Posts filed under ‘Recycle’
Recycle: Asthma Puffers (Inhalers)
I’m sitting here with my leg hurting from tonight’s injection (damn legs give me more trouble than anywhere else!), and I kind of let my mind wander. It wandered to the asthma puffers (inhalers, if you’re American) sitting on my bedside table. On the very slim chance you haven’t seen one before, they are number 2 HDPE plastic devices which each contain a pressurised metal cylinder full of medication. You place the plastic mouthpiece in your mouth, press down on the canister, and breathe in the gaseous medication it emits. Ta-da. Nice and simple; I’ve been using them since I was a kid… so you can imagine how many I’ve gone through over the years.
Asthma puffers really puff! (Note: this is not my puffer, so check your own puffer to find out what kind of plastic it is before you get too excited!)
I recently had to replace an empty puffer, and as I did so, I got cranky about the waste. Not for the first time, I wondered why there’s no puffer recycling program. Folks have come up with all kinds of weird and wacky ways to reuse the little suckers, and I know how dispose of expired (not empty) medication – in my area, you take it back to the pharmacy; pretty easy. Brisbane City Council’s plastic recycling fact sheet seems to suggest they could go in the standard yellow-lidded recycling bin… but they have some broad caveats, so I think that would warrant checking.
No-one (as far as I can find) seems to have something universal, concrete and 100% fo’ shiz definite that will work for everyone to reduce, reuse and/or recycle these plastic and metal constructs that millions of people use to stay alive or live a normal life. Which is crappy. Sometimes I don’t want to have to research my finicky, regional niche recyclers – I just want the ubiquitous big-guy! Sometimes I’m too tired to be picky.
So I guess what I’m ultimately saying is: does anyone know of anything or have any suggestions, aside from having to mail my empty puffers halfway round the world to GlaxoSmithKline‘s North Carolina offices?
I plan to continue to research this (including emailing Brisbane City Council) and will let you know what I find out.
P.S. You know what? My leg still stings… but I think I’m sleepy enough now not to care. Silver lining!
Fibres: Natural vs Synthetic
Wool vs acrylic? Cotton vs polyester? Hemp vs nylon? I know the natural fibres are typically more comfortable to wear, but what’s better for the environment?
Cotton, wool, hemp, acrylic, polyester...?
You might think it’s a simple question – surely the natural stuff is better, right? But when you consider the impact of sheep on the environment or the amount of water required to sustain cotton crops, it does get you starting to wonder… especially when you factor in recycled (and sometimes recyclable) synthetic fabrics, like polyester made from old PET bottles.
But then again… maybe all the hoo-haa about recycled fabrics is just a bunch of greenwash. Check out this article on O Ecotextiles for more information.
Ultimately, I don’t know. I think I need to explore O Ecotextiles a little more and hope to be enlightened. At the moment, though, I’m leaning towards natural, especially when you look at the energy required to produce fabrics, the actual content of the fabric (oil in the synthetic fabrics is kinda off-putting) and the life of the fabrics after we’re finished using them (natural fibres will biodegrade, whereas synthetic ones won’t). Based almost purely on personal opinion, I think probably the best choice would be yarns produced from the by-products of some other industry (like soy yarns, which are made from soy fibres left over from making tofu), or yarn that is removed in a mutually beneficial way (alpaca removed by brushing, shearing pet sheep in summer etc).
Anyone know more and care to share?
Recycle: Polystyrene
I bet you thought you couldn’t recycle polystyrene. I know I thought that!
You can recycle this kind of polystyrene, but not the little 'packing peanuts' or the kind used for food packaging (I think).
Today in my Freecycle Cafe daily digest email, though, I got the following message:
———————
Just thought I’d let people know that it is apparently possible to recycle polystyrene in Brisbane. The details are at link A and link B but basically you can take polystyrene produce boxes for free recycling at the address listed in Acacia Ridge. They apparently charge for recycling other packaging types of polystyrene and I’m not sure of the details.
As I often see these boxes advertised on freecycle I thought I’d let people know what to do with them if they don’t get any takers. You can also post it to:
REPSA
PO Box 211
Richmond Vic 3121
if you’re feeling super green that day!
happy recycling!
———————–
(Someone also mentioned that you can use the polystyrene boxes to grow herbs and veges in, which my mum already does.)
Super awesome, huh? The Brisbane EPS recycling place is in Acacia Ridge, so that’s definitely local. Thanks Freecycle Cafe lady!
Recycle: CFL Lightbulbs
Earlier today, @LighterFootstep tweeted that in three years of using CFLs (those squiggly lightbulbs that save energy and money), not one had needed replacing. That’s pretty cool, and valid – mine haven’t needed to be replaced either, although I don’t think it’s been a full three years we’ve been using them yet. We just replace our regular bulbs with CFLs as they blow.
Talking about replacing them got me thinking about recycling them though, and lo and behold, Lighter Footstep has a challenge going (kind of like a pledge) over at their site. CFLs have mercury, and need to be recycled sustainably so the toxic chemical doesn’t screw over the world. The challenge asks that you pledge to become a CFL Recycling Superhero.
Take the CFL Recycling challenge at Lighter Footstep.
I’m all for that.
Brisbanites, check here to see where you can recycle your CFLs. Everyone else – google, or look in that article I mentioned if you’re American. I know we’ll end up at Ikea – what better excuse for a couple of eco lesbos to take a trip to the dykiest furniture store ever, than recycling lightbulbs?
Recycle: Glass vs Plastic
Question. Is it better to buy a smaller glass container or a larger plastic container?
Answer? I don’t bloody know! I can’t decide. Help!
We buy Bertolli olive oil (extra virgin, fruity taste) and we go through it quite quickly. The Elves like a good EVOO, yes we do. Bertolli sells it in either a 1 litre glass bottle, or a 2 litre plastic bottle. So far we’ve been buying the glass one, but which one is more environmentally friendly?
We are currently buying the 1 litre glass bottle of Bertolli EVOO.
Glass is better for the environment, I think – it’s made of sand, silica and limestone and while it doesn’t biodegrade easily, it can be recycled over and over again, forever. I’ve also seen pieces of glass at the beach, all smooth and no longer resembling whatever they originally were. It takes way less energy to produce (especially if it’s recycled) and if it gets dumped, you know it’s not going to leach toxins or hurt an animal (unless it’s broken and they get cut). The eco-downside is that because it’s heavier, it takes more energy to ship, and it can break more easily during shipping, causing greater waste. Apparently it takes more energy to recycle than plastic too, but I think maybe that’s not considering fancy glass recycling plants like the Visy plant in Melbourne.
Plastic is made from petrochemicals and doesn’t biodegrade. It’s made of all kinds of nasty toxic stuff and hangs around killing animals for ages. Production almost always includes nurdles as a by-product, and let’s not even talk about the floating plastic continent of doom. It’s lighter and more durable and consumes less energy when shipping though.
I’m inclined to go for glass, but if we buy glass, it comes in a smaller package, which means more packaging to get the same amount of oil. I think they sell it in a 5 litre tin too, but our tiny house is not made for storing significant bulk food purchases, as much as I like the idea, so that won’t work for us.
Which one should we buy?
Recycle: Captain Planet!
I was out having dinner with my good friend Jho tonight (and Yankee Elv and Mr Teeny Bop) so it’s a quick update today. And kinda weird…
I heard that they (the mysterious they) are recycling Captain Planet!
Captain Planet and the Planeteers!
Yeah, you know what I’m talking about. That early 90s cartoon of eco-friendly doom! Goooooo PLANET! (My workmates and I have been using this slogan and the catchy theme song for a long time as a weird form of pep-talk. The office has always been quite GenY/GenX).
So apparently (I didn’t know this), they were going to make a Captain Planet movie, and the whole internet got super excited, but then it didn’t happen. So the web-based Mother Nature Network (who knew that existed!?) has released a bunch of Captain Planet episodes starting back from the first episode, and you can watch them whenever you want! You can watch that funny little Heart guy with the monkey again! Also, since everyone is so excited, now they’re actually talking about a Captain Planet movie for real.
Now, I must say, cubicle singing at work notwithstanding, I do not usually trawl the internet looking for Captain Planet fansites, but this information turned up in my RSS list and brought back so many memories. This show was the first environmentally focused show I ever remember watching (and it was really more aimed at kids my brother and sister’s age at the time, but that’s what happens when you’re the elder sibling – you watch these things long after your kiddy cartoon time is done and gone). It was good and the theme song was catchy. Heart kid cracked me up. I may have imagined, at the time, that if the Russian chick from the Soviet Union was a real human instead of a cartoon, she might have been cute, although since I didn’t really get the whole same-sex attraction thing back then, I don’t know if those thoughts were quite that well formed. These days, Gaia might be a bit more… adult (who knew that Whoopi Goldberg voiced her??)
Coming back from my tangent… Captain Planet and the Planeteers is pretty awesome. Cartoons like this have sparked off some really good events and groups, like the Captain Planet Foundation.
Anyway, totally going off on a tangent, but yeah – recycling eco-friendly tv cartoons for the win!
Recycle: Cleaning your Recyclables
I’m trying to get back into the swing or writing regular posts after an unplanned almost week off. Work is still ugh, but today I escalated some stuff that has been a concern for a while, and it does feel good to get it off my chest and also no longer be potentially accountable for any wrongdoing. That is really good. Today I even had time to empty the work recycling bin. Yay!
Recycle - even the dirty stuff!
On the topic of recycling, I found out last week that you don’t have to have perfectly clean recyclables. This is a good thing, because the people at work cannot rinse the milk bottles out to save themselves. It’s also good for me at home though, because even though I rinse my soy milk cartons, this means I don’t have to spend ages and waste water scraping peanut butter from inside the jar (although Loodle the hungry puppy often helps me with that anyway).
So yeah – rinse, but don’t do so to the point where it really wastes water. The recycling gods are not going to reject your items cos they’re a bit nasty.
Recycle: Bin Types
The talk of the eco-interwebz this week is a study by Sean Duffy and Michelle Verger, who work in psychology at Rutgers University. After noticing a pattern in the number of items recycled properly and the type of bin used, they completed a study; a series of experiments. Apparently, if a recycling bin has a hole in it to put the recyclable rubbish through, it is 34% more effective than a bin that looks like a regular rubbish bin. That is, the recyclables go into the right bin (not the general waste bin), but also that the general waste doesn’t go into the recycling bin.
Um. Weird. More organisational psychology craziness!
Seriously though, this seems legit. So I wonder why this is? I can see why people would have trouble recycling properly, if you get bins like the ones shown below, and described at Treehugger. They’re just so poorly signed.
Poor signage - picture from Steven de Sousa on Treehugger
But what if the bin is signed properly? Is it really the childlike delight at poking something through a hole that makes that type of recycling bin so much more effective, as suggested by Duffy? His study found that signage had nothing to do with it.
Our work recycling bin, the one my Environment Team colleagues and I organised, has a flip top lid. It is appropriately signed and the lid is green though. Perhaps it’s the colouring that is making these bins a success? Regardless, people are using them… even without a hole to poke the rubbish through.
Guess I don’t need to get out my stanley knife and cut a hole in the lid just yet.
Recycle: Ethical Metals
I like to wear silver jewellery. I don’t really mind much what it’s made of – but it needs to be silver-coloured. Some people prefer gold. I’m just a silver person. Of course, silver-coloured jewellery is made of metal. Yeah, you can get the plastic silver-coloured, but um… yeah. Really no.
Metal is natural, so that’s great! Go eco, go! Right?
Wouldn't it be great if they were made from recycled metal?
The process required to extract that metal from the earth is incredibly damaging to the environment. This is slowly becoming more and more well known. A few years ago, the ‘no dirty gold‘ campaign was introduced, encouraging people to buy only sustainably mined gold. The campaign was just the tip of the iceberg though, as not just gold but lots of other metals are mined unsustainably around the world. Don’t think the metals are just used in jewellery though. Metals are used in lots of things – gold thread in beautiful dresses, remote controls, mobile phones and other similar devices. And those are just the highest impact metals.People and companies are increasingly offering advice and alternatives which enable you to avoid metal mined in environmentally damaging ways. Almost all of them include recycling the metals we’ve already mined.
- You can recycle your mobile phone, as discussed in last week’s Recycle post.
- You can buy jewellery made with recycled metal.
- You can recycle lead from old car batteries. Service stations and car battery retail outlets will generally accept car batteries for trade-in. Be careful though – don’t empty out battery acid before taking the batteries for recycling.
- Scrap metal recyclers can take copper pipes, hot water systems, car bodies, metal appliances and other metals to be recycled.
- Remember kerbside recycling – putting cans into your regular recycling bin means the metal can be reused to create other cans, fridges and all sorts of other things.
To learn more about how metal mining damages the environment, check out this site or this one.
Note: The image of the rings is from Love and Pride.
Recycle: Mobile Phones
Mr Teeny-bop is starting high school next week. He’s going to be catching the bus (the regular city council bus, not a school bus) by himself back and forth. His school isn’t far away, but it’s pretty central, on busy streets, lots of people. So Yankee Elv and I decided it was time for him to get a mobile phone, so he can contact us, or vice versa – just in case. He’s been wanting a phone for ages, so he is very happy!
Aside from the fact that new phones are expensive, for environmental reasons, we wanted to get a second-hand phone – so we have one on it’s way to our house right now (go ebay!). It’s all about the reuse.
Yankee Elv has been wanting a new phone herself for a while now too – one with a strong vibration, since she’s Deaf and can’t hear text messages or alarms. Since we were already on the phone hunt, we’re looking on ebay for her too. What should we do with her current phone though? We can’t just throw it away (ok, technically we can, but we won’t).
So we’re going to recycle the phone. Why? Well, let’s look at what happens when you recycle mobile phones.
- Some companies refurbish and reuse the phones if they are in good enough condition
- The batteries are taken apart and the nickel, cadmium, coltan, zinc, copper and cobalt is extracted and used in new batteries and other products
- Circuit boards have the gold, silver, copper and lead extracted and reused
- Any other heavy metals, like mercury, beryllium and arsenic are smelted and disposed of appropriately
- Plastic from handset casings is used to make fence posts and pallets
- Paper packaging is sent to standard recycling stations
- Other parts (including plastic packaging as well as pure and impure metals) are either recycled or go into landfill.
Yeah, I hear you. Why is it good that these items are recycled or reused?
- Many of the heavy metals used in mobile phones can negatively affect your health and the environment if they enter landfill or are not disposed of carefully
- The demand for precious metals to use in mobile phones and other similar devices (like remote controls) has led to war over the rights to the metal, mostly in the Congo and surrounding African nations
- Thanks to strip mining, the sourcing of a tiny amount of metal involves the displacement of tonnes of land
- Plastic doesn’t really biodegrade, so reducing and reusing is the best we can do (no need to contribute to the Pacific plastic soup)
- Recycling paper has a far smaller impact on the environment than creating paper from scratch.
Here’s a video, if you want more information:
I must say – it was only within the last year that I found out the impact of not just releasing but sourcing precious metals. I knew about blood diamonds of course – but never imagined that the phones, remote controls or jewellery I was buying were impacting the lives of all these people, caught in the fight for resources. I resolved then and there to minimise my use of new metal. That involved buying second-hand, recycled or sustainably sourced metal, and recycling whatever metal possible.
So why not try it? Don’t become a statistic, hoarding your phone in the back of a drawer. Hand in your old phone when you upgrade.
Besides, recycling makes you feel good. Promise.
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