A few thoughts before I dive in. First, I know we all get hit over the head with the three Rs. The second is, since I’ve already covered Reduce and Reuse in the last few articles, we can fast forward to Recycle. Still bored… don’t worry I’m going to WildernessPunk this and get to the core of this issue. Recycle is the last of the our list of six ideas we can all accomplish to lower our Negative Environmental Impact (NEI)
Here’s a quick review of those six ideas
- Minimizing Food Waste
- Commuting by Bicycle, Walking, Buses
- Use Energy Wisely such as high efficiency devices and keeping them unplugged
- Consume less
- Eating for a Climate Stable Planet
- Recycle, Reduce, Reuse
Yep, yep Recycle. All of us do it, or at least I hope so. But are we recycling enough? More likely, we’re trying to recycle too much. Too much, one might think recycling is one area where more would always be better. We might like to think the Recycle fairies find some use for all the items we imagine we’re keeping out of the landfill.
But what happens to the items we put into our recycle bins which can’t be Recycled? Could we be creating more problems by trying to Recycle to much? What happens to things which can’t be Recycled when they arrive at the recycling department?
So are we doing more harm than good by Recycling more than we should? Chances are… yes. So let’s dig in and hash all this out so we can be good WildernessPunkers, shall we.
First off, what we can Recycle will of course vary from country to country, state to state, and town to town. So um, we’ll just focus on where I live. It might not be exact, but at least it will help educate us on a general system which should be close to accurate for most of us.
Like always, let’s strive to keep this simple and make a few lists. The first will be what we can recycle and the second will be things you might think are okay, but are not.
Commonly Recycled Goods
- Cans, but make sure things like soup cans are clean
- Plastic, water bottles, other drink bottles, clamshell fruit or take-out containers, rigid plastic like detergent bottles
- Paper, junk mail (plastic windows on envelopes are fine), newspapers, office paper, shredded paper in clear plastic bags, and cardboard
- Plastic bottle lids, but only if the bottle is dry and they are screwed back on
- Plastic lunch containers, if they are clean
- Cardboard cereal and pasta boxes
- Aluminum foil, pie pans etc, but only if free of food
- Milk containers, again as long as they are clean and dry
- Shampoo bottles if clean and dry
- Cardboard, but condense and remove tape
- Glass jars, label can stay on but loose the lid
Items which cannot be Recycled
- Plastic containers which have not been cleaned and dried
- Styrofoam
- Plastic straws
- Juice bags
- Plastic bags
- Prescription bottles
- Batteries
- To go coffee and soda cups
- Bubble Wrap
- Pet food bags
- Election Signs
- Yard Waste
- Hazardous waste, not in curbside, but some companies can help
- Smaller items
Yes, I know some of this is a bit tedious, but if you really care about saving the Earth and stepping up to knock down your NEI, then this is good to know. Putting items into the recycle bin which can’t be recycled is much worse than tossing it into the landfill. It can break down the machines and cause whole truckloads to be contaminated and thrown into the landfill.
Also in case you were wondering…
“When done thoughtfully, recycling is cost-effective. Less energy is required to make products from recycled materials than to produce them from raw materials.” Benjie Sanders / Arizona Daily Star
And just for a fact teaser here are a few stats.
There’s a reason people say to recycle paper and save the trees. According to Waste Management, recycling 500 average phone books could save between 17 and 31 trees, 7,000 gallons of water, 463 gallons of oil, 587 pounds of air pollution, 4,077 kilowatt hours of energy and landfill space. https://bit.ly/2JcL7JX
So I’m going to leave this here. Over the past few months, I’ve done what I’ve set out to do and covered, in a brutally realistic manner, what each household in the USA could, doesn’t, and should accomplish to lower our NEI as individuals and as a country. Of course more could be done and a greater insight gleaned with continued work, but more often than not, a simpler approach is more likely to succeed than an exhaustive data explosion.
On a person note, I’m not sure about all of you, but I know I’ve learned a lot by collecting this information. We often suffer from accepted delusions and I hope I’ve helped pop a few erroneous thought bubbles.
I would also like to state, I’m pleased to have completed this process. Not only because of the positive benefits of sharing, but also because of some of the darker places my research brought me too. We have a long way to go, but as my uncle’s show used to say, “Knowledge is Power.”
And come on America, we got this. We’ve stepped up before and we can do it again, especially when this might be the most important thing our species has done in 10,000 years.
WildernessPunk 