Your Questions About Recycling

The Expert answers:

I do all the usuals. I also pick up garbage when I walk my dog, and I make sure my husband and son don’t throw away anything in the garbage if it cand be recycles. I teach my adult ESL students the word “recycle” right away, we recycle in the classroom, I am proactive in stores, teaching anyone who will listen to look for the little triangle on the bottom of bottles of soaps and prescription bottles, etc, because that means it is recyclable (it is amazing how many people don’t know that), I guess my main thing, other than the usual active recycling, is being a teacher. I can’t help it, I talk a lot when it is something important!

Great Question sis! BB, LM )0(

The Expert answers:

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The yellow sack in the cellar is for all rubbish that could be recycled by that particular system available here in Germany, all paper goes into the blue bin outside the front door, old batteries collect up in a carrier bag in the kitchen, and easily biodegradable waste goes into the compost heap in the garden. Oh, and non-deposit glass jars go into the carrier bag hanging on the bannisters.

I wouldn’t say I take it seriously, but I try to be organized. Other bits of garbage get sold at flea markets.

The Expert answers:

1. How many bags of garbage does your household produce per week?
2. How many people live in your household?
3. What materials do you recycle? What quantity of materials do you recycle?
4. What do you do with your yard waste and compostable kitchen waste?
5. What do you do with your hazardous wastes such as medical wastes, cleaners, paints, lawn chemicals, and so on?
6. How close to your home are you willing to have a new garbage plant located? How did you decide on this answer?
7. What steps would you be willing to take to reduce the amount of garbage your household produces?
8. What rate increase would you be willing to pay to continue producing garbage at your current rate?

The Expert answers:

People in my place use to have that as outfits during some recycling events. Lol. They make dresses out of garbage bags. Clean ones of course! XD

The Expert answers:

How I recycle is when I go to the supermarket, I normally use paper bags, (since I have no use for the plastic ones). What I do is I use the paper bags as a recycle for my paper goods inside my house. When It gets full, I bring it to my recycling bins in the garage. For the glass and plastic, I have a old Clementine box that sits on my counter. When I use a can of corn or beans or something, I put it in there. It works till it breaks. However, I put soda bottles in a garbage bag and use them for a deposit or give them to bottle drives. You can recycle many things, but as you see I reuse the paper bags and Clementine box. When you see a triangle on the plastic, look at it and if it looks like a 1 or 2, it can be recycled. Turn off lights when you aren’t using them to reduce Global Warming. You can create a compost in your yard to make fertile soil for your outdoor plants. Put corn husks in there, pumpkins, leaves, dead plants, anything that can be broken down that’s a plant thing.

Here’s a list of some things you can recycle: soda cans, beer cans, newspapers, spare scrap paper, cans, wine bottles, cardboard, magazines, catalogs, white pages from the phone book, white envelopes, shampoos, detergent bottles and aerosol cans. To find out more you should call your local recycling plant.

It’s very hard to start recycling, and I’m glad you are willing to try.

The Expert answers:

Wow, how does recycling help? Let me count the ways. First, understand that the various types of ‘hot’ gases that are heating up the planet include carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, methane, etc. These gases create higher temperatures, as they emit more energy than simple oxygen or nitrogen and they harm our protective ozone layer that keeps much of the sun’s heat and harmful radiation from the surface of the planet…this is a more detailed discussion for another day. So here are some basic benefits of recycling:

1. It reduces the required amount of new natural resources which includes reduced mining for metals, plastic materials, etc.
2. By needing less natural resources, less earth need be harmed by digging these materials out of the ground
3. With fewer raw materials needed, there is less strain on the environment from the refining of these raw materials
4. Recycling also reduces the amount of ‘stuff’ in landfills
5. Plastic is very difficult for the mother nature to recycle and it takes a very, very long time to breakdown a single plastic bottle
6. By reducing landfill waste, methane gas is also reduced, as methane gas is actually far worse for the environment than CO or CO2
7. In areas where garbage is shipped by water to their final destination, there is pollution from the transport of this garbage as well as a significant amount of trash that miraculously ends up in the ocean. This has had a terrible impact on wildlife even on the other side of the ocean–think birds choking to death on bottle caps, fishing line, and variety of other recyclable trash..typically plastics
….And the list goes on and on

The bottom line with recycling is 1) less energy is used, 2) fewer natural resources are used, and 3) it reduces the impact on the environment..whether it be reducing landfills in number/size or in helping to avoid unwittingly killing wildlife, recycling is a very good thing.

The best things you can do are as follows:
1. Use cloth bags for your groceries. Find them online or at your local grocer (some grocers offer them for a miniscule fee of $.25 or $.50 whereas retailers charge as much as $100 for designer labels)
2. Avoid using bottled water. Buy yourself a few nice containers for your water at work, gym, etc. And use your preferred type of water filtration system (clear2o, Brita, etc.)
3. Always recycle your plastics, metals, etc.
4. This is often overlooked, but nevertheless a big problem…recycle your electronics. These items have all kinds of poisonous heavy metals that leech into the groundwater
5. Methane gas is a real problem, to reduce these harmful emissions and to speed the natural process of decomposition, get a composter at http://www.naturemill.com/index.html. This is a very cool little piece of recycling equipment that actually turns out terrific potting soil.

If you follow these suggestions, you should have a bin for plastics, metals, electronics, and a composter for your organic material. This is about as green a setup as you can get without going way over the top. Hope this was helpful.

The Expert answers:

I recycle everything I can…so usually only one bag!

The Expert answers:

We have three garbage bins in NSW.

A green one for your garden refuse, like lawn clippings, branches, etc.

A red one for every day trash, food scraps, plastic bags, pizza boxes, etc.

A yellow one for recycling, paper, cardboard, milk cartons, plastic bottles, etc all things recycling.

Many individuals in suburban areas have worm farms or compost heaps as well.

Household appliances such as lounge suites, fridges, etc can also be picked up by council and recycled. Usually leaving them on the front lawn for a week with a for sale sign will see them disappear over night.

We have charity bins for recycling clothing. We also have charity stores where you can take appliances and furniture for donations as well.

We have planet ark which is used for recycling old xmas and birthday cards.

We have bins at the supermarket for recycling our used shopping bags, we have also introduced calico bags for shopping as well which are growing in popularity.

The Expert answers:

Why is it important to recycle? That’s a great question!

1) Recycling allows us to, in a sense, re use what we own. So if you can’t think of a cool art project to make tht old paper towel roll into, then throw it into your reclying bin.

2) So then it allows recycled material to be made into other things we need. Like tote bags, or some shirts, and other things like that.

3)Also, it’s important to recycle because it makes things NOT go into the landfills. Landfills is where all your old garbage goes to.

4) So here are some things you can recycle: Pop cans, any card board, WATER BOTTLES (or just stop using them ever), and paper in generial. Check what your local dump or recycling center will accept. Also another good thing you can do is donate old clothes to places like Goodwill, that’s just a different form of recycling.

But dont’ forget, there is two other things in the triangle. Make sure to reduce, and reuse. We’re trying to keep as many things out of the landfills as possible.