Your Questions About Recycling

The Expert answers:

Good question, if you are talking about a household waste recycling centre or community recycling centre where people arrive in vehicles to deposit their waste there are many drawbacks. Firstly consider not everybody has a vehicle to access these sorts of centres so an alternative arrangement i.e collection service has to be in place to prevent illegal dumping ‘fly-tipping’ of bulky household waste.

When thinking about the amount of fuel used in transporting waste from homes to the site and then the amount of fuel consumed by machines and trucks to process and transport the waste away. Is this sort of recycling centre actually saving money or the environment or is it having a negative effect? This would have to be compared to the cost (environmental / economic) of a regular kerbside collection for all homes / businesses in the area.

Over half of the material received at my local centre is garden waste which will be composted but it would be more efficient if it was done at home in peoples gardens than brought down to the centre so you could say that by providing this facility it is encouraging people to produce more waste in order to meet local government targets. Of course meeting targets means getting more funding but the problem with hitting targets is that you may miss the point of the overall objectives.

There are alternatives to this type of recycling centre such as incineration which could produce cheap energy for the local community and business by burning their waste. Depending on the technology used this may also prevent more waste going to landfill and mean less polluting vehicles accessing the site. Energy from waste plants would work best in highly densely populated areas where there is loads of waste / demand for energy. However, I admit to having no experience of energy from waste plants and further research is needed but beyond the scope of the question.

The Expert answers:

I am pretty sure you could have done this search, but you are welcome

Name: Independent Recycling
Street: 1211 F St
City:Los Banos, ca 93635-3809
Phone: (209) 827-4800
Rating: 3 Ratings:

Detail-Page: Independent Recycling Los Banos

Western Recycling
– maps.google.com
Ste F, 1220 E Street, Los Banos – (209) 827-1784
Directions and more »

A & S Metals
– www.asmetals.com
2510 Technology Drive, Los Banos – (209) 829-1943
Directions and more »

Tomra Recycling
– maps.google.com
1218 G Street, Los Banos – (209) 826-9700
Directions and more »
More results near Los Banos, CA »

The Expert answers:

You might have a hard time getting paid for recyclable paper unless you can bring it in by the truckload. It’s really the only way to make decent money at it. Corrugated cardboard tends to make a little more, but to make a decent buck you really need to bring it in bulk.

To find a recycler in your area, check with your local waste management or look in yellow pages under ‘Recycling Centers’ or ‘Paper.’

The Expert answers:

The answer is yes, but not as much as you’d think.

Most recycled materials are sold and priced by the ton. In 2007, mixed paper prices were between $20 and $50 per ton. If you separate out the white paper, and remove the cardboard covers, you might get $100 per ton (or five cents per lb).

And even if you wanted to try to sell your note books at that price, the recycling center wouldn’t be likely to want to deal with such a tiny amount. Just like the grocery doesn’t want to sell you one grape.

So unless you have a LOT of notebooks, it’s probably best to simply make sure that they get recycled, rather than looking for money for them.

Good luck.

The Expert answers:

Call your recycling center/waste management service NOW to inquire if they can please possibly allow you to retrieve the item and, if they do, how to go about doing it.

Depending on the item you accidently threw away, it may be possible.

Local to my area, a golf course was robbed of a number of items. The owner playing detective by visiting the local scrap yards and recycling center, found several golf cart batteries from his stock already shrink-wrapped with others on a pallet.

He told the recycling center owner the batteries were stolen from his golf carts and were his. He was told there was nothing they could do. He told them regardless what they thought, to call the sheriff.

When the sheriff showed up, he pointed out the batteries to him, provided the proof they were his, and retrieved them!

Might just be possible to retrieve your ‘lost item’ if you act quickly enough and your recycling center allows it. But as one other answer notes, you may have to let go of the item … Because it is gone!

The Expert answers:

You can recycle paper with writing or anything else on it (other than the obvious like food, toxic stuff, and so forth).http://www.lacity.org/san/solid_resources/strategic_programs/larecycles/index.htm
http://www.thecityoflosangeles.org/recycling/index.html
are recycling places in LA

The Expert answers:

Because you are both helping save the environment, and you’re getting paid for it. 😀 What could be better!? Not only that, you can pass on your knowledge of recycling to other kids, and other schools in the future!

The Expert answers:

Recycled glass is in low demand these days – the city isn’t even always able to find a buyer. And it’s usually just a few pennies per pound.
You can take aluminum cans to a scrap yard to sell, but I imagine you’d have to save up for a while to have enough to make the trip worthwhile. Or you can be like the homeless guy in my neighborhood and collect the cans from all the curbside recycling bins in the morning.
If you just want to recycle some stuff whenever, there is Ecology Action downtown, but they don’t pay you anything (they are a non-profit).

The Expert answers:

I lived in St. Petersburg Florida for five long years. For a town that aspires so to be metropolitan you’d think they’d have curbside recycling! Not only don’t they have that – they’ve got zilch. They burn it instead. So when we moved out to this teeny weeny little town in the middle of nowhere, NC I figured we’d be without recycling here, too. Not so, but we do have to drive for it. It’s about a twenty – thrity minute drive, located just outside the county seat, so we clean and store up our recycling in Rubbermaid bins and make the trip a family affair once a month. The Rubbermaid containers stack up for compact storage and they only cost about $4 a piece for huge 30 gallon tubs with lids. I put them out on the back porch and have made a privacy wall of them. We cut holes in the sides of ours so we can just pop items right in without having to unstack and open them. Then we just load them in the back of the station wagon at the end of the month and go, stopping for lunch and garage sales on the way back.

Plus, taking things to the recycling center isn’t the only way to recycle. If you’re worried about the stuff stacking up before you can make the trip, find new ways to use old stuff. I have made a great little garden border out of used beer bottles. After I loosen the soil I just pound the little suckers in with a rubber mallet. The beer we drink typically comes in brown or clear bottles, so I made a pattern by alternating the colors. I wish I were more of a Heinekin drinker so I could have had green, but oh well! And of course I have to keep encouraging my husband to drink beer so I can keep working on my garden. But somehow he perseveres! ^_^

Also, I save the caps and make shopping baskets by poking holes in the sides and wiring them together. Make it a project with your kids, too. They’ll love it. Send it to school as a project for their whole class (after asking the teacher of course). There is no end to what you can do with things if you get creative!

The great part is teaching my daughter who is seven about recycling. She’s already a wizard at separating, and even reminds her wayward dad when he absentmindedly tosses something in the trash!

Remember, spend the time you normally use feeling bad about what you can’t do, or haven’t done, and use that time and effort to think about what you could be doing instead. It’s all about being creative. May I suggest picking up a book called “It’s Easy Being Green” by Crissy Trask? It’s full of fantastic ideas without being smug and superior. A great help!