recycling

Posts Tagged ‘recycling’

When recycling gets in the way

February 2nd, 2010 |

I was catching up on my TiVo last night when I had to have a laugh at a certain “Desparate Housewife” who violently threatened a non-recycling neighbor. You see, the night before, I was having a lovely vegetarian dinner with some of my own neighbors (we’re all married with careers, but perhaps we are a little desperate) when I learned that they had stopped recycling. Call it a form of marital protest.

In the months prior (yes, they just began recycling last year), she had rinsed and sorted the garbage, but it was his job to remove the recyclables from the kitchen and place them in their proper bins on the side of the house. When he stopped living up to his end of the bargain, she stopped sorting.

“Am I supposed to do everything?” she cried, tossing a wine bottle in the (gasp!) garbage.

Of course she’s the same friend who read “Skinny Bitch” once and was off the meat before you could say vegetarian twice. If she watched “Earthlings,” she’d likely have a meltdown. But she and the non-garbage-toting husband did see “Food Inc.” and vowed to one day live the organic farm life.

Sadly, recycling is such a basic necessity that there’s no clever book or horrific documentary to scare us into action. Maybe I’ll go back and kick over her cans, a la Wisteria Lane?

Nah. I had a lot of fun emptying that bottle of wine.

PBC Solid Wast Authority expands recycling program

October 4th, 2009 |

Author: Aime Dunstan

Recycling is available to all Palm Beach County residents. With your help we have made Palm Beach County’s recycling program one of the best in the country. If you currently recycle, we thank you. If you don’t, we urge you to start.Recycling preserves our natural resources and increases the life of our landfill. The Solid Waste Authority has adopted a 50% waste reduction goal and if we are going to continue to achieve this goal we need everyone to do their part.

Recycling is easy in Palm Beach County.

Here’s how.

Paper products go in your yellow bin.
Palm Beach County recycles:

Newspapers
Magazines/Catalogs
Unwanted Mail – NEW
School/Office Papers – NEW
Phone Books
Paper Bags
ALL Cardboard Boxes – NEW
(includes beverage cartons, tissue boxes, dry food boxes, corrugated cardboard. Boxes must be flattened and cut to 3’ x 3’ maximum.)

Recyclable containers go in your blue bin. These include: New items for blue bins

Plastic Containers #1 – #7
Steel Cans – NEW
Aluminum Cans, Foil and Pie Plates
Drink Boxes
Milk and Juice Cartons
Glass Bottles and Jars

Because contamination affects the marketability of the materials we collect, please be careful not to place the following in your bin:Plastic Grocery Bags, Styrofoam and Food Waste

To order recycling bins or for more information, log on to www.swa.org.

Green biz of the week: The Home Depot

August 10th, 2009 |

Author: Aime Dunstan

From The Home Depot’s Eco Options web page:

On June 24, 2008, The Home Depot®, the world’s largest home improvement retailer, expanded its long-term commitment to the environment and sustainability by launching a national in-store, consumer compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulb recycling program in all 1,969 The Home Depot locations. This free service is the first such offering made so widely available by a retailer in the United States and offers customers additional options for making environmentally conscious decisions from purchase to disposal. As of October 1, 2008 all stores will be equipped with an eye catching, orange CFL unit to collect bulbs for free recycling.

What are Compact Fluorescent Bulbs? Compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) are energy efficient and cost effective lighting alternative to regular incandescent light bulbs. A compact fluorescent light bulb fits in a regular light bulb socket or can be plugged into a small lighting fixture. CFLs are typically used in homes and are increasingly used by businesses. They use 75% less energy than incandescent light bulbs and last up to 10 times longer. Every CFL can keep more than 400 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions out of the atmosphere.

At each The Home Depot store, customers can simply bring in any expired, unbroken CFL bulbs, place them in a plastic bag and deposit them both into a collection unit. The bulbs will then be managed responsibly by an environmental management company who will coordinate CFL packaging, transportation and recycling to maximize safety and ensure environmental compliance. Customers will be able to locate the CFL receptacle on the front end of the store near the entrance, by the Returns desk or near the exit doors inside the store.

In addition to the CFL recycling program, The Home Depot has also launched an instore energy conservation program to switch Light Fixture Showrooms in U.S. stores from incandescent bulbs to CFLs by Fall 2008 and save $16 million annually in energy costs.

The CFL recycling program is an extension of The Home Depot’s Eco Options program. Eco Options, launched in April 2007, is a classification that allows customers to easily identify products that have less of an impact on the environment. “The CFL recycling program is another example of how The Home Depot is empowering customers to help make a difference in their own homes, and have less of an impact on the environment,” said Ron Jarvis, senior vice president, Environmental Innovation. “With more than 75 percent of households located within 10 miles of a Home Depot store, this program is the first national solution to providing Americans with a convenient way to recycle CFLs.”

Switching from traditional light bulbs to CFLs is an easy change consumers can make to reduce energy use at home. According to the EPA’s ENERGY STAR® program, if every American switched out one incandescent bulb to a CFL, it would prevent more than 600 million in annual energy costs and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions from 800,000 cars. As the largest retailer of light bulbs in the country, The Home Depot sold over 75 million CFL’s in 2007, which saved Americans approximately $4.8 billion in energy costs and 51.8 billon pounds in CO2 greenhouse gases over the life of the bulbs.

When to speak up?

July 31st, 2009 |

Author: Aime Dunstan

I am highly opinionated, I’m not going to lie. And I’m not one to keep my opinions to myself in most cases. After all, a girlfriend needs to know that black patent leather shoes are not to be worn by day, and a husband needs to know that if I want to sell my car and ride a bike (read: mooch his car whenever possible), that he’s just going to have to deal with it.

But there are a few topics for which I’ll never understand the need for a debate. Politics, for example. I stay informed and I have specific, fact-supported opinions, but I don’t go shouting them from the rooftops. It’s not that I’m not open to new ideas, I just like to get them from informed sources, not Joe Loudmouth.

Environmental issues aren’t so cut and dry. Yes, I nagged my girlfriend and her husband until they finally ordered recycle bins because COME ON PEOPLE. Now they’re happy little recyclers and the world is a slightly better place.

But what about when it’s not your besties committing the environmental crime? Last weekend, I picniced at our local beach with a couple very good friends and a few extended friends. When it came time to pack up, some crushed beer cans remained on the ground. “Not mine,” everyone crowed, and began to walk away. I rolled my eyes, picked them all up and put them in our group garbage bag, which was plump with beer bottles and cans. The carrier of that bag then plopped it in the public garbage can.

CRINGE!

I hesitated, eyeing the bag and wondering if anyone would be offended if I grabbed it and tossed it in our car to take home to sort and recycle. In the end, I left the bag. I figured I’d already made a person or two feel douchy for not picking up the beer cans, and I didn’t want to be one of THOSE people.

In hindsight I think acting on my instincts might have inspired a person or two to think differently, and I wish I’d stuck to my guns. Oh well, at least I picked up the cans.