Your thoughts on landfills just got worse.

Thus far into writing ‘Simply Recycle’, I have focused solely on the education, effects, and benefits of recycling paper or plastic. A huge reason why recycling these items is essential is the detrimental effect of landfills across our globe when these types of materials aren’t thoughtfully taken to be created for reuse. Though these plots of land populate these types of materials, electronic waste or ‘E-Waste’ is just as guilty of a factor when not recycled and found within this common toxic property. Unlike paper or plastic, which virtually always have available bins or centers to make recycling a natural habit, our world still struggles with the process of disposing our dated electronical devices. Brad Roderick, Vice President of InkCycle, discusses this issue within the following video.

Recycling is simple, yet with the continuous output of new technology, the elimination of landfills will seem impossible if we aren't willing to settle for the oringinal iphone over each new generation of mobile devices or be content with a 42" plasma television instead of buying one that's only a few inches thicker. Our entrance into the "Green Movement" has begun, yet if our human species expects us to survive in these conditions without fully committing to something as simple as recycling, we won't be able to progress let alone endure a sustainable life any longer.

So what can we actually recycle?

It has come to my attention that recycling doesn’t necessarily cater to every form of paper or plastic being disposed. Regulations within the communities and offices that collect our presumed to be recyclable trash go through a tedious process when given materials that won’t be able to participate in the transition from reducing to reusing an item. Zeroing in on specific types of paper that can’t be considered recyclable, eco-cycle.org answers the frequently asked questions about mixed paper, and whether or not it is worth the effort to attempt to use the program.

Where can I recycle shredded paper?
A. Shredded paper cannot be recycled at the curb, and is accepted only at the drop-off center in the paperboard bin. Paperboard collected at the drop-off center is baled without going over the sorting lines, but paperboard picked up at the curb is mixed with other paper and must be sorted. When shredded paper goes over the sorting lines, it damages equipment and slips through the screens, ending up as trash.

Many office recycling programs offer a separate bin for shredded paper—check with your recycling hauler. Eco-Cycle also offers shredding services at the Charm-call for pricing and more information.

Can I recycle paperboard containers used to hold food such as to-go boxes?
A. No. While a little food on commingled containers can be handled, any food on paper will contaminate the paper bales. At the mills, baled paperboard may sit around for a while waiting for the market. Food remnants within the bale could begin to biodegrade the paper. Food contamination in the paperboard category is a BIG problem for that market.

Can I recycle egg cartons, paper towel rolls, and toilet paper rolls at the curb?
A. No. Small paperboard items can only be recycled at the drop-off centers in Boulder, Broomfield, Lafayette/Louisville, and Longmont. Small paperboard items are not accepted through the curbside program because the items have to be picked out by hand at the recycling facility. Items that are too small may fall through the screen at the facility and end up as trash.

For more questions answered, go to http://www.ecocycle.org/faq/paper.cfm

For someone constantly advocating everyone to recycle any form of paper or plastic, I found these pieces of information to be very useful for future situations when I am thinking of recycling. I guess that In-N-Out meal I was describing from a previous post couldn’t be a part of this process. Awareness is key, but it’s the thought that counts.

A little less than nature itself.

FOR FREE!

There’s something about this particular word that forces our ears to subconsciously perk up, and create an instant sense of excitement. When there is no money involved, no conflict or hesitation can arise. Receiving or giving something away without a price tag yields no harm and creates no guilty shopping woes. Wouldn’t you rather be bragging to your friends, “I was a given a free shirt!” instead of, “I paid an arm and a leg for this shirt!” Due to the item obtained costing no form of money, there is no downside to its name; in the event that you realize you only took the giveaway because it was free, no guilt is attached when discarding the item and if in fact your new possession has great value in your opinion, you can feel even better knowing no dime was spent to have it. Now what do recycling and receiving items for free have in common? Reuse. A sister of recycling known as free-cycling, can summon the similar excited emotions from gaining free items through its simple, beneficial, and free process. Following the same easy to-do theme, you can either donate your own clutter you would have otherwise just thrown away, or look for something of use for yourself at no cost.

Win, win wouldn’t you say?

The non-profit movement includes 4,864 groups with 7,603,875 members around the world hoping to motivate individuals to keep perfectly acceptable items out of landfills. Each local group is moderated by a local volunteer and membership is free. So next time you’re thinking about buying that extra thing you don’t need, remember the famous two words that we all love.

http://www.freecycle.org/

BYOB

Before immediately jumping to the conclusion that you are no longer viewing a blog related to recycling, allow me to explain an alternative way to discard your unwanted remains.

Most individuals familiar with the acronym BYOB have been raised to believe its connotation indicates to bring your own booze or beer as an easy reminder to guests of a party or social gathering. Though these four iconic letters have thoroughly been made of use over time, the meaning of the second B has transformed the entire definition within the “green community” and many environmentally conscious countries across the globe. The “Bring Your Own Bag” movement has already been implemented in foreign countries outside North America creating action against the energy and resources wasted when creating paper or plastic bags, as well as creating awareness in regards to the harm our environment is enduring when the one-use carriers are travelled to monstrous landfills to never biodegrade and emit toxins into our atmosphere and soil. Though this development has encountered arguments referring to the impossibilities of always possessing a reusable bag, or the “inconvenience” of keeping recycling in mind, Bring Your Own Bag will allow the countries, communities, and individuals unaware of our Earth’s dire state to realize every single bag used and thrown away makes a bigger impact than their previous thoughts.

Within North America, the average person will make use of a plastic bag never pondering where the carrier will venture to or how it will make an impact on our environment. Our society has gotten into a routine of accepting the unneeded amount of bags used to hold our purchases, taking the items bought to a destination and unconsciously throwing the plastic bag into a larger trash can to start the process again the next day. People carelessly toss their plastic or paper bag, yet don’t realize the convenience the bag once had comes with a price to our planet. Plastic bags can take between 15 and 1000 years to break down in the environment. They don’t biodegrade, they photodegrade by becoming smaller and smaller toxic bits contaminating soil and waterways which pollute our soil, rivers, lakes and oceans. If our continuous use of these bags persists, the hazardous waste emitting toxic gases into the air will not only cause harm to our environment but endanger our global population’s own well-being causing potential health risks if it hasn’t already in the neighboring communities surrounding landfills.

Before traveling to a landfill, or even to the store where an individual can use the plastic bag for their needs, the one of a kind plastic bag must be produced. The creation of plastic bags takes a vast amount of oil and consumes large amounts of energy to manufacture. After thousands of these bags are created, they are shipped or driven to locations miles away contributing to the wrongly high carbon emission to breathable air ratio our lungs breathe in every day. For an item used for only about ten minutes, its effect on our environment is incredibly significant. Even after its use has been fulfilled, our world’s habits of littering the bags across streets, highways, and oceans, push the bags into the world of our mammals and animals. Currently, plastic bags are the sixth highest item of debris washed up on shores and one of the most dramatic impacts on marine life. About 100,000 whales, seals, turtles and other marine animals are killed by plastic bags each year worldwide, according to Planet Ark, an international environmental group. Plastic bags really shouldn’t be argued to be beneficial in anyway if the short use of the product can cause such an impact on every aspect of our world.

While the Bring Your Own Bag movement has only recently been brought to the attention of North American citizens, people residing in countries outside the United States have become used to always bringing a bag if entering a retail, grocery, or convenience store due to an added tax on a bag or the banning of bags being used in a store. Ireland’s “PlasTax”, the 20 cent tax on plastic bags, has decreased plastic use by 90 percent allowing consumers to save their money and recognize the bags are wasteful and of little use for a big impact on the environment. Similar legislation occurred in Australia as well as Mumbai, India going to the extent of banning the bags all together in particular reigns. At one point, Australians were using nearly 7 billion bags a year, and nearly 1.2 billion bags a year were being passed out free in Ireland before government restrictions, according to government estimates. These countries were able to enforce BYOB by informing citizens that the price they pay for the convenience isn’t worth the price of our Earth.

Currently, 500 million to 1 trillion plastic bags are used and discarded to landfills, streets, and surrounding areas every year worldwide. These one-use carriers are produced from factories that exhaust barriers of petroleum wasting money as well as destroying the lands in the Middle East. By the time they arrive in stores utilizing their purpose, plenty of carbon emissions from the transferring of the product are released into our atmosphere. Even before plastic bags wind up as litter alongside our sidewalks or release toxins into the air once a space is found within in a landfill, an individual plastic bag has already aided in the destruction of our planet. Bringing your own bag not only is beneficial for our civilization and wallet, but will begin a phenomenon towards a healthier planet we can survive on.

Though bringing your own bag is the ideal route after consuming the knowledge above, remember to always RECYCLE the paper or plastic bag, or attempt to reuse it before allowing the carriers to aid in the destruction of our planet.

For more information, visit http://www.bringyourbag.com/enviro.php, Click on the About BYOB, and continue to Global Watch. I personally participated in getting the word out in my home town of San Rafael, CA(within Marin County) by standing outside grocery stores and retailers with flyers, information, and reusable bags. It only takes one individual to make the difference; why don't you do something in your community? http://www.bringyourbag.com/requestform.pdf

Recycling...in action!

Hopefully the process of recycling has become more relevant due to the previous post, but for those that usually respond to visuals, take a look at how our garbage is sorted and eventually reproduced to be reused. Stick around for the “Isn’t this weird?” segment; you might get a kick out of it.

If you live under a rock, Recycling is...

G.R.E.A.T.

This acronym wasn’t given its letters by accident; each represents a simple exclamation of what recycling is and can do to treat our ill planet. For those urban consumers chomping cheap food from plastic take-out boxes, this post will be more beneficial to read than the unheard of energy used to create the carrier as well as the reaction of your digestive system to what is entering your body.

G.-Guaranteed-The act of recycling will always be 100% guaranteed to not only make a crucial impact on our environment, but to always be available. In simplistic terms, this crucial impact on our environment will aid in eliminating the build-up of destructive landfills across seas, help reduce each individual’s carbon footprint, and create ample opportunity to reuse what was once labeled trash to name a few. For those still munching on that half-cooked orange chicken special, why don’t you take this as an offer to explore your surroundings? I’m willing to bet if the city you reside in didn’t already provide your residency with a recycling bin, a disposal can won’t be too far off your path.

R.-Reuse and Reduce- These words are commonly associated with recycling and any concept relating to the idea. Hopefully the phrase, “Recycle, Reuse, and Reduce” trigger a response from a past memory. If not, welcome to the 21^st century where our global population is relearning easy ways to always keep the environment in mind. However, no matter how often this phrase is instilled in the mind through constant public awareness on transportation vehicles, or service announcements on the television, many still wonder how our actions effectively help to reduce waste and create reusable products from garbage. Found under Wikihow[to guides],

“Recycling is the processes of collecting, processing, remanufacturing, and reusing materials instead of discarding them. This helps conserve raw materials and energy that manufacturers would otherwise use in producing new products. Recycling also reduces the amount of material going into landfills. Recycling helps lessen the pollution that may result from waste disposal. Reducing our consumption of materials and reducing the waste of materials also adds to the conservation of our resources. Recycling is simple; just group all your "garbage" in different groups including paper, glass, cans etc.”

It seems it would be juvenile to argue this process is difficult, yet sadly, the excuse of inconvenience or general lethargy can override what can potentially and easily heal our planet.

E.-Ease- Imagine you justfinished a delicious and fulfilling meal from your favorite local In-N-Out Burger. The trash accumulated after devouring the food consists of your paper cup and straw from your strawberry milkshake, your cardboard container that held all of your purchases, the paper carrier for the freshly prepared French fries, the mini paper container for your ketchup, and finally the leftover paper that was once wrapped around your dripping double-double. Fast food restaurants shouldn’t be using this quantity of paper and plastic in the first place, yet once you find the energy to remove yourself from your seat to the trash can, the decision is yours; but is there really even a decision to be made? Recycling needs to become a habit, an act that is subconscious, natural, already known. Though with the easily labeled bins, shaped holes for each

type of trash, and color to allow us to decipher each bin, we can leave our trash

knowing it is going to a eco-friendly home. It’s that easy.

A.-Alter-Just because recycling is simple, doesn’t mean it can’t alter the current state of our world. Though we need to focus on reusing and reducing our purchases, if we must discard, we must recycle. Each plastic bottle(that shouldn’t be bought and instead be replaced by a metal or titanium bottle) recycled not only saves precious resources but also avoids toxic processes used to turn these resources into consumer products. We must focus on conserving the dwindling supply of resources used to create the plethora of necessities on store shelves to preserve them for future generations. By reusing paper from paper or cans from cans instead of reproducing each individually, we can reduce the harm induced from the destructive nature of mining, logging and drilling in fragile natural habitats to make goods only to be used once and thrown away.

T.-Treatment-The main objective of this blog is to persuade our societies to choose to recycle and in doing so, a giant step towards treating our planet can be implemented. By making this decision, we can keep waste out of landfills,

• · One in five Environmental Protection Agency Superfund cleanup sites is a landfill.
• · Taxpayers have thrown away millions of dollars to clean up and monitor contaminated and toxic material filled landfills.
• · Landfills post threats of future toxic leakage which could create potential public and environmental health threats.

reduce toxins in the atmosphere and in the production of consumer goods,

• · Recycling decreases emissions of greenhouse gases which contribute to global climate change.
• · Energy is saved due to less production

and become cost-effective in the process.

• · When reusing a bottle or container multiple times, one saves the money they would be spending on plastic bottles thus treating our economy as well.
• · It costs less money to produce products from recycled materials in comparison to virgin materials.

The “Green Movement” has truly taken off in the last couple of years, yet just like the recovery of a flu usually eliminates the fever but leaves the cold before fully exiting one’s system, our populations must ban together to force all the symptoms of sickness to leave our Earth. Recycling can be the first, simple step of medication.

Preface: Stop arguing and begin listening.

Our Earth is dying, plain and simple.

Our global population’s lack of concern for our planet’s dire state has yielded unreliable results for our survival of not only the environment, but our human species. This ignorance on particular environmental issues is inexcusable, yet who does one blame for our current state of the world? Do we accuse our education for neglecting to instill and teach about environmental practices from a young age? Is the government accountable for investing immense quantities of taxpayer’s money into our seemingly endless war instead of realizing the manufacturing and transportation of the products being produced are creating more destruction to our atmosphere than the intended usage of the weapons themselves? No matter who we blame, the solution to our predicament cannot be reached until every individual changes their habits to be tailored around giving thought towards how their actions are affecting the space around them. Though some argue it is understandable that the average person doesn’t behold the secret to refreezing our continuously melting glaciers or eliminating the appalling amount of debris and oil floating within our oceanic communities, scientists who have been tortured through year after year of education shouldn’t be expected to clean up the massive mess we as a planet have created. Sadly, all too often, we hear the petty excuse of a non-environmentalist or a mere “supporter” state, “It is too difficult to attempt to lend a hand in the healing process of our surroundings. How do I even take part in a “green” act? I don’t know and don’t care to learn the first thing about carbon emissions.” To this I reply, “You like simplicity? Ever heard of recycling?”