost of buying office paper by reducing paper use and reusing paper where possible.
Eliminating office from waste may reduce waste bills by as much as 50%.
Making new paper from old paper uses 30% to 55% less energy than making paper from trees and reduces related air pollution by 95%.
Each day American businesses generate enough paper to circle the globe at least 40 times!
77% of paper waste generated in offices is recyclable.
Typical business offices generate about 1.5 pounds of waste paper per employee each day.
Nearly half of typical office paper waste is high grade office paper.
Recycling one ton of paper typically saves about 6.7 cubic yards of landfill space. A cubic yard of stacked office paper weighs about 380 pounds. Cost savings may be estimated by multiplying the tons recycled by 6.7 times the cost per cubic yard for waste disposal (if by volume) of by cost per ton (if by weight).
Commercial and residential paper waste accounts for more than 40% of waste going to the landfill. Eliminating this paper from our waste would nearly double the lives of current landfills.
Newspaper is recycled into newspaper, game boards, egg cartons, gift boxes, animal bedding, insulation, and packaging material.
Office paper is recycled into office paper, tissue paper, paper towels, and toilet paper.
Corrugated cardboard is recycled into new cardboard and cereal boxes.

Resources Saved Per Ton of Paper Recycled:
17 trees
275 pounds of sulphur
350 lbs of limestone
9,000 lbs of steam
60,000 gal of water
225 kilowatt hours
3.3 cubic yards of landfill space

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Source: The Public Recycling Officials of Pennsylvania, Developing a Waste Reduction and Recycling Program for Commercial, Industrial and Municipal Establishments, May 1995.

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