Recycling

We're back to the June Challenge for a bit. I haven't discussed recycling, yet, so let's get going on that. First, let's focus on how recycling programs work and what to do with questionable materials. Thanks to Taco for providing the information!

Recycling Overview:
Just because a material is “recyclable” does not mean that it is appropriate for curbside collection. Some considerations to determine what material is eligible for curbside pickup include:

• The material must have a stable market so that it can remain on the “ok” list indefinitely. Think of how confusing it would be if you got a flier from your waste collector every month telling you things that have been added to and removed from your list of accepted materials.
• The hauling and sorting machinery necessary to collect and separate the material from other materials must be available in the area. Otherwise “recyclable” materials will get comingled and contaminate each other.
• The material requires simple instructions for the public. The more confusing and difficult the recycling program, the less likely people are to use it and the more likely they are to do the wrong thing and cause contamination.
• “Contamination” can refer to food-soiled recyclables, but it can also refer to materials separated into the wrong place – such as plastic mixed in with your paper. This not only results in the loss of that material, but it may actually contaminate the other materials too, thus sending recyclable materials to the landfills.
• Different types of recycling programs include full source separation systems (keeping each material in its own separate bin) and comingled systems (where various different materials can be combined for collection). Full source separation is always best to minimize contamination, but is more difficult to administer and more difficult for casual recyclers to adhere to. Comingled systems result in slightly increased contamination rates, but due to their simplicity the participation rates are much higher.
• The typical comingled system sends mixed recyclables to a Material Recovery Facility, where a combination of mechanical and manual processes are used to separate everything into individual material streams. The first step for incoming material is to move along a fast conveyor belt past several hand-sorting stations, which usually serves to pull out as much trash as possible. Another area along the conveyor serves to separate out large corrugated cardboard pieces while allowing remaining material to fall through for further sorting. Some metal is sorted out using magnets while the non-magnetic metal is sorted by hand. Plastics and boxboard are also sorted by hand, leaving the remaining material which consists of paper (newspaper, office paper, etc.). Because the paper is the last material in the line it often contains the highest level of contamination, since it will contain any items that did not get sorted out properly earlier in the line - this is called a negatively sorted material. Positively sorted materials, such as the metal and plastic, have fewer contaminants because they are specifically pulled off the line (i.e. positively identified).
• Remember that recycling does not end in your curbside bin or at the recycling centers, but when you purchase goods that are made with recycled materials.

Factoids & frequently asked questions (as with any recycling information, especially for the folks outside of the Portland area, it’s always best to call your waste hauler to verify information since policies & practices differ greatly from area to area):

What should I do with plastic bags?

• Plastic bags cannot go into your curbside recycling bins because they jam the machinery at recycling facilities and cause safety risks for workers.
• Take clean, dry plastic bags to a grocery store collection point (ask if you have questions about which different types of bags they accept). Better yet, try reusable bags when you shop to avoid the plastic bags altogether.

Why does glass typically need to be kept separate in our curbside recycling programs?

• In markets where machinery is used to sort your comingled recyclables, glass can easily break which can hurt workers and damage the machinery. Keeping glass separate minimizes this safety risk.
• Always contact your waste hauler if you have questions about how materials must be separated prior to collection.
• Recycling one glass bottle saves enough energy to power a light bulb for four hours.
  Sending 10,000 tons of waste to the landfill supports six jobs, while recycling the same amount supports 36 jobs.
• Just by recycling, Portland residents and businesses save enough energy to power half the homes in Portland for an entire year.
• The Portland metro region recycles about $80 Million worth materials per year.

Where can I recycle light bulbs?

• CFL & fluorescent bulbs should be taken to your local hazardous materials depot due to the mercury they contain.
• Standard bulbs can be disposed of in the normal trash, or put onto craigslist for artists.

What can I do with metal spray cans?

• As long as they are empty, you can recycle these curbside after removing the lids.

Can I put lids and bottle caps in the curbside recycling bin?

• Plastic lids are flat and thus often get missed in the sorting process, which means they end up with the paper and can contaminate that recycling stream. Even if the lids are made of recyclable plastic, they should be recycled through an independent recycler who accepts them outside of your curbside program.
• Metal lids of jars, beer bottles, etc. are recyclable even with the rubber or plastic seal. To help the sorting process, put these smaller metal items into a metal can and crimp the lip of the can over to prevent the smaller items from falling out.

Do I need to remove staples, plastic envelope windows, spiral binders and sticky notes from my paper prior to recycling?

• No, these can all be removed during the paper recycling process.

Can I recycle shredded paper in my curbside bin?

• Call your hauler to be certain but usually YES. Also, you can avoid a mess by putting it in a paper bag and folding or stapling the top.
• Keep in mind that paper fibers can survive roughly 7 cycles through the recycling stream, since the fibers get smaller and smaller each time through the process.

Can I recycle delivery pizza boxes?

• Usually not, due to food contamination. Grease can attract vermin in the recycling centers and can contaminate other paper supplies that it contacts making them unusable. If the boxes are very clean (no grease), then they can be recycled.

Can I recycle frozen food boxes?

• No. These boxes have “wet strength” in order to protect the product within even in the freezer environment. This wet strength is achieved by weaving plastic in with the paper fibers, which cannot be separated out in the recycling process. Since plastic contaminates paper recycling, these frozen food boxes are unfortunately not recyclable.

What about milk cartons?

• Yes. Even though they hold liquid, these containers (called aseptic containers) typically get their moisture resistance from wax instead of plastic.

Can I recycle motor oil bottles? They have the little number on them.

• No, you can't recycle any plastic that has had hazardous materials in them, including motor oil, pesticides, etc. Assume that any recycled plastic will end up as a food conatainer.

What can I do with materials that I believe should be recyclable, but that are not accepted in my curbside collection program?

• For Portland area residents, you can contact the Metro recycling information hotline by website (www.metro-region.org/recycling) or phone (503-234-3000). They can assist you with questions regarding curbside recyclables as well as which local business accept non-curbside materials such as Styrofoam, plastic lids, take-out food clamshells, etc. In fact, they can also answer questions on composting, natural gardening, general garbage disposal, and hazardous waste. They are an invaluable resource!
• For non-Portland residents, try contacting your waste hauler to see what other businesses in the area might accept these items, or contact your local government to see if there are any other resources in your area.

Thanks!

Jason

Composting

Another great thing to do to reduce the amount of waste produced is to compost kitchen waste.  The double benefit is that you can make organic material for your garden at the same time.  Very large compost piles will do pretty much all food scraps, but for a normal household bin you would need to limit it to materials that decompose faster and don't attract unwanted critters.  For example, you wouldn't want to put meat scraps, dairy products, or sauces in your bin.  These will start to smell fairly quickly and attract all of your neighborhood raccoons.  I would recommend keeping it away from where you normally congregate in your yard, as it does attract fruit flies.

If you plan to use your compost for your garden or lawn, you want to make sure to keep out weeds that have gone to seed.  You'll just end up unintentionally planting weeds in your garden!

You can put in all kinds of surprising stuff, including napkins, paper towels, and newspapers.  One big trick is to keep leaves from the fall raking, as they are a very important ingredient in the composting process.  Put a handful in whenever you empty your kitchen bin into the larger bin.  It helps the process and helps keep bugs down.

Grass seems to compost fairly well, but I have found that it fills up the bin very quickly.  Also, it is actually better for your lawn to just leave it where it lies after you cut it.  Think of it as an easy way to fertilize the lawn later.

Reducing trash through composting and recycling (which we'll discuss later) may allow you to share a waste bin with a neighbor, reduce trash pickup frequency, or go to a smaller trash can.  Portland metro has compost bins that make composting very easy.   Unless you are trying to produce compost quickly, the mix of what goes into the bin does not need to be regulated.  See the May 20th post for information on where to get a bin.

Janell and I have been composting since February, and our normal waste is now less than one bag a week.  Sheila has also seen some fantastic results in her school's waste reduction project.  See her comments here.

Good luck!

Jason

Junk Mail

Now here's something we can all agree on.  We all get way more junk mail than seems even remotely necessary.   Here is, quite frankly, an appalling statistic.  100 million trees are cut down every year to satisfy junk mail.  Junk mail!  The stuff we all hate to get and throw away as soon as we see it come out of the mailbox.  There are a lot more impacts as well, but that should be staggering enough.

There is some hope, however.  Rather than duplicate all the methods in the following  website, I'll just direct you there.  http://www.obviously.com/junkmail/.  It has a lot of great tips.  My favorites are:

• Don't sign up for things like contests if you don't want to get junk mail.
  
• Don't fill out the warranty cards every time you purchase a product unless it's actually required to make your warranty void.  In most cases it's really a marketing technique for data gathering.
• Ask charities you deal with to not share your information.  One trick they share is to put in a fake middle initial and keep track of which organizations you give the fake initial to.  This may be very revealing.
• The three main credit bureaus actually sell your information to people wanting to extend you credit, such as all those annoying credit card mailings.  You can get them to stop doing this by calling 1-888-5 OPT OUT (or 1-888-567-8688).  We called this number a few yeas ago, and it cut our junk mail significantly.  Although the current economic crisis did its part to cut down on this type of junk mail, it's probably still worth it to do this.

Also, you can petition to stop mail with congress http://donotmail.org/ and reduce today at http://donotmail.org/form.php?id=50.

Although it is not explicitly junk mail, you can eliminate most of your paper utility bills and bank statements as well.  Most of these companies actually prefer to send you a monthly email to view your account rather than having to stuff an envelope and mail it to you.  Simply sign up for paperless statements.

Save some trees or there may not be any left to hug.

Jason

Packaging

Let's talk about packaging.  If you take a look in your trash can and recycling bin, I would bet that around 75% of the waste is related to packaging.  It's something we can't get away from, but we can make smarter choices about it.  There's a basic hierarchy of good and bad packaging.

The obvious best choice is no packaging.  This is kind of hard to do, but there are a few things.  First, as described in a previous post, you can buy things from the bulk bin at the store and reuse the baggies or other  reusable container.  Also from the previous post, reusable shopping bags will eliminate "plastic or paper" question as you'll need neither.  Eating fresh food vs. processed food will reduce overall packaging, and it's better for you, too.

Next, something biodegradable is good, although that may be hard to find or identify.

Recyclable packaging is next.  When buying things in plastic, try to avoid things without the recycling numbers.  Cardboard is recyclable (and it actually isn't too bad on the biodegradable scale).

Very last on the list and the worst thing is styrofoam.  Styrofoam takes hundreds or even thousands of years to break down, and recycling it usually isn't an option.  Even though it often has recycling numbers on it, most recycling places don't take styrofoam.  Therefore, it should be avoided as much as possible.  For example, rather than buying meat on a styrofoam plate wrapped in plastic, go to the meat counter and get it in butcher paper.  Also, encourage your favorite restaurants to make better choices.  Encourage furniture manufacturers to use cardboard instead of styrofoam for protective packaging.  For me, we had a Five Guys Burgers and Fries open up close to my house.  Their burgers and fries are great, but for some reason they serve the fries in a styrofoam cup.  I just wrote to the corporate office and told them I won't be going back to their store until they stopped putting their fries in styrofoam.  

Also discussed in a previous post, buying in bulk will reduce the quantity of the waste due to packaging.  For example, instead of buying individual serving sizes of things like yogurt or pudding, but a larger container and send the kids off to school with their yogurt in a reusable container.  Also, consider reusing the larger containers.  My boys have a few nice tubs from Nancy's yogurt that they like to put cars and rocks in.  :)

Finally, try not to buy stuff that is ridiculously overpackaged.  Remember when CDs first came out and they came in the giant cardboard boxes?

So, what we've done is literally looked in the trash can and recycling bin to see what we can do differently to reduce the impact.

Any comments?

Jason

Reduce Waste - Drink keg beer

Keg Beer reduces waste? This topic may seem a little bit silly, but if you think about it it's quite true. Drinking keg beer is far more environmentally friendly than drinking beer from bottles or cans. This is really just another version of bulk packaging. And the super special bonus is that every part of the containers used (kegs and glasses) are reusable. Just wash them and you can easily use them again. Even the plastic top on the keg is reusable if you want to get really technical. You can simply bring it back to the brewer (assuming you got it directly from the brewer as is common in Portland), although recycling is probably a more likely option. Now, while cans and bottles are both recyclable, it does take quite a bit of energy to recycle them. It doesn't take as much energy as starting with raw materials, but I'll get to that one later in the month. Also, I noticed since my last keg ran out that I really don't like dealing with bottles.

Anyway, I digress. Let's for a moment assume we're talking about a keg fridge in your home. One argument is that many keg fridges are made from older, energy inefficient refrigerators. My counter argument to that is if you are the type of person to have a keg fridge in the first place, you would most likely have the exact same fridge in your garage full of bottles of beer anyway, so that is kind of a wash. Also, drinking your beer at home has environmental advantages in that you're not driving to the bar and social advantages in that you're not driving home.

There are 15.5 gallons in a keg, which translates to roughly 165 12-oz bottles or cans of beer. So in the same time period, you can either deal with one keg to bring back and a few occasional glasses to wash or you have 165 bottles that you'll need to store for awhile and either bring to a recycling center, recycle curbside, or bring back to the store for your nickel depending on what state you live in. Worst case, like when I lived in Texas in the mid-90's, the only option was to throw it in the trash. Coming from a state where we got a nickel back for the bottles (Iowa), that was a very painful thing to do.

Of course, not everybody wants to have a refrigerator full of beer in the garage (although I can't understand why not). Depending on where you live, a growler or jar of beer to bring home from a local brewpub may be an option. Also, I encourage you to drink draft beer instead of bottled beer when going out. It's good for the environment. I wish that was an option at the casinos in Vegas. Man, they go through a LOT of bottled beer.

Incidentally, does anybody know why bottles are now crushed and recycled rather than reused like they used to be? Remember the white groves around beer and pop bottles? That's from the bottling line when bottles are reused over and over. I haven't seen that for awhile.

Save the planet...one beer at a time.

Jason

June Challenge - Minimize Your Impact

OK people. This is the big one. For the last five months we've been doing good things for ourselves, and it's been great! Now we're going to make a concentrated effort on doing good things for our environment. Whether you get your environmental news from Al Gore or Rush Limbaugh, the things I'm going to discuss over the next month are indisputably beneficial things to do for our environment...and for our wallets. Obviously, I don't expect everybody to try everything, and I don't anticipate it all sticking. But, if by the end of the month you've made one or two of these things a new habit, then I feel we've succeeded.

I need to thank Charles Lockwood and Jen Miller for doing a lot of the research you'll see over the next month. General categories we'll cover will include:

• Reducing Garbage
• Around the House
• Appliances
• Utility and Water Consumption
• Transportation
• Advanced Topics

For the first week or so, let's talk about garbage. Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. Let's start with reduce. This is actually a pretty simple concept. Don't use as much stuff. However, putting it into practice takes a little bit of effort.

• Reusable shopping bags - This is a fairly simple thing to do, and most major grocery stores now sell them for about $1. I have, however, found it somewhat difficult to actually remember to bring it into the store. There are a few tricks, though. Once you've emptied your groceries into the refrigerator, hang the bag on the door knob so you remember to bring it into the car. Put it on the front seat on the way to the store so that the odds of remembering to bring it in the store go up. If you're only getting one or two items, skip the bag altogether. Also, you usually get a 5 cent refund for not taking a bag!
• Consider buying things in bulk with minimal packaging. Think of this as the evolution of taking your own reusable grocery bag. If you often buy the same things in bulk, you can reuse the packaging. In stores like New Seasons, you can buy cereal, spices, grains, nuts, dried fruit, coffee, and you can even buy soap and shampoo in bulk. Also drives to buying fresh fruits and vegetables which I hear are good for your health. :)
• Buying local reduces fuel required to supply the products and keeps money in your local economy.
• Reduce consumption of plastic bags and saran wrap by using washable storage containers.
• Be aware of purchasing individual serving size items.
• Some stats from a Mother Jones article on American waste created. I can't vouch for these statistics, but the point is that we "waste" a lot.
  o 106,000 Aluminum cans every 30 seconds
  o 1 Million plastic cups on airline flights every 6 hours
  o 2 million plastic beverage bottles ever 5 minutes
  o 426,000 cell phones every day
  o 1.14 million brown paper bags each hour
  o 60,000 plastic grocery bags every 5 minutes
  o 15 million sheets of office paper every 5 minutes
  o 170,000 energizer batteries every 15 minutes
• Yes, all these can be recycled, but please think about reduction first. The materials may be reused through recycling, but quite a bit of energy is used in the recycling process. Even the best city San Francisco only recycles 50% of waste…and national average is closer to 10%. Oklahoma City wins the worst crown at 3%. Boulder, Colorado is shooting for 100%...Good luck to them!

OK. Let's get started!

Jason