RECYCLING ... what a joke!

[WDH]

Such policies
should be integrated into an overall energy policy.

Ain't that the truth. 

[fencerowphil (Phil L.)]

WDH,

I just hope we "get it" this time.

If we do, we can combine:
                                                Turning our oil dollars toward home
                                                Finally going to economical transportation
                                                Universal systems of recycling
                                                Moving toward national energy independence

Why can't a president challenge the country to do this, as Kennedy challenged
the country to go to the moon?  (Lest you guess that I am a die-hard democrat,
no, not the case.  I could have said,  "as Reagan said,  '...tear down this wall,'"
but that would not have been as direct a comparison. I will leave you guessing.)

[WDH]

The political system is designed to resist change.  It will take a president with guts and great vision.  On well, maybe next time .

[tcsmpsi]

The political system is designed to resist change.  It will take a president with guts and great vision.  On well, maybe next time .

Careful!    :D

[fencerowphil (Phil L.)]

Well, these things are not exciting to most people.  That's certain.
Only by linking current events to a good selling job will it ever take place.

I think the upcoming hard knocks which many of us will endure can
provide an opportunity for strong leadership in these areas.  The question
remains as to whether that strong inertia in Washington can be overcome.
It is unlikely.   Maybe Al Gore will have a vision and will spend the
$100 million he made so far on his Global Warming activities and investments.
That would buy a lot of PR!  If even half of what will be spent by the end
of this presidential campaign could be spent promoting these ideas instead,...!

Dream on.   :

By the way, Engineer, I am proud of your habits.  Mine don't measure up, but
then our community doesn't make it easy to do either.

[tcsmpsi]

The only 'recycling' we have available (as a community) is the salvage/recycling yard which only deals in metals.

Our greatest trash 'burden' is plastic water containers.  The children use a lot of the small bottled waters, while we use the gallons (tap water here is barely fit to bathe in).  I keep a dumpster (well, half actually-business next door and I share one) at the shop in town.   

They drink the fizzwaters, but I sell those cans every now and then.   Other than that, we don't have much trash.  Very, very little do we eat out of a can or much packaged stuff. 
A parakeet couldn't survive on our 'leftovers'.    Now, that got me thinking of that boudain left from yesterday waiting on me when I get to the house.   :D

[isawlogs]

Here recycling is doing prety good . We can put any type of paper product , any type of glass, any metal and any type of plastic out for recycling , thewy ask that we clean out the food type containers and put all into clear plastic or light see through blue plastic bags . It can be put into a garbage can , as long as one person can lift it with no poblem .
The pick up is done every two weeks , so we have one week regular garbage , the other is recycling .
  We have some that complain about the smell .. but it is an insentive for people to do more recycling and to get some into composting . Once you get into those two you really dont have that much that needs be buried .

  There are some that take recycling a little further  ;D

  Some Beaver took it upon himself to take one of my White Birch down ... I took it upon myself to take it back .  :D
  After some cogitating , I came up with this recycled beaver killed tree coat hanger 

[fencerowphil (Phil L.)]

I like it.  I like it.

I practiced recycling today:   My old Dodge Dakota got a new gas filter,
                                           so that it could quit being a useless hunk of
                                           metal and, instead, allow me to go move two
                                           Steinway grand pianos.
:D

[WDH]

A parakeet couldn't survive on our 'leftovers'.      :D

Tcsmpsi,

I hate to hear that y'all are starving the birds over there in Texas ;D.

[DouginUtah]

Steinway grand pianos.

Phil,

I don't know if you ever go to the movies or if you watch DVDs but if there is one movie this year for you to see make it Note by Note. This is a movie that would be of interest to all woodworkers also.

It is the step by step process of building a Steinway piano.

[fencerowphil (Phil L.)]

Doug

Used to restore pianos.  In fact, have restored several Steinways.
TOO MANY HOURS.  Bet you can imagine that after seeing that film you mentioned.

Once we pulled an upright player piano out of the floor of an old log
cabin where it had been (foolishly) stored.  Termites had eaten away the floor and up into the piano.
We restored the case, the piano, and the player mechanisms.  Even
reveneered most of the case.

Now THAT was recycling!

[tcsmpsi]

A parakeet couldn't survive on our 'leftovers'.      :D

Tcsmpsi,

I hate to hear that y'all are starving the birds over there in Texas ;D.

Yeah, they look it.     :D  The birds and squirrels are fed on the top deck in the back, and the rabbits like the sprouts that come up from what they drop.   Recycling.   ;D

[OneWithWood]

Our county and the city of Bloomington have a very well thought out and utilized recycling program.  At the heart of the county program are orange bags.  The bags come in two sizes, 10 and 20 gallon, I think.  You buy the bags at the grocery store for .50 and $1 respectively.  Garbage goes in the orange bags and on to the landfill.  Everything else is recycled.  The transfer stations in the county all have free libraries and free other useful stuff.  Folks are real good about not putting junk in the other useful stuff area.

At our house nothing is wasted.  The only things going into the orange bags cannot be recycled or composted.  We pre sort our recyclables in plastic 40 gallon cans labeled: Magazines, Newspaper, Steel cans, Plastic, Glass and Cardboard.  Whenever the cans are full I haul them to the transfer station and dump the contents into the respective roll-off containers.
I recycle used vegetable oil for a few of the restaurants in the area. (My exhaust makes me hungry)

Our county roads are remarkably free of trash.  We have a real good pick-up-the-trash-and-get-sober operation run by the judicial system  :D

For the record, our government does have an energy policy that is in effect currently.  It was put together by Dick Cheney and some as-yet-unidentified freinds of his during the first Bush administration.  I am sure it is working to their satisfaction and just the way it was planned.

[fencerowphil (Phil L.)]

An energy policy "still crazy after all these years?"

OWW,
That is an enviable system.

[Bow Saw]

Hey Tom,
     I  Bow ^Saw that!
     I'm catching up on my reading here and didn't like the derogatory remark towards an elementary school teacher.
Your exact quote was, "We've allowed our Government to own us and they are using a third-grade teacher's mentality."
     Pardon me but, you are not  "scuzed"!
Don't do that again!
     Just goes to show how ignorant some of you do actually know what teachers instruct & promote.  I could not read this and not come to the defense of my fellow teachers. We live in a small rural community of under 2,500 people. Our school population is roughly about 350 students.  The sixth grade teacher participates in a county wide energy and recycling unit where she assists her students to teach the younger grades how to conserve energy.  This was started quite a few years ago and promoted by the county power plant.  I believe they actually hired the teacher who coached teachers in the local schools on how to proceed in the instructional process for sixth graders.  A lot of teacher prep is done, much time and effort is invested in this program.  The sixth grade teacher schedules her students, they work in teams of 2 or 3 students to give a presentation to each class, (They know how to use power point better than me).  She divides it up so that all 6th graders are involved in the presentation of all the classes from prek to 5th grades.  They won a county wide award for all their efforts and got a field trip to the state government in Augusta, Maine.  Yes, we are perhaps the exception, but don't tell me that teachers don't try to promote recycling.  Tom, I'll be thinking of you each time I trip over that container of paper for recycling next to the trash bin, whenever I use an old cereal box during craft time to recover it with old cast away wrapping paper to turn it into a browser box, or use the old cereal box to make a binder for a story that the student wrote.  Again wrap discarded wrapping paper around the cut edges of a cereal box, (it makes a sturdy binding), if students have access to a computer they can print their stories,(that makes a nice published writing), a digital photo of the child glued on the cover is another added touch.
We use other discarded material to make crafts, remember teachers have to be quite resourceful so think before you speak so dispargeingly of the mentality of a third grade teacher!   
It's the end of another great year and I'm not taking any # % *^%# from anyone out there! 
Mrs. Bow Saw

[fencerowphil (Phil L.)]

I would try to, er, defend Tom on this,
but I am too interested in seeing how he
digs out of this one.
;)

[Tom]

Mrs. Bowsaw,
You and I aren't having the same conversation.

The analogy hasn't anything to do with disparaging third grade teachers, but to compare the Government's/Bureaucracy to the manner of control implemented by those in "authority" onto their supposed subordinates.

I don't ask to be "scuzed" for the reference, and I'll do it again when the opportunity requires the analogy.

[Patty]

In Iowa we are charged a deposit (5¢) on all aluminum cans and plastic soda bottles. Our 5¢ is refunded when we return the empties. It is a real hassle, but well worth the effort in my opinion. Personally I think they ought to extend the 5¢ deposit/refund for all juice and water bottles as well. I hate throwing them away, but the closest recycling deposit center is over 30 miles away.  :

It is not uncommon to see folks along the highways picking up pop cans for the deposit money.

[DanG]

That was a really good rant, Mrs. BowSaw.  Too bad you didn't bother to read the entire sentence before you got your trigger tripped.  None of the other dozens of teachers on here seemed to have a problem with Tom's analogy. :

[fencerowphil (Phil L.)]

The irony of all this is this:  Third graders listen.  They are eager to
learn, and, for the most part, eager to cooperate.  I had to teach a
group of them in 1975.  Best age to teach.

[Tom]

That's pretty true, Phil.   Youngsters don't have the aged experience or support to resist controlling types of authority as does a free adult citizen.

[fencerowphil (Phil L.)]

As luck would have it, our local newspaper included a say-nothing
article about recycling today.  "Single stream recycling" they called it.

Let me go read it a little more carefully.

[red]

I googled  " is recycling a joke "  and it brought me to Forestry Forum posted 2008.

My interest started with the large plastic island in the Pacific.  Seems many plastic recycling programs go to landfills or China. I have always recycled everything even trash from the side of the road.  So the idea of plastics not being recycled seems like a hoax, or that I have been a fool . 

[florida]

Funny you should bring the Pacific plastic vortex up. I just read along term study about what's in it and I'll bet it's not what any of us think. 50% is made up up abandoned or lost Asian fishing nets,  the next 40% is other Asian fishing gear, floats, lines, boxes, etc. The next 9% is trash including plastic bottles that wash out of Asian rivers and the last 1% comes from North America, to include Canada and Mexico. It also turns out that, contrary to the picture I had, that it's not visible even when you're in the middle.

[low_48]

I think scientists will find that the micro plastic particles that are now being found in seafood will become the real human issue with plastic in the ocean. Not the giant mats. I'm nearing my 70s and going bald. So I'm aware of how young men are now growing bald. Not at all uncommon to see men in their late 30s with less hair than myself. I also see high school boys with a beard that can almost rival mine. Our food is not doing human development any favors! On the plus side, with the Alzheimer's epidemic, growing old is not the wonderful goal it once was. Sorry for the attitude, but just watched my severely demented 87 year old Mother finally pass away Nov 6th. You haven't seen misery until you visit a nursing home these days. All the functioning seniors are in assisted living. The nursing homes have become warehouses for the severely demented waiting for an organ failure. It's a tragedy!