Your Questions About Recycling

The Expert answers:

In my community, we recycle through our municipality. They contract with a recycler and then tell us what we can leave at the curb on pickup days. So, if your community does the same, contact them to see what you can recycle. My villages recycle list fills 1 and 1/2 letter size (in small type) pages and also lists local recyclers and what they accept without charge and what they will accept for a fee.
If you want to go directly to a recycler in your area, contact them to see what they will accept. Most do not accept electronics, tires, or home appliances (big or small) except for a fee. One example: A local organization accepts electronic waste (Computers, printers, keyboards, TV’s,etc.) but charges you 30 cents a pound.
Many recyclers will pay YOU for aluminum cans and other metals.
I hope this helps.

The Expert answers:

The only company we use is recycle cardboard boxes Atlanta 770 709 1872..They come out and give you instructions on how to store the boxes and what they will pay for your boxes they don’t buy crushed cardboard . Just reusable boxes hope that helped.

The Expert answers:

First of all, I have to say, Ian, you do not understand the workings of the recycling industry. In most cases, trucks, MRFs (material recovery facilities, where the materials are sorted and baled), and even hauling companies are privately owned in the U.S. True, some large municipalities do own and operate their own fleets, but generally, municipally operated waste management programs contract with private haulers to collect both waste and recyclables. I’m not sure what it’s like where you live, but the norm in my state is for people to receive a waste collection bill, either from a private hauling company or from their municipality. It’s a bill because you are receiving a service, namely, having your refuse hauled away. Even if your town does operate the recycling service with your tax dollars, they would be operating the garbage system that way as well. So I’m not sure how you’ve come to the conclusion that your tax dollars are supporting the recycling industry.

Recycling helps the economy by creating jobs. “Recycling creates more jobs than landfills or incinerators. Incinerating 10,000 tons of waste creates one job, landfilling the waste creates 6 jobs, and recycling it creates 36 jobs. Recycling can also frequently be the least expensive waste management method for cities and towns.” –taken from Rumpke’s website, linked below. At every point in the recycling loop, there are opportunities for job creation: from the guy who dumps your bin into the truck, to the men separating plastics at the MRF, to the firms that deal exclusively in scrap plastics, to the factory where pellets made from shredded plastic bottles are made into fabric that is eventually sewn into a backpack. This is opposed to the popular alternative, lanfilling, where your garbage is put in a truck and dumped in a hole to be buried, with very little job creation and a squandering of resources. And make no mistake about it: recycling is big business in this country. There are entire trade magazines(I linked below to one of my favorites) devoted to it, and that simply wouldn’t be the case if there wasn’t money to be made.

Recycling has also assisted American markets and manufacturing by providing a domestically available feedstock to manufacturers in the form of recycled materials. Take, for example, our ability to recycle aluminum cans from American consumers and turn them into new products, as opposed to importing more bauxite ore from other nations (I’ve linked to a page with a production table that shows just how little bauxite the U.S. Has versus countries like China and Brazil).

In a broader sense, recycling has helped the economy develop because recycling technology is constantly growing and changing, fueling research and spurring efficiency.

Hope this helps!

The Expert answers:

Hopping the details can give a little help for you:
Post-consumer Waste
Recycled milk cartons, recycled paper, and other post-consumer waste products are finding their way into many types of disposable tableware; however, this is not new since many companies have manufactured products from these recycled materials for years.

Chinet Plates
Believe it or not, purchasing recyclable plates may be as easy as buying the same Chinet plates that your parents did. Chinet is made from post-industrial waste. They mainly use defective milk cartons that were manufactured but weren’t useable for various reasons. The plastic is separated from the carton and the pulp is then used for the manufacturing of Chinet plates.

Chinet plates are both biodegradable and compostable. Since they are recycled they also help to keep materials out of the landfills. Most conventional grocers carry Chinet plates and platters.

Bagasse
Bagasse is the sugarcane fiber that is leftover from the sugar-making process. Sugar cane is completely renewable and can be turned into almost anything that is normally made from paper or plastic. By finding a need for this leftover fiber, manufacturers avoid creating air pollution that’s caused by the burning of the fibers; the way that it was discarded in the past after the juice extraction process was completed.Food served on Bagasse plates and platters won’t soak through. Not only do they have a tropical look, the plates and platters also have a nice, reedy feel.

The Expert answers:

Well yes there are since there are paper recycling companies and initiatives to recycle paper.

Http://www.albawaba.com/nbk-continues-its-bank-wide-paper-recycling-initiative-380880

http://mrckw.com/?page_id=213 is the Metal and Recycling Company located in Kuwait that recycles paper.

The Expert answers:

It’s not as bad out there as you think! I run an e-recycling company and am doing rather nicely thank you very much. You do need to be aware that before you even start providing this kind of service to ‘businesses’ you will need a Waste Carriers License issued by the Environment Agency (cost £150 for 2 years) – this only allows you collect waste and take it directly to an authorised treatment facility (ATF) for recycling – you can’t store it under a carriers license. If you want to do anything else such as refurbish for resale/donation or disassemble for parts you will need a full Waste Management Licence or at least an exemption license if you are dealing with smaller amounts. My exemption license cost £550 for 2 years. Also there are lots of regulations to get to grips with too including the Environmental Protection Act, The WEEE Directive and all the associated hazardous waste regs (CRT monitors for example are classed as hazardous waste and must be treated separately) . It’s a good and worthwhile business, but you need plenty of cash to set it up and a real in depth knowledge of the laws or the Environment Agency will come down like a ton of bricks.

The Expert answers:

Yes. Our garbage disposal company takes papers including junkmail, newspaper, cardboard, numbered plastics and some unnumbered depending on the item, motor oil, aluminum, metal cans, and glass at curbside. You can also drop off lead-acid batteries, PCs, monitors, and printers at their office at n/c.

There are places around town to recycle inkjet and laser toner cartridges, and clean styrfoam.

I participate in Freecycle which recycles whole products to people. Rather than buying another car, I am continuing to run my mid-1980s car that still gets 38 mpg on the hwy and 34 in town, with a few rebuilt parts and an occasional piece from the junkyard. And I’m helping to support a biodiesel effort that will help to use up waste cooking oil.

The Expert answers:

Many do who don’t know as their collection agency (waste managers – garbage companies) do it for them. The companies, like all companies, make money, and garbage/waste companies make some of their money by selling some of the stuff that they collect.

The Expert answers:

These days most electronic waste is recycled. For example gold and other precious metal recovery from old cell phones is big business. Similarly there are companies dedicated to re-cycling old deskop computers. Civic amenity waste sites (formerly the local garbage dump) filter out electrical and electronic waste for processing. When I was just starting electronics as a lad we used to be able to raid the pile of broken TVs out back of the local TV/Cable rental company repair workshop for parts but that sort of “resource” is long gone.