Your Questions About Recycling

The Expert answers:

Recycle them!
There are so many things that can be recycled and it does not matter the size.
Have you ever noticed that even small plastic lids have the marking for recycle??
I started recycling like 3 years ago and my family got so into it to. Before we used to filled two large trashcans full of trash, now we hardly fill one half way.
So recycle them
and thanks for thinking about doing something nice for the environment.

Like I explained to my nephews: I do it for you and for your kids when you have some.

The Expert answers:

Save the Rainforest! Recycle Aluminum!

Did you know that aluminum comes from the ore Bauxite? And that bauxite is mined in the rainforest?

Every time you throw away an aluminum can, that’s one less that is being recycled, and one more can’s worth of bauxite that needs to be mined from the rainforest. The bad thing about mining bauxite, just like any other ore, is that it is in the ground. Since bauxite is mined in the rainforest, there are tons of trees growing on top. In order to get to the bauxite, the trees have to be clear-cut and are usually burned since there main opperation is to mine the ore, not harvest lumber. This puts a lot of pollution into the air from the trees burning and the fossil fuels spent for the machinery to take them down. Once the land is clear, mining begins, burning even more fossil fuels. Then the ore is shipped to a facility that turns the ore into aluminum (another energy-expensive process) and then the aluminum is finally shiped to us (again, more energy, i.e. Fossil fuels spent) so that we can then, finally, make cans out of them.

So why don’t we just make new cans out of the old ones when we are done with them? They are already here, no need for shipping. They are free, just need to be trasported to the recycling facility. And we don’t have to cut rainforests to get more aluminum if we use what we’ve already got.

Some day we will be mining our landfills because we’ve irresponsibly and selfishly used up our resources elsewhere.

Hope this answers your question and gives you the motivation to start recycling!

The Expert answers:

Items that you can recycle are as follows

Aluminum,plastic,tires,steel,glass(all but blue-some places will take blue seperately but nothing else most will take everything else but blue),plastic(numbers 1-7)clothes,mercury,lead,copper,paper(all types except egg carton and pizza boxes–food contaminated paper can not be recycled due to the impurities it creates in the fiber–,oil(all kinds),electronic componets,zinc,tungsten(as found in light bulbs)vegetable left overs, grass clippings,water,air,furniture,batteries and so much more. *Note: Many places will accept some of these Items for a fee. The best example of this is tires, you can drop them off at a tire shop for a fee of usually 5-15 dollars per tire. Other fees imposed are usualy those items that require special handling such as mercury,lead and batteries in some places. Contact your local solid waste management company for specific details.

The Expert answers:

You can recycle cans or glass bottle. On the can and Bottles it will usually have 15¢ or 20¢ maybe more and that tell you how much you will get per item. Other things you can recycle for money would be electrical wiring anything with copper or brass . You can even recycle books, dvds, ink cartridges to online sites.

The Expert answers:

Yes, recycled paper is just mixed with a percantage of “new paper” in order to make it stronger. They do tests on the batches before they turn the pulp into paper again to see how much starch and such to add.

So, yes you can recycle recycled paper.

Heres a fun link. There are more links on the site that talks about how paper is made/recycled.
Http://www.wastenotproject.org/wheretorecycle_paper.html

The Expert answers:

1) Aluminum: http://earth911.com/metal/aluminum-can/how-are-aluminum-cans-made/
2) Can.
3) http://www.wisegeek.com/how-are-aluminum-cans-recycled.htm
4) http://earth911.com/metal/aluminum-can/how-is-an-aluminum-can-recycled/

The Expert answers:

You can find recycled water everywhere around you! Every single water molecule has been recycled millions and millions of times. Matter cannot be created or destroyed, it only changes form. Maybe your science project instructions are tricking you and it is just asking for regular water. 😉 But if it is not, you might need to clarify on what exactly you mean by recycled water, like water that came from urine and was extracted?

The Expert answers:

Yes, they do. My Recycling Center accepts whole, torn-up, or compacted/crushed aluminum cans. We even accept aluminum pet-food cans. Since they are shredded to prepare them for recycling, it doesn’t matter.

The only time you should not compact or crush your aluminum cans is if you are using one of those automatic “can-munchers” that you can find in some parking lots that pays you immediately. Compacted aluminum cans will jam those machines.

Aluminum can be recycled over and over, unlike other recyclables such as plastic, which can typically only be recycled once.

The Expert answers:

The batteries can go to a battery recycling place, they might even pay you for the lead.
The electronics can be recycled at one of those free recycling drop off’s.