Your Questions About Recycling

The Expert answers:

The plastic IS complicated, even for avid recyclers so don’t worry. The plastics that are accepted is different depending on where you live, and what your local agency collects. I’m guessing they have a website that tells you all about what they do and do not take.
I live in San Francisco. Just to give you a general idea, here are the rules here:
Plastics number 2, 4, 5, and 6 are accepted, and bottles of any number are accepted. However, the caps to plastic water and soda bottles are not recyclable, and unfortunately that is true no matter where you are. (Booo!)
And, if you have something like CD jewel cases, you should absolutely donate them. Reuse and reduce are the two most important rules, recycle is next! So if you’ve got anything that can reuse, I would either donate it to an agency like Goodwill, or Freecycle it! (Not familar with Freecycle? It’s awesome!! Check out http://www.freecycle.org/)
Hope that helps! 🙂

The Expert answers:

Plastic grocery bags Type 2 (high-density polyethylene film – HDPE) and Type 4 (low density or linear-low density polyethylene film – LDPE/LLDPE) can be recycled at your local supermarket and other locations. Once the bags are recycled, they are made into lumber, trashcan liners or plastic bags.

The Expert answers:

Yes they are recycled. I called my thrown-away number once after I got my new number for my cell and someone picked up… Lol

The Expert answers:

Wikipedia has a great page on recycling codes (see below). Code 3 is Polyvinyl Chloride and is recycled to become pipe, fencing, and non-food bottles. All the other codes and what they are recycled into are listed too.

The Expert answers:

Yes, my family recycles as much as our town and state will let us. (You know how you can only recycle certain numbers.)

The Expert answers:

I believe they do. My son kept getiing calls to the same person, not him, after getting his phone. I eventually called andd had the number again and have had no issues…

The Expert answers:

In most cases, cell phone numbers stay with who ever is using the number as long as the bill/service is paid.

The company assigns a number when service is activated.

As long as the bill gets paid, the number remains available for use. If someone dies, and the bill is paid, unless someone notifies the company that the phone needs to be disconnected, or the bill, is not paid, then the phone stays active.

If the bill is unpaid, then of course, the service will eventually be canceled. Once that happens, if the number is not reactivated within a certain time by the person who had it, or someone taking over responsibility for it, then it goes into a recycle list and will eventually be reassigned to someone else.

It is actually not that uncommon for family members to keep cell phones active after a user has died to keep voice mail recordings and things, or sometimes they are just sentimental about the number.

The Expert answers:

Ok, so here’s the deal. Each different number is a different kind of plastic, as follows:

1: Polyethylene (PET or PETE)
2: High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE)
3: Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC)
4: Low-Density Polyethylene (LDPE)
5: Polypropylene (PP)
6: Polystyrene (PS)
7: Other plastics (e.g. PC for polycarbonate)

In some places, you can recycle all numbers of plastic, in others only certain numbers, and in still others only certain shapes of certain numbers. I go to college in a place in which all plastics #1-7 can be recycled only if they are bottle-shaped (so if you stack them one on top of the other, they will not nest), but back home we only recycle 1-3.

The reasons behind not recycling all numbers are actually very complex. Sometimes, small communities simply do not have the proper facilities to deal with all different kinds of plastic. Other times, large plastics companies purchase the recycled materials and only can use certain types of plastic because that is all that they have market demand for.

The reason that plastics have to be separated by composition has to do with the chemistry of polymer chains- if you mix milk jugs (2) and Coca-Cola bottles (1) and then melt them together, the resulting plastic is very weak and tends to tear along the boundaries between the two different kinds of plastic.

If you are willing to put in the effort, see if there are any places near you where you can bring numbers other than 1 and 2. It might be closer than you think! Alternatively, contact your recycling company to see if they are able to handle other numbers, or even talk to your municipal council to see if they can improve the equipment at the local recycling facility using federal grants.

Good luck, and hope that helped =]

EDIT: No, Grape, it does not really a measure of how hard the plastics are. While it is true that different kinds of plastics have different hardnesses, that is not the meaning of the numbers.

The Expert answers:

You may use “My Best Recycling Idea” and put it to use in the classroom and home.

Besides recycling the plastic containers, you can improve your work or home environments by bringing live potted plants indoors.

Major items needed:

One empty plastic gallon container. Tree Top Apple Juice is preferred, or equal in shape.

One empty plastic ½ gallon container. Langers All Pomergranate Juice is preferred or equal.

Directions: Lay the plastic gallon container on its side so the front label is facing up. Place the empty plastic half gallon container on the label and with a sharpie pen outline the bottom on the Tree Top label and with a sharp knife carefully cut the outline. Insert the half gallon into the hole until it rest on the back label of the gallon container. Then mark and cut approximately one inch above the cut on the ½ gallon to complete your planter container. Remove and drill several ¼ inch holes on the bottom of the ½ gallon cut container for drainage.

Fill the cut ½ gallon planter with one inch of gravel before putting in good potting mix soil and live growing plant. If you make two or more you can pour the water back and forth and not waste the water with the nutrients.

Go to NASA’s Clean Air Plant Study for the top ten plants that cleans the indoor air better than the rest.