brad, posted on
April 11, 2008, 07:00
Recycling is usually a good place to start in going green. Wow, I am floored at what can be recycled. Although I went to several sites (listed below in the resources). I have found a lot of extremely helpful information from Earth911, in fact that is the site I grabbed that nice recycling logo from (it's a secret, don't tell). What I have realized is that I will have to do a lot more research to have be in a complete recycling mode. I have found out that there is a bunch of things that I can recycle, but I need to work one step at a time.
You can recycle far more products than most people think. Here is what I have found, so far:
- Paper
- Plastic
- Aluminum cans
- Steel Cans
- Glass bottles
- Used Oil
- Paint
- Cleaners
- Batteries
- Tires
- Antifreeze
- Mobil phones
- Computers
- Monitors
- Speakers
- Televisions
- Printers
Now here comes the bad news. You may have issues recycling some things, for the simple fact that you won't have recycling centers near you. If that is the case, you may have to look into how you can petition to get a recycling center in your area. I will try to post on that at a later time. My friend who sent me that beautiful e-mail is in that situation. They used to recycle where they lived before, but cannot now. I personally find that quite annoying. I am not sure of the reasons for a place to not have a recycling center, but there should at least be SOMETHING nearby. A good resource to see about your local recycling capabilities, visit the National Recycling Coalition web site.
Some information about recycling plastics. I know of 8 different plastics that can be recycled. I will need to start paying attention to the plastic containers I buy stuff in. Looking at the different plastic types, I found this page on eHow and this page on about.com to be very helpful. Both of those links have some interesting information on what different items each plastic gets to be in it's second life.
Since there are many things to recycle, I can see many recycle bins in my future. I do not live in a huge house, but I do have a big garage. However, me being me, I am not sure I want to head out to the garage when I am going to put something in the recycling bin. I know... you say, 'Brad, you are lazy, get off your ass and do it for the planet.' And I say, 'Yeah, I know, but... ' LOL. So, I will test a few different placements of the bins, and make sure they are neither in the way, or overly inconvenient to use.
It is going to take a little time to fully implement a good recycling strategy. I think I will begin with plastics, get that organized, and then tackle the old computers that no longer work. I have more than I care to admit to downstairs. Being a computer consultant, my friends and family have handed them to me to pull apart and use the parts. The parts have been used, and have over stayed their welcome. That will be phase #2 of recycling :)
So, phase #1 is Plastics recycling, and here is what I need to do to get it started:
- Call local recycling centers to see what plastics I can recycle, and where to take them (curbside is not available).
- Purchase some bins to put the recyclables in. I need enough of them to keep the plastics separated by type.
- Put the bins in an easy to use place, and label them by plastic type
- Start putting my plastics in the bins. This includes rinsing them out, and crushing them to make better use of the space
Well, that is a nice set of tasks. Pretty easy to accomplish, I should easily have this all organized by the end of the weekend!
Resource Links:
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