Do You Recycle?

If so, how?

Published on January 29, 2006 By JillUser In Misc

I have two young, very imaginative boys so one method of recycling in my home is giving them stuff to "create" with. Creamer bottles, milk cartons, oatmeal containers, they all can become very cool space ships! They use things in ways no adult would ever imagine. It is fascinating to watch and great exercise for their brains.

We have a great recycling store in Ann Arbor called the Scrapbox. People and businesses can donate materials and then you can come in, purchase a paper bag and fill it with treasures for only $2. The last $2 I spent there provided my sons with months worth of creating. There are factory reject parts, parachute scraps, scraps from paper, plastic and foam products. All sorts of goodies that send the imagination soaring. Luckily our elementary school has been taking advantage of this wonderful resource.

We also have curbside recycling. I do as much of this as possible but get discouraged sometimes because I have caught the garbage guys just dumping the recyclables into the compactor rather than leaving it for the recycling truck. I keep trying though and have made a couple of calls to the waste management center.

I recall my most discouraging experience with recycling. I was in high school and our french club was trying to raise money for a trip to Quebec. Our teacher was an extreme tree hugger (I don't mean anything negative by that. She was a very wonderful person) who lived in a barn and ate only vegan food unless it was brownies Well, she had the admirable idea to collect newspaper to take to the recycling center. Unfortunately she didn't do her homework on how much we would get paid and it turned out that 4 van loads (which was equivalent to an entire weekend of driving all over northern MI) only got us about $10. We spent way more than that on gas alone!

I don't composte though which is something we did growing up. But I grew up in farm country and now live in suburbia. I think farmers are probably the experts on recycling. Farmers and people who lived during the depression. My grandma reuses and saves everything. She even washes and reuses sandwich bags! She has a lot of time on her hands though

It is hard to believe what a disposable society we have now. There is disposable everything now. I even heard they came up with a disposable cell phone!

Comments (Page 2)

Phil

on Jan 31, 2006

Several thoughts on recyce, reduce, and reuse.
One of the great places for this is the thrift store. In this I mean donating items to them and buying stuff from them. Same thing with used Music stores, and pawnshops. The irony is that people go to these places to save money, and that is what it usually comes down to - money! Thrift stores are also good places to find raw materials for craft projects.

I imagine in the future if resouces become priced high enough, companies will go and "mine" the old landfills and then process the "raw materials" and make money in the process. Just like aluminum cans, a lot of people save them because there is some money in recycling them, not much but some. A lot of cities are getting better at composting garden and lawn waste and giving compost to city residents and some even package it up and sell it.

Some cities and towns tried doing some plastic recycling and it did cost them more to collect the plastic and try to find someone that wanted it. National Geographic had a real good article about 10 years ago on the subject of garbage and landfills.

JillUser

on Jan 31, 2006

Phil, you couldn't be more right about second hand shops!

lot of cities are getting better at composting garden and lawn waste

Our city will only compost lawn waste and their are very specific guidelines. No food substances like peels, fruit, etc. is allowed although I think they made an exception for pumkins around Halloween. You are probably right about mining landfills in the future also.

KarmaGirl

on Jan 31, 2006

I imagine in the future if resouces become priced high enough, companies will go and "mine" the old landfills and then process the "raw materials" and make money in the process

That frightens me. Most landfills get closed because the ground water starts showing signs of contamination. The landfill is then capped with heavy clay and is monitored to make sure it isn't leaching contamination into the water tables. Opening up those capped landfills would most definitely cause major contamination.

Gideon MacLeish

on Jan 31, 2006

Like ParaTed pointed out, reusing is an important aspect of recycling. Do art teachers use egg cartons to hold paints anymore? They did back when I was in school (long ago ). My older son's class made adorable Easter bunnies out of bleach containers last year and this Christmas the boys and I made cute snowmen out of creamer bottles and scraps of lace, felt and buttons. Other kids made gingerbread houses with paper milk or juice cartons as the base.

I have always called plastic margarine, sour cream and cottage cheese containers "poor people's Tupperware" as that, frankly, is how I was always raised to use it. We always buy the yogurt with the resealable lids (rather than the Yoplait foil top) for the same reason, and my kids reuse egg cartons to sort their beads. We try to purchase most of our food either in containers we will be able to later reuse, or in large quantities so there's less of a net impact on the landfills. As for recycling, it's pretty much a joke to even propose it out here (although we do collect cans for supplementary income, so I suppose we have made some positive effect that way).

JillUser

on Jan 31, 2006

my kids reuse egg cartons to sort their beads

Hey, that's a good idea!

I saw an "egg carton" jewelry holder in a catalog. I thought it was totally silly because it was a $15 ceramic mold of an actual egg carton. Why not just use the free egg carton?!

JillUser

on Jan 31, 2006

I just got a copy of gardener's supply catalog in the mail and they had this cool worm house composting system. It is five layers and you put the worms and bedding in the bottom layer and stack your scraps up from there. The worms eat from the bottom up and leave awesome fertilizer behing. I think that would be the perfect way to get my boys (and probably husband) interested in composting! It takes almost no room on your patio at all so it is perfect for a small backyard.

JillUser

on Jan 31, 2006

Did anyone check out the google ads that came up with this post? I wish we had a PC recycling center near us.

KarmaGirl

on Feb 01, 2006

I don't think that you would want to put a composter on your patio. With compost comes liquid and smell. Out in the farthest corner of your yard is better.

The worms are cool. Gives the worms a place to live and gives you good compost.

JillUser

on Feb 01, 2006

With compost comes liquid and smell.

This one takes care of that. It actually has a spout to control the liquid they refer to as "worm juice" and suggest using it as plant food. This one is specifically designed for patios and even for people who garden on their terrace or fire escape.

pseudosoldier

on Feb 01, 2006

We've caught the recycling collectors dumping soup cans into the garbage and only taking the soda cans (apparently the only thing they pick up at curbside in our town), so we just load up the van with *everything* recyclable and drive it onto the military installation. (Newspapers, boxes, other cardboard, cans and plastics.)

Ionolast

on Feb 01, 2006

"The earth has been through much worse than this. Volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, the reversal of the magnetic poles....and we think a little bit of plastic is going to destroy the planet? When the earth gets tired of us, it'll shake us off like a bad case of fleas.

The planet will be here for a long, long, LONG time after we're gone, and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself, 'cause that's what it does. It's a self-correcting system.

The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed, and if it's true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new paradigm: the earth plus plastic.

The earth doesn't share our prejudice towards plastic. Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn't know how to make it. Needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old egocentric philosophical question, "Why are we here?"

Plastic...asshole.

Besides, people who claim to be concerned about the planet aren't really concerned about the entire planet, they're really only concerned with their little piece of it. They're afraid that they might be inconvenienced." - George Carlin

Everything came from the earth and everything will return to the earth sooner or later. Some people are just too impatient to wait. Ask yourselves this: Who's in charge of the recycling program?

CariElf

on Feb 01, 2006

I should have you and your kids come over to my basement. I've been saving stuff for the Scrap Box for awhile and it's starting to get out of control.

I have LOTS of egg cartons, for example.

Arquonzo

on Feb 02, 2006

I do as much of this as possible but get discouraged sometimes because I have caught the garbage guys just dumping the recyclables into the compactor rather than leaving it for the recycling truck.

I know this is going to disappoint all those who fastidiously separate out all their recycleables, but at least here what happens is that everything gets thrown together and then mechanically separated on a giant rubbish floor. So I don't feel bad about throwing the odd milk jug in the trash! They also burn the burnables for energy...

JillUser

on Feb 02, 2006

everything gets thrown together and then mechanically separated on a giant rubbish floor

Not here. We actually have separate landfill and recycling centers. Usually the recycling truck comes by and it has separate compartments for plastic, glass and paper products. Sometimes the garbage truck will come first and be buttheads by just dumping the recycling bin in the compactor.

KarmaGirl

on Feb 02, 2006

We have a great recycling program around here, and it is run by a completely different company than any of the trash companies.

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