RECYCLING ... what a joke!

[fencerowphil (Phil L.)]

Okay.   Alright.

I admit it.  This is a bald-faced imitation of what TexasTimbers did.

My interest here is specific, so I will put it out there.  I just don't have
enough information on it and would like more.  Would you follow a brief
true story line with me to set the stage, please?

My BIL works as in a high tech steam generating power plant at a local
plant.  It is big enough to power the plant and often sells back power.
It can run on gas.  It can run also on coal or rubber nuggets.  Their best
fuel source is the rubber nuggets which are made from recycled tires.

Polyethylene and polypropylene, etc. are solidified polymerized forms
of crude oil products.  Why are we burying, rather than burning these
potential fuels?  The stuff is everywhere.

Our small sized municipality began a recycling campaign about 15 (?)
years ago.  All of a sudden,  " You shall separate this, that and the other.
It will be collected thusly."  Et cetera, et ceterahha.  That mysteriously
died.  Next, was voluntary recycling, with centers.  Now it has become
a network of centers CALLED recycling centers which only divided a
few types of trash:  recyclable metal like applicances; mulchable limbs;
and regular mixed household garbage.

                              As I said,  my particular question,
                  since we have talked wind and ethanol to death, 
                                         is this one:
      "Why can't plastic waste be either burned for energy or converted
         back from whence it came - a liquid or gaseous energy source?"

P.S.  I would be interested in your own experience with "recycling" in general.
        As a basic idea, I am all for it (but not just any old way will do).

[Don_Papenburg]

Hey  don't this belong in the joke thread?   

I think that we can do that, But   people are lazy ,beuracracy has ziltch for forward thinking. It should be done and set into the energy policy.  Oh yah congress has failed to act on any type of energy policy ,nevermind.

[fencerowphil (Phil L.)]

"Energy policy" seems to be a mix of various high-stakes games.
Lobbyists report back to their employer/handlers.  The handlers then decide
how to feed the politicians to keep both sides working for the handlers.  They
also make the decision as to whether to keep paying that high-priced lobbyist.
The lobbyist's primary function, then, is to tell both the handlers and the politicians
what they want to hear.

End result is no real energy policy being developed which most logical minds
could recognize as comprehensive or effective or within the realm of reality.
I believe that most politicians spend so much of their time engaged in hearings
and discussions with those of vested interests that they have no time for independent
research and logical thought.  Logical solutions are not the objective of lobbyists.
Often, logical solutions are not the intent of a particular given interest group, either.
On the other hand, they are SUPPOSED TO BE  the objective of our legislators.

[florida]

It can, just not at a price that makes it worthwhile. Plastic bottles make great fuel. The problem is how do you gather them up and get them to where they are burned using less energy than they create?
The Federal government mandated that the amount of trash in landfills had to be reduced.   Recycling is the results of that decision but most recyclables costs more to collect then they're worth. Aluminum is the only recyclable that could pay for itself but of course it doesn't  because you can't get enough uncrushed cans in a truck to pay for the truck expenses.
Plastic bottles are even worse since most of them are big, take up a large volume but weigh almost nothing. PVC's burn well they also release chlorine gas and heavy metals which create problems of their own. Polyester bottles don't have chlorine but are better suited to reuse as plastic then as fuel.
If recycling anything really worked we'd be getting paid for the stuff we throw in the blue bins.

[Tom]

The empty plastic containers, destined for fuel, could be collected by the municipal pickup if a little "shredder" would be installed on the recycle truck. Those plastics that are not recycled now, could be shredded at the curb and the only limitation would be weight.

While there might be a few, I don't think that most Municipal recycling is done very seriously.

[DanG]

Our County's recycling program has bit the dust.  It all goes to the landfill now.

I don't care for the idea of burning plastic.  I'm giving my lungs enough of a fit with these DanG cigarettes.  However, I read or saw somewhere that non-degradable plastics will remain intact for 700 years underground.  That seems like a good thing to me.  Just smush them and bury them under a cornfield and someone may find a use for them someday.

What about tin cans?  Ain't they made out of steel?  I'm sure I throw away at least a hundred pounds of'em every month.  Ya reckon the scrap yard would buy them if I smashed them up and saved up a ton or so?

BTW, I sat next to a guy on a long airline flight, some years ago, and he worked for a company that recycled plastic pop bottles for the carpet industry.  He said they had a baler that could put 40,000 pounds of them on a semi.  Also, I once hauled 770 pounds of uncrushed beer cans in my horse trailer.  After the crusher got through with them, I could have put them in the front seat with me.  If the thief that runs our local scrapyard will pay me 85 cents/lb for them, you can bet your bippy there's some money in it somewhere!

[fencerowphil (Phil L.)]

It is definitely an economic issue in our county.

If black rubber can be burned clean enough at a local power facility, then there is a way
to burn plastic cleanly.  I believe that the secret to handling plastic bottles is the same as
handling lumber:  Handle it once.

If I knew that there was a compunction -either legal or economic -to handle my waste plastic
just once into a shredder/sterilizer that would be a possibility.  Styrofoam cups, plastic wrappings,
bottles and other plastic disposables into that device.  Output: small, standardized, sealed blocks of
ready-to-process mixed plastic destined for a refiner or a burner.  No muss; no fuss; no landfill for
that stuff.

Today's fuel costs make many things which were outlandish yesterday into ideas which are quite
financially viable, today.  What about a local power generator which only hauls ten miles to gather
the plastic, then uses a combination of fuels to operate.  Small, efficient, localized.

The only reason such things can not be done (in light of today's fuel prices) is that there are those
who politically DO NOT WANT THEM DONE.

[Ianab]

We have a working recycle system in our small town. I probably costs us money to run (paid for by town rates), but it costs money to have it hauled to a landfill as well, so it probably comes out even.

We have 2 kerbside wheelie bins, one for recyclables and one for rubbish. The rubbish one is a bit small, so that creates an incentive to actually sort the recyclables and put them in the other bin.

In the recycle bin you can put cans (aluminum and steel), glass bottles, plastic (1 & 2, that's fizz and milk bottles here), cardboard and newspapers. Once you take that out of your household rubbish, the small bin is enough.

The recycle bins are collected on a different day and the unsorted load is taken and sorted at a central depot, crushed and baled and shipped off to where ever. Sure it costs money to do this, but it costs to dump it anyway.

It's not perfect, but it works.

Ian

[thecfarm]

I have no idea if my small town is making money or not.I think the best paying one is white office paper.The market goes up and down on all of this stuff.When I had my other house they had curb side pick up for recyles.That was a regional center.They took anything that was not radioative.The town that I live in have roll ways that we put our recyles into,except for glass,cans and plastic containers.Corrugated carboard,cearal boxes,newspaper all needs to be seperated and goes into bins in a roll way.Metal,like old lawn mowers,lamps, a metal stand goes into a roll way.Tin cans,clear,brown,colored glass are all seperated into 55 steel drums.So are all plastic containers.Theres are seprated by white and colored,which all have to be #2.Milk jugs in ME are clear for the most part,these are seperated too.They do take used oil and tires are taken for a fee.Propane tanks,computers,old paint,batteries,have to be taken to the regional center 15 minutes away.There is another roll way for trash,but regular house trash is contracted out to be picked up road side at our homes.

[fencerowphil (Phil L.)]

You can see from the responses here that the recycling effort is pretty spastic.
The area around thecfarm in Maine is doing major segregation recycling,
while Laurens County Georgia is only crudely dividing types of trash.

We have had attempts within Georgia to build burn facilities for some types
of waste.  It gets voted down.  I don't think people see the possibilities and
can only focus on the fear of a "Love Canal" coming to their neighborhood.
If a high-tech incinerator  won't fly politically, then it is likely that a high-tech
power generator which burned waste would also have a tough row to hoe.
Like DanG says (as he smokes his cancer stick), burning stuff to get rid of it
just doesn't sound right to a lot of people.

Somewhere sometime hard reality, possibilities, and public education will have
to meet.  The total amount of plastic made yearly in the US, minus the known recycled
tonnage will give a remaining amount.  Whatever than tonnage is represents the amount
of highly concentrated energy which we are spending money on to bury in the ground
again.  Ironic, no?

[WDH]

We recycle very seriously (I was going to say religiously, but that did not seem right).  It is pretty easy to do here in Houston County, Georgia.  You put the recyclables in bins and set them by the roadside.  They take everything but glass.  That has to be taken to Perry to the recycle center. 

However, most people around here just throw everything away in the roll-away trash cans.  On pick-up days, most of the neighbors cans are full to overflowing.  Ours is usually less than half full.  That is because we recycle everything.

The problem is this........it is too easy just to toss everything.  There is no incentive to recycle.  You have to take it on yourself. 

I say make it mandatory.  Charge for trash by the pound and give back credit for recycles.  There is no excuse where there is an established process to collect recycles curbside to just throw it all away unless you are just lazy.  I hate lazy.

There are a lot of people who just don't care.  They do what is easy, and it is easier to throw it away than recycle it.  I say make it hard to throw it away and then it will be easier to recycle.  Then people will do it. 

You don't see me throwing away good boards in the slab pile .

[fencerowphil (Phil L.)]

In my mind the issues of alternative energy, energy conservation,and recycling all tie together.

It is sad that someone who was really serious about logical policy in all these areas simultaneously
would probably have one heck of a time raising the funds to be elected to national political office.  Many
special interest groups would fear that person.  The key word that would cause the problem is
the "logical" part.  That word would eliminate extreme ideas in favor of a balanced approach, a
concept that special interests, by definition, might not appreciate.

[thecfarm]

Another comment,I have heard of some towns in Maine going to a dollar a bag for trash.You went to the town office to get stickers that cost a dollar each.Seems like towns lose money from the state,goverment if so much is not taken out of the trash.I have heard from one guy at work,one transfer worker will just about go through your trash to make sure you are recycling all that you can.Most towns close to me are manadatory.But the way some get around it is they use a private trash hauler.Supposely the towns was going to crack down on this.I usally only have a half bag a week of trash.

[fencerowphil (Phil L.)]

By the way, cfarm, I love your state.

We took a July vacation up there several years ago.
Great memories.  Cool weather.  The cool part was my main reason for going.
We avoided all the busy areas and stayed off the beaten trail. Loved it.

[Ianab]

The problem is this........it is too easy just to toss everything.  There is no incentive to recycle.  You have to take it on yourself.

Hence the smaller rubbish bin. It's plenty big enough IF you recycle. If you dont, you can still take your rubbish to the transfer station if you have too much, or hire a bigger bin off the waste company. Either way you pay extra.

You can take as much extra recyclables as you want to the tansfer station for free.

We did have problems with people putting rubbish in the re-cycle bin, not nice for the workers at the sorting station. But they did a bin inspection for a couple of weeks and took the bins away from a couple of people. They are now stuck with the small bins and have to haul their extra away themselves.

It's not perfect, but it's a working system.

Ian

[Cedarman]

Our roadsides see too much trash from people too lazy to take it home with them and just toss their fast food wrappers out the window.  If people had to pay a dollar a bag, then we would see trash dumped along roadsides.  We pay for trash services with our taxes.  So you pay whether you use them or not.

[breederman]

If our county doesn't send enough tons of garbage to the land fill we get asessed a higher tipping fee!  Reduce our garbage,pay more to get rid of it. >:(

[Engineer]

Here in my small town, we take recycling very seriously.  In the early 90's the town was on the fence about putting in some sort of recycling facility, and after seeing a couple of other local towns put them in and make a profit off of them, we decided to do the same thing.  I was on the selectmen's board at the time and made the facility my "pet project"; it got built and a year later I got off the board.

We separate everything.  The system has changed significantly since fifteen years ago but what's current is: Corrugated cardboard goes into a baler.  All paper, except for wrapping paper, gets baled for a trip to a power plant, and that's including pasteboard, magazines, white paper and newspaper.  For some odd reason I haven't figured out, all plastics marked with a triangular recycling symbol (1-7) and steel cans go into one giant bin.  They take 'em somewhere and recycle them.  Aluminum goes into a bin, returnables with deposit go into a bin if you don't want to take 'em to the store yourself, glass goes into a big dumpster and crushed, and we have several piles in a different location for all other metals, white goods, electronics, brush, tires and construction/demolition waste.  There is even a section set up for used books and magazines if you don't want to actually throw them out, the "free-library" get a lot of business.  Also a bin for used cell phones that they donate to some cause, and a shelf for egg cartons that a local farmer picks up. 

The only thing that really goes in the packer truck is really trash - diapers, foam, plastic wrappers, meat bones,  contaminated paper/plastic goods.  We, as a family of seven, with two kids in diapers, average six kitchen-size bags of trash per month, and when the urchins are out of diapers, we'll be able to cut that down to one or two.  We try to avoid things that are hard to recycle, like aerosol cans (Cheez Whiz and Reddi-Whip, anyone?) and buy things in bulk so that it's more likely we have to recycle a large box than a bunch of small foam trays and plastic wrap.  I also save newspapers, white paper and corrugated cardboard; it heats my house. 

[ely]

we recycle all of our tin cans, aresol,soup and others. basically if it will stick to a magnet it will get sold. and for that matter if it does not stick to a magnet it will still get sold. everything else gets burnt.

[jim king]

It seems it is a much easier problem to solve in a third world country.  Here we have people who live at the city dump and collect everything you can imagine.  Only organic material is not recycled, everything has a market here.

[Engineer]

Oh, and that's the other thing.  Organics go in the compost, yard waste and leaves and brush go in a pile at the "dump" and the Town brings a tub grinder in once a year to grind it all.  The final product is free for the taking or they spread it in the woods. 

It's gotten to the point where if you bring any brush larger than a couple inches in diameter to the dump, it will get taken as firewood.

[Tom]

The larger the city, more impersonal the Government.  Our landfills are so far from the population that most don't even know where they are.  Those that have found a place closer to the metropolitan area are not citizen friendly.  None of them will allow a citizen to peruse the discards.  If you take you trash to the dump in a pickup truck, it's, empty the truck and leave or be chased away. 

The dumps and routes are run by contractors and time is money.  If you miss jumping through their hoops, your trash ends up on the side of the road.  There is no recycling marketing going on.  The laws were passed, the jobs were bid, the trucks come and go and it's "out of sight/out of mind".  Many of the failing recycling efforts could be rejuvenated with a little positive marketing by the City Fathers.   Not everything has to be a law.  They seem to understand that when it comes to "Growth".  They present all kinds of pretty pictures of the city and talk about the new hotels, subdivisions and businesses moving in.  They just haven't figured out that there is a continuing populace that makes it all work.

There are too many organizations who operate with the theory that there is no problem if there is no complaint.  They keep the complaints down by keeping quiet and withdrawing to a dark corner.  We have a coal-fired power plant that could provide positive news and picture ops for the paper at least once a month if they would open it up.  All we see of it is the big cooling towers and the mystique of what goes on behind the intimidating fences and gates.

A lot of the problem...... here I go with another opinion again.  'Scuze me a minute.  :D

A lot of the problem is the local media.  The bigger the city, the less the "media" cares of local news.  The News organizations don't talk about little johnny's birthday party, Aunt Sassy's tea party, The church social last week,  Uncle Ben's new tractor, what caused the power outage last night, nor do they follow up on crime stories, whether the contractor that paved the last road did a good job, what is being planted at the county prison farm or that Sister Lily went to visit a long lost cousin in New York.

They are all trying to be "International News Organizations".  It doesn't seem to matter how large the TV station or newspaper happens to be, the front page is all Wire Photos and some personal interest story from another state or another country.  Here we have people that are all informed about Elian Gonzales and don't even know their next door neighbor, two doors down.

To make recycling work, it's going to take everyone creating a sense of community.  That  means that the load can't just be shoved down to the occupants, but has to be a thread that runs throughout the community.  "Government" should get back to allowing citizens to live in and use the county and State rather than treating them like a Red-headed step child who has to walk gingerly around a place that is not really his.  We've allowed our Governments to own us and they are using a third-grade teacher's mentality.

You fellows who live in the smaller towns may be the luckiest of all.  You can't become a shadow on the wall.  Your little society won't permit it.  A squeaky wheel in a large city can be silenced by squashing the whole wagon.

I wish we could get back to being able to re-use things found at the dump, be able to give old tires to the recycling company instead of having both us and them pay disposal fees to the State.   It would be nice to be able to "donate" stuff that we don't want again and have the city interested in finding a way to use it.  Just think of the amount of fuel the generating stations miss by not using the wood from forest fires, land clearing or waste from sawmills...  and it would be free except for the handling.  We need to get away from this We/They society we've created and get involved, and be allowed to get involved.

Whew!   'scuze me!  I do that now and again.  I need to go back over here, sit down and catch my breath. :D

[ely]

tom, who is elian gonzales ;D

[mike_van]

From the local newspaper - The town right next to ours pays 61.00 a ton for solid waste that gets trucked out, but, they get 10.00 a ton for recyclables they turn in - So, just from that point, it saves the town taxpayers $$$$ to recycle -  Oh, I remember Elian, I think Castro adopted him now, or something............

[fencerowphil (Phil L.)]

Thanks for the continuing reports on what you are (or your locale is) doing
in regard to recycling.  It is easy to see how harum scarum or hit and
miss the concept is from area to area. 

A more consistent national effort could help in many ways.  I think it
is ironic that Tom and Jim King both reveal that the big machinery of
the US approach to the problem of big trash actually makes it much
harder to handle the situation.  While Tom and Jim are refering to the
human element and access, there are other issues of scale and equipment
to consider, also.

If approaches were scaled up, there probably would be efficient networks
and devices for cost-effective (even profitable) gathering and processing
of much more of our waste - even the bulky plastic bottles.

By combining the bin system which WDH mentions with Tom's idea of
the on-truck plastic shredder you have the makings of an efficient handle-
it-once system.   The home owner just handles it into a bin. From that
point on it is only handled as a collected quantity of some size, rather than
as individual items.  The recycling truck need not be the same truck as the
garbage truck.  Instead, it could be a compartmentalized mobile processing
facility on wheels which would feed a railroad-based system for the consolidation
and shipment of the materials.  If there was a local processor which could be
the end user of the product, all the better.  In that scenario, the materials would
not go to the railcar, but to that facility.

As mentioned, such systems require national policy and backing.  There has to be
a long term expectation which entrepreneurs could count on being consistent into
the future and, therefore, worth the necessary investments.  If that happens, then
systems and specialized machinery would be feasible due to scale.  Such policies
should be integrated into an overall energy policy.

[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!

[Greyman]

A study from a couple months ago showed that 90% of table salt contains microplastics.  That can't be good.  It's also in our water supplies since even reverse osmosis filters can't reliably remove it.  The US is the highest in the world so far at 94% of tap water containing plastic.  Well water will take longer to be contaminated than surface water, but it's inevitable.  Nanoparticles will no doubt be involved in new filter technologies, but they are even harder to remove from the environment than microplastics.  It will be a big problem for our grandchildren to solve.

[Ron Wenrich]

It doesn't help when a lot of people suck their water out of a plastic bottle.  I've read that plastics leach hormone types of chemicals.  That ends up being more estrogen in men.  With testosterone out of balance, you'll see the hair loss, as well as increased abdominal fat, loss of muscle mass, and type 2 diabetes.  

[red]

Check out www.boxedwaterisbetter.com. Choose Boxed Water every purchase of Boxed Water helps us effect the planet in a positive way ,  while cutting back on the amount of plastic used which is the real goal.  Use #BetterPlanet on Social Media

[lxskllr]

I'm pretty skeptical of boxed water. There was a local company trying the same thing. Coated paper is tricky to recycle, and doesn't save much energy/money over virgin material. Aside from the obvious choice of carrying your own water in a reusable container, I think aluminum would be a better choice for counter sales.

[florida]

low_48
A little time on the web looking at the issues you list will help you sleep better at night
-20% of men are balding by age 20
-85% of men have some bladness by 50
-Male pattern baldness is genetic, not enviromental although smoking and lack of sleep can make it worse
-Assuming there is an Alzheimer's epidemic it is caused by the fact that we live so much longer than people used to
-I'm sorry about your mother but only 4% of American women live to be 87.  My mother died at 84 and had dementia. She never fogot anyone and remembered everyone's birthday but couldn't remember the day of the week or that she had just eaten.  We took her to a medical university for a 3 day study to find out what was wrong. The doctors agreed that it was just senile dementia which is normal for the elderly. 
-One of my very good friends is a retired pathologist, her husband was a virologist. He spent the last 6 years of his life in a nursing home with Alzheimers. He was physically as healthy as a horse but he didn't know her so she couldn't keep him at home. The nursing home was the only option and was a Godsend for her and her family.  What other option is there?

[florida]

red
Not only  does Boxed Water not save the planet, it makes it far worse. The waxed paper/plastic cartons it comes in are not recycled at all and make up 78 million tons of domestic  landfill waste worldwide. The cost is astronomical at $24.99, 13 cents an ounce, for 192 ounces of water!  I can buy 432 ounces in 12 ounce plastic bottles for $4.00, 9/10s of a cent per ounce,  at Sams Club.

[Sixacresand]

I just saw on the local news that recycled plastics value had dropped and now most of it goes into the landfill.  For some reason, I thing this buried trash will one day come back to haunt us. But on the other hand a local brick making company has been collecting methane gas from buried landfills for years to fire furnaces. 

If buried plastics last 700 years, folks will be digging them in 400 years and selling as antiques.  

[lxskllr]

About 10 years ago I was working on a job that was located at the site of a "troubled" landfill. It was on the bank of a significant creek, and had started life before there were any regulations, and finished up under mounting fines at some point in the past. The job was shut down a couple times by the contractor's insurance company due to hazardous conditions. Really makes you feel good on a dusty windy day.


Anyway, they dug out newspaper from WWII that were still readable. Even with a non regulated landfill, time virtually gets frozen. The best way to "recycle" is to not use it in the first place.

[brianJ]

A cogeneration plant is the best method to deal with plastics and correctly designed works well with all kinds of packaging and other materials.   It is a far better solution than burying everything and far more economical than recycling and simpler for consumers. 

[Greyman]

Yes, people forget that "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" is in the order of being the most effective.  I'm sure a lot of what's picked up in recycle bins goes straight to the dump.  Aluminum cans is where the money is.

[red]

No good news about Recycling  !