Your Questions About Recycling

The Expert answers:

Bottle caps in general are not considered recyclable, because most major waste management recycling agencies do not accept them. In theory, however, anything is recyclable– most companies just need an extremely vast quantity of one material to make it profitable, and sometimes the process itself for a specific type of material is more expensive than it’s actually worth. These are reasons why most agencies do not recycle bottle caps. They’re so small it’s hard to get enough of them together to make it worth their while.
My point is, the fact that any group (for-profit or not) is taking the time to recycle bottle caps is pretty awesome. I don’t think we should be concerned with whether they’re making a profit off of it or not– all recycling agencies exist to make a profit. Instead we should be glad that someone is willing to do the job! Aveda is a particularly eco-minded company, especially for the makeup/body products industry, so I think they deserve our business for being so much more environmentally responsible than others.
That’s my two cents. Hope that helps!

The Expert answers:

Bagger, or Bag boy, is an unofficial title given to courtesy clerks at supermarkets. The primary duties of a bagger revolve around putting groceries into a bag and then into a shopping cart. Upon requests, baggers may take the groceries out to a customer’s car or supply other forms of service. Some baggers in stores will do this unless the customer refuses and wishes to bring their own groceries out. Depending on the store, other duties may include cleaning the store, cleaning the bathrooms, collecting carts, sweeping the store, fixing and maintaining the bottle recycling machines, giving customer assistance, putting items customers initially intended to purchase but changed their mind about at the register back on the shelf (usually called “back shop” or “returns”), and reorganizing products on aisles to make a more neat appearance (commonly called “blocking”, “facing” or “conditioning”). The duties vary vastly depending on the store and union regulations, and some of previous duties in fact, are actually prohibited from being done at some stores by a courtesy clerk due to union contracts. The title of bagger is the result of an extensive evolution of the position of “courtesy clerk”. The title “bag boy” was adopted for some time, until it was finally shortened to “bagger”.

The Expert answers:

The only way to keep the maggots at bay is to make sure that flies can’t get onto your rubbish to lay their eggs.

If you throw away food make sure that it is sealed up in a plastic bag before you put it in the bin. I use old supermarket carrier bags to do the job. It helps to keep the smells down as well.

We try to recycle as much as possible and for us we have rubbish picked up one week and all recyclable stuff the next. Works well for us as we have space away from the house where we can keep our bins.

And yes …. I agree that we seem to pay more and more council tax every year and get less in return.

The Expert answers:

Recycle. Yea i know what your dilemma is and don’t enjoy it either. If i could save money normally i could build up enough to stand on and pay back what i ve been supported on.but that has no relevance for reasons unknown.and in fact is frowned on cause if they don’t have all the sufferers then there’s less jobs for the competent ones that approve of our “types” situation.wish you well.keep it under the radar !!!

The Expert answers:

Not a viable way to make money. You would have better luck making a lemonade stand, although it might be creepy if you are over the age of 12. I am guessing you are. Just keep applying to jobs and go to the interviews like you mean to be a hard worker. Then if you get hired, be a hard worker. In europe you can make some decent $$$ collecting bottles since they have an awesome recycling program. More like $ though. Not $$$. Except everyone in europe collects their own bottles so it might be more difficult to find them.

The Expert answers:

That was soooo funny!!!! LOL!!! Star for you!! How about this one:

THE COMPUTER SWALLOWED GRANDMA

This is a tribute to all the Grandmas and Grandpas who have been fearless and learned to use the computer.

The computer swallowed grandma. Yes, honestly it’s true!
She pressed ‘control’ and ‘enter’ and disappeared from view.

It devoured her completely, the thought just makes me squirm.
She must have caught a virus or been eaten by a worm.

I’ve searched through the Recycle Bin and files of every kind;
I’ve even used the Internet, but nothing did I find.

In desperation, I asked Google my searches to refine.
The reply from him was negative, not a thing was found ‘online.’

So, if inside your ‘Inbox,’ my Grandma you should see,
Please ‘Copy’, ‘Scan’ and ‘Paste’ her and send her back to me!

The Expert answers:

Everyone i’m sure can point to they’re own industry and claim they are the cats meow, but if you really want good information you will have to cross-reference your info to get the real deal. No one that is all the rage about recycling is going to admit that the process isn’t very conserving of energy. The fact is that it takes more energy to recycle than to make an item new. The only reason we do recycle though is that people in the future will continue to want they’re soda, pre packaged foods, etc so in recycling an already existing can, we might use more energy to do so, but it minimizes waste sent to a landfill, it avoids us having to find some new deposit, extracting it from the earth, and perhaps in the process digging up a pristine environment to create a new can.
Obviously with more energy expended to conserve finite resources or minimize the impact of garbage on landfills, we may use monies that could have gone elsewhere, thus being one drain on the economic equation, but when one consideres the added jobs that may be required to produce that added energy, or the revenue the utility company will gain to make for a profitable company, the equation becomes a bit harder to interpret without lengthy investigation.

The Expert answers:

Yes most of your answers have it correct, this has been on going for years.
I am a contract worker (control systems) self employed. I had a call one day asking if I had experience of a ‘floculator’ for water plant, a new plant being built and they wanted it commissioned.
I said of course I do! I hadn’t got a clue, but if it was some sort of control and instrument system I could handle it?
I did a lot of work on the sewerage plant, then came this ‘flockulator’ thing. I read all the books looked at all the drawings , it was a glorified skimming paddle situated on the top of a large water container, its purpose was to skim off the floatng poo and misc debry floating on top of the water that had been pumped in from the main sewer.
All my tests were done with just water, no actual sewerage in the system at that time I threw a few ‘floaters’ into the water , bits of packing material, just to prove the thing worked, it did, mission fulfilled.
I moved on to another job.
A couple of weeks later I had a call from the water company , would I be interested in a full time job with them , every thing was now in action crap was flying about all over the place.
I thanked them for the offer but declined, could you just imagine it? UGH UGH and UGH!!!
What would you pack up to take as your lunch every day? UGH!!!

The Expert answers:

The reality is you are drinking sewage effluent anyway albiet in a very diluted form when the water is taken in from a surface source such as a river. I work in a wastewater treatment plant and believe it or not the effluent we discharge is about 100x cleaner than the river water the drinking water plant pulls into it’s intake that it treats for for people to consume. The treatment process has become so much better than in years past. The water is at the end of the process is filtered and chlorinated and then dechlorinated with sulpher dioxide and then discharged to the river. All of the nasty’s have effectively been removed. I would rather take this effluent and pipe it straight into a drinking water plant than pull the raw river water out of some of the most polluted rivers in the world…much easier to treat and you would get a more consistant treatment. Crypto needs a food source and polluted rivers are full of it. Treated effluent is not. If you have time take a tour of a drinking water plant or a wastewater treatment facility and see for yourself how the process works. You will feel more at ease once you are educated in how it really works.
Sorry I misunderstood. In the US they had a crypto breakout in Milwaukee in 1993. There were lawsuits filed and damages awarded. People lost their jobs and even the operators on duty were named in the lawsuit. This difference is however they were not drinking effluent from a wastewater plant, but there was operator error. I’m not sure if just the fact drinking water made from effluent would open up a legal minefield. However, if someone gets sick from it and it could be traced to human error, the litigation would be justified. I know the media would have a field day with it. If in the case people became sick in Sydney and the treatment process was robust and they were using the accepted principles and practices, rules and regulations were not broken, and procedures followed, winning a lawsuit might be shaky at best because it is then classified as an “Act of God”. You know as well as I do you don’t sue God and win. For insurance companies and other firms this is a huge loophole and in order to win a lawsuit like this you have to prove human error somewhere down the line.