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BANG FOR THE BITE
Recycling's one of the eco-friendliest things you can do with already-purchased containers, and it's easy once you learn the ropes.
COCKTAIL FACT
Apparently not recyclable: when the U.S. Forest Service's mascot, Woodsy Owl, got an extreme makeover, it required old costumes "be destroyed beyond recognition."
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home › tip library › Recycling
Can you chuck your yogurt carton into the recycling bin?
The Bite
It depends on your recycling program. Figuring out exactly what's recyclable can be harder than navigating the shoe section during clearance season, but our cheat-sheet makes at least one of these tasks a whole lot easier.The Benefits
- Less confusion. Proper disposal ensures that your recyclables end up in the right place.
- Save energy. Recycling an aluminum can takes 96% less energy than creating a new one.
- Less landfill. According to the EPA, 75% of Americans' trash can be recycled, but only 25% actually is.
- Cleaner groundwater. Most landfill liners are just 1/10th of an inch thick, so toxins from garbage often leak into the groundwater.
Personally Speaking
Bozeman Biters are lamenting that the city just stopped recycling glass due to the expense of shipping it to a recycling facility. Need to kvetch or create an action plan to green up your town's recycling options? Join the discussion in today's blog.Wanna Try?
General- Earth911 - local listings of where you can recycle anything under the sun.
- You don't need to remove labels from cans and bottles, but you do need to remove plastic caps (and throw them away).
- Your recyclables don't need to be spotless - just not moldy or full of food. Save water - don't rinse 'til clean.
- Unbroken bottles are easier for workers to sort than broken ones.
- Most containers, such as tins and cans, and aluminum foil.
- Newspapers, magazines, photocopies, shoe boxes, envelopes (including ones with glassine windows).
- Plastics #1-#2 – recyclable in most areas. Usually found in 2-liter and detergent bottles, milk jugs and food containers.
- Plastics #3-#7 – more difficult to recycle, they are found in Styrofoam, pipes, shrink wrap, padded envelopes, trash liners and more. Check with your local facility to see if it recycles these plastics.
- Yogurt Cups - recyclable in most areas, especially the #2 plastic kind.
- Grocery Bags - reuse them first! You usually can't recycle them curbside, but some supermarkets have recycling bins in-store. Try to avoid them altogether by bringing your own Biter bag to the store.
May 03,2007
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Recycling Wonderland
Last November, at Greenfest SF, I had my number one, top recycling experience of all time. Each waste disposal area had not one, not two, but three containers: one for recycling, one for composting, and one for trash. But that's not all!
Each recycling station also had a volunteer who examined your spork, paper bag, or half-eaten churro and told you exactly which container to throw it in. Plus, some of the volunteers were pretty cute. Apparently it was
effective - someone told me that 95% of all waste from the fest was recycled or composted.
effective - someone told me that 95% of all waste from the fest was recycled or composted.
Greenfest: Go for the recycling, stay for the volunteer eye candy.
-Toshio... off to recycle the glass I just broke...
Biter Comments...
I didn't notice mention of waxed cartons such as some milk, soymilk and orange juice containers. It seems a lot of people do not realize these ARE generally recyclable with paper. I know we go through quite a few, with little alternative packaging available, so I'm pleased to know they can be recycled. Same goes for cereal and cracker boxes!
Hey guys, it's actually not enough to take your recycling program's word for it.
"... food containers.
. Plastics #3-#7 – more difficult to recycle, they are found in Styrofoam, pipes, shrink wrap, padded envelopes, trash liners and more. Check with your local facility to see if it recycles these plastics.
. Yogurt Cups - recyclable in most areas, especially the #2 plastic kind..."
NONE of these plastics are being made into new products in any meaningful way. Most likely the contractors pick them up in order to keep them from the municipal landfill. It makes residents happy because then they feel good about not throwing something away, and it makes city officials happy about making residents happy and they can go on to claim extraordinary diversion rates from the garbage. It's a bloody shell game, actually.
And it makes the plastic industry feel SUPER good because it means consumers are continuing to buy products in this kind of packaging, or that necessitates this kind of packaging.
I'm not just BS'ing on this one. I work in non-profit recycling, in one of the last dual-stream programs in my area. We only pick up materials that we've been able to trace from the curbside setout to a finished product; everything is being landfilled as far as we can tell, either here in the States or over in Asia where plastic brokers are buying a lot of our plastic scrap and making it disappear for us.
That chasing arrow symbol doesn't mean a plastic is recyclable. Use of it goes back to the American Plastics Council's decision to adopt a 'recognizable' icon when they decided to start denoting what kind of resin a plastic is manufactured from. The number in there sort of denotes the resin. Bottles and yogurt tubs and food takeout containers, for example, cannot be mixed when they reprocess these plastics, post-consumer, whether or not the number matches. It's a contamination issue because of additives, plasticizers, etc. Kinda like why you can't reprocess plate glass windows and coke bottles together, eh.
I don't like to preach, but plastic recycling is anything but, the way we do it. It is merely a process of keeping some plastic out of the landfill briefly. It'll end up there eventually.
Can I post a link for more plastic info?
There's more than you can shake a stick at, here:
http://www.ecologycenter.org/iptf/recycling/index.html
And don't be put off by the age of some of the links at the URL above. They're still valid.
Didn't mean to post so much verbiage, but I kinda wish you guys had done more research on this one.
There are some plastic caps, such as on some paper milk containers, that have recyclable numbered caps. Check your plastic caps before tossing them.
Watch out for the grocery bag recycling bins at the grocery stores. I recently found out from an employee that my local Stop & Shop doesn't recycle them after collection. They just get added to the huge amounts of waste the grocery store generates daily. Like Sara, I'm saying do the right thing, but do it smart...take the time to do your homework.
Melissa, your skeptical friends' hearts are in the right place...we should all question. But the problem is they stopped at the easy answer (don't recycle) which is no better than those who recycle without questioning. Tell them to follow through on this hunch that recyclables are getting dumped and if it's true, to get involved in making a change. Otherwise, their skepticism is wasted.
First rethink whether the thing you are recycling can be replaced with a non-recyclable container. Do you really NEED to drink pop at all? Do you NEED to buy yoghurt in a single serving cup?
How about drinking iced tea, made with tea from the bulk store, and making your own yoghurt from milk bought in a returnable jug? It's easy to make yoghurt - a week's supply will take about 10 minutes of effort.
How about cancelling the daily newspaper, and reading the news online?
And here's a totally radical idea - if you know you won't eat a whole restaurant portion, bring your own container to the restaurant and package up your leftovers yourself! It may look strange to the other patrons, but what the hey! And those tinfoil swans always leak on the seat of the car or bus on the way home anyway.
Remember, recycling trucks still burn gasoline picking up all that stuff, even if you can be sure that the stuff is being recycled.
"...There are some plastic caps, such as on some paper milk containers, that have recyclable numbered caps. Check your plastic caps before tossing them..."
No, it actually doesn't work this way. I'm really sorry to have to post that.
I didn't explain fully above.. Lefty non-profit recycling advocates like the folks I work for lobbied noisily against the American Plastics Council adopting the chasing arrows symbol when they announced they were going to start marking on plastics what type of resin they're manufactured from (e.g., polyethylene terephthalate, polypropylene, et al), because it would lead people to believe these plastics are in fact recyclable. Go figure! You can see who prevailed. It is pretty slick if you think about it. Propagate the recycling myth in order to justify manufacturing in the first place, because us consumers will think we're doing the right thing hucking all of these materials into bins thinking they'll actually be recycled.
I think the plastic bag thing is one of the most egregious, really. I learned the same way Eric did, that these aren't being reprocessed at all. In fact, if you go to any of the plastic film manufacturers' websites, they're really wild and crazy about talking about the huge strides they've made in reclaiming this material. (Never mind that plastic films vary in resin type, have additives used in their manufacture depending on end-use, e.g. food storage, garment bags, high density, low density, etc, shrink film, cling film, yada yada). They're all different. But these manufacturers talk a really good game. "We reclaim these materials!" is not the same as saying, more honestly, "We've set up collection programs so that you needn't feel like a heel for purchasing products packed with this garbage which we're determined to manufacture until there's no more petroleum."
Anyway, the recycling symbol on plastics? Totally disregard it. It's horse puckey. Actually it's worse than that, it's us the consumers being played by an industry which is entirely profit-driven and will do anything it can to remain in a positive light as long as people keep buying stuff in plastic, or plastic items.
Sorry, I left the 'a' off your name, Erica!
My humble apologies...
I appreciated reading Sara's bit on plastic recycling (May 03, 2007). The need for more extensive and true recycling of plastic is huge. Much more so than glass. Recently Missoula had an Earth Day festival and a glass crushing machine was the star. Recycling glass certainly has easy recognizable support, but in relation to plastic it is not where the limited recycling money should be focused. Certainly glass should be recycled, but the efforts and funding of this program should not reduce the efforts and funding of recycling plastics, electronic equipment, etc.
All I can add is that Stonyfield Farm's containers are #5, which is not part of most town's recycling program, but you can send your empties back to them for recycling! Read more at: http://www.stonyfield.com/EarthActions/Environmental%20Practices/EnvironmentalPackaging.cfm
Does anyone know the cheapest or possible free way to get recycling bins? You know the basic blue or green ones? I need a couple for my home and want to get some for our church to set around but every time I search online for bins I get a bunch of retail sites where I can buy nice ones for like $50 (no thanks!). If anyone has any directional advice, it would be appreciated!
I'm all for recycling, but it's a panecea. There are three R's we need to live by, in this order:
1. Reduce
2. Reuse
3. Recycle
Notice how recycle is last? The most important thing you can do to help the earth is buy less and reject overly packaged items. Whatever you buy that is in a plastic container, see if you can reuse it for anything, at least fo awhile, before you throw it in the recycle bin. Complain to stores and companies that don't offer refillable containers or that sell overly packaged products. From everything I hear, most of the plastic is not getting recycled :-(
MY SON TOLD ME THAT THE ARMY IN IRAQ NOT ONLY DOESN'T RECYCLE BUT THAT IT BURNS ALL THE PLASTIC WATER BOTTLES THE SOLDIERS USE. HE SAID THE AIR STINKS OF BURNING PLASTIC ALL THE TIME. I WAS ALSO TOLD BY SOMEONE ELSE THAT THE US MILITARY IN GERMANY PAYS MILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN FINES RATHER THAN RECYCLE.
While it's true that glass in Bozeman does head straight to the landfill, it does get reused (better than nothing) to help cover the landfill.
Also, thanks to the selfless work of a concerned citizen (hooray...my husband Brian!), the city of Bozeman has decided to continue glass recycling, or collecting, or whatever you want to call it. They want to give Brian and others a chance to find ways to creatively reuse the glass if we can't afford realistically to recycle it. For instance, glass can be used instead of gravel in foundations; it can be mixed with gravel for use on trails; it can be made into permeable concrete, and it can be tumbled and used in landscaping.
And while sorting out glass at the landfill may sound like a complete waste, it may prove smart in the long run. Imagine a time in the future when glass recycling is much cheaper and feasible: we'll have our glass sorted and ready to "mine" and use.
The reason glass recycling is a challenge now is because beverage companies no longer collect, sanitize and then refill bottles. It's cheaper for them to purchase PET bottles. Less breakage, less shipping weight.
I think if we could push to bring back soda and beer bottle refilling, we'd go a lot further. For one thing it'd reestablish some industry and bring back jobs. If you wanna lessen the carbon footprint for transport, just build more bottling facilities so they don't have to travel as far.
It's really difficult.
Most glass reclaimed in recycling programs ends up broken. Our crew has taken to grabbing milk bottles from the route and turning them in for the deposit at participating stores. It means the bottle doesn't get broken and it keeps the bottle in circulation and it gives you some pocket change. Why burn fossil fuels melting down flint glass to make another milk bottle, after all.
Glass values vary. A reprocessor will pay more for sorted glass, for example. But if you broke a buttload of bottles on your sorting line and weren't able to sort brown from green from flint, you'll get far less money for that glass. It's awful that this is such a profit-driven beast.
Regarding the glassine in envelopes. I have tirelessly ripped all my envelopes apart, removing the glassine and throwing it away, while I recycle the paper. Are you saying that I no longer have to do that and can throw the entire envelope, glassine and all, into the recycling bin?
Thanks!
Barbara
Bend. OR is much like Bozeman in that while the glass is still being picked up in curbside recycling bins, and most of the public still assumes glass is currently being recycled, it is actually just being stockpiled in a separate section of the landfill where it waits for the recycled glass market to improve. It comes down to the expense of transporting it which is increased when we live on the other side of the mountains from any recycling facility. So when you folks in Bozeman find a good market for which to use all this glass please let us know about it!
Thanks for your efforts, but would like to clarify for your viewers that in most areas - yogurt or other tubs or trays are not recyclable regardless of the # on the bottom. As the former administrator for Denver's recycling program, I can say that all programs struggle with educating on proper plastics recycling and broadcasting this information hurts the cause. In general, plastic bottles only is the rule. Thanks.
Bozeman stopped recycling glass???? The horror! Well here's an idea (albeit a pain in the butt one) drive it to Helena! I live in Helena and I drive my plastic to Bozeman a couple times per month (along with some friends' plastic too)....I can't believe MT makes it so difficult to recycle sometimes!!! :(
Couple things to comment on. First to reply to Barbara I can tell you that the recycling facility I take my paper to has asked that all glasine windows be removed because they can not be recycled. I was also wondering if anyone else knows about milk cartons. In the tip today it says to recycle with your paper which is what I have always done, but the latest update from the recycler says it should go in with the plastics. Any idea?
Milk cartons are a problem once the material gets to the paper mill, but I think this is going to depend on the process the mill uses for reclaiming paper fibers. My understanding is that once they've managed to separate the waxy moisture barrier in the slurry, there's little useful paper pulp long enough in fiber to make decent paper. So, our program doesn't take them.
However... we accept envelopes w/ glassine windows, and spiral notebooks. There are so-called allowable limits on 'contamination' with the folks who handle our post-consumer paper, and they'll allow up to a certain amount of plastic residue, metal contamination, and some glass particulates. Now, the paper that is being reclaimed from single-stream programs, where one tosses all their materials into the same container, that stuff is barely fit for milling, and some of the paper mills are refusing it because of the high levels of contamination, and the extra processing necessary to remove the contaminants.
I've observed some programs that accept those aseptic pouches, and those are a real nightmare to process. Plastic layered with aluminum with more plastic, with paper, and then more plastic. Even if you slurry that, you're wasting resources to claim inconsequential paper fiber and minuscule aluminum.
Our program begrudgingly takes plastic bottles, but residents throw everything else plastic in, too. The bulk of my job focuses on re-educating residents on why their wide-mouth plastic containers and films are not recyclable.
I live in the boonies, more or less--- Rockford, WA --- which doesn't have a recycling program at all. I imagine it wouldn't be the hardest thing in the world to organize in a town with less than 1000 people, but instead I have to drive my cans, newspapers, etc. into Spokane. While it's less than 30 minutes to the place I go to (one that pays for cans, cardboard and newspaper), sometimes I wish I could set some of it out with my garbage and save myself the trip.
I feel very fortunate that our community recycling program makes it so easy to recycle! We have a huge mixed recycling bin that we can toss in mixed paper, flattened cardboard, rinsed food cans, plastic bottles, metal beer tops, and other things. There is even a separate bin for glass, batteries, motor oil, and latex paint! They are picked up curbside every other week. That allows us to have just a 13 gal. trash can that gets picked up weekly and is rarely full. And we're a family of five! I'm just hoping our bottle bill is soon updated to include water and other plastic bottles. THANK YOU to all the others out there that do their best to recycle!!
- i've gotten extra recycle bins from the county website which i've searched around for on the net. usually you just type in your address (or call) and they send you another.
Regarding Iraq and the burning of plastics over there, I can also tell you that our contractors in Iraq (i.e., the people getting richer by the minute) are also dumping raw sewage from tanker trucks on open fields in Iraq. The environment will probably never recover over there and people will be getting diseases and sicknesses for years to come. If you don't believe it rent the DVD of The War Tapes where soldiers were given video cameras to document their lives in Iraq.
I disagree about with the comment about the US Military in Germany. Recycling is a HUGH thing for the military. Yes they do pay fines, WHEN a recycling container is contaminated with the wrong items. The fines that DOD pays is for the extra work that will go into seperating the items at the recycling center. DOD does not like this and even goes so far as to having soldiers and their spouses take a class about recycling in order to receive our "Gelbe sacks" for free at the self-help store. They encourage us to recycle and yes, I do know people that were fined because they were caught putting items in the wrong trash bins!
"Gelbe sacks" are made from recycled waste. They are used for disposal of ALL plastic including the lids, ALL stryo, chip board (ie cereal boxes) and mixed materials(ie wax coated containers, aluminium, wax paper, etc.) I had 5 containers under my sink for "trash" as we were responsible for seperating our own. I had to have one for Bio., glass, metal, gelbe sack, and non bio. Cardboard was also a seperate catagory and newspaper got tied with twine and set to the side on trash day.
We were responsible for taking our glass and metal to the drop off containers. There you could not just dump a bag in, you had to deposit it piece by piece into the small opening. Yes, we are required to seperate glass by color. By our building in housing, we had 3 containers. Our Bio container would not be picked up if their was any non bio in it. Same with our geble sacks. On our Post the building would get a notice if they had a violation, and the residents would be reponsible for correcting the offense.
When we returned to the States, I had a culture shock. After living overseas, recycling becomes very much a part of your life. I do think that the United States could learn from Germany's recycling program.
As for the military in Iraq, I do not know the answer to that one. WAR is WAR! And I do not see taking soldiers from their jobs to escort trash to planes to ship it home. However, I will ask my husband what his unit the next time I hear from him.
Sorry for such a long post, but this really got to me!
Maggie...I'd add a fourth "R" -- Restore.
Reduce, Reuse and Recycle are great...but they're just ways to be a little less bad, rather than actually good. There's a world of difference between those perspectives, and we're now living in the 3-R and feeling the consequences!
Currently, MUDD and some folks from the UM are researching the idea of purchasing a glass pulverizer for Missoula county. Bozeman can learn much from the research they've done.
The main thing needed is to create a local use for the cullet created from the crushed glass.
There are several suggestions such as:
-roadbed material
-filter for septic systems
-sidewalk/driveway additive
-backfill
-drainage medium
-landscape material
According to the MontPIRG report, Grand Canyon National Park uses cullet for daily landfill cover, pipe bedding, and is added to soft clay soil as a base for it's maintenance roads and is also used as an underlay for the parks walking trails.
The DOT in 15 states currently uses cullet as an aggregate base in road construction projects.
Dialog in Bozeman and with the state is needed to get things going.
A good site too learn more is www.recyclemt.org click on the MontPIRG report.
RIMA -
Recycling containers, I got one
(for free) for my work at bottlesandcans.com ; it has a hole at the top which encourages recycling.
Of course, most of what gets deposited there is plastic. Now I am considering putting a "No Plastic Please" sign on it...
I currently work at a Lowes Home Improvement store while I am in college and I am extremely unhappy that they do not recycle anything except for the tons of cardboard that we recieve product in. We have a seperate cans garbage but it just gets thrown out with the trash. Someone once tried to recycle them but he got yelled at and was almost fired for stealing from the company. We also recycle none of our paperwaste as well. It is very frustrating, I take all of my food and drink containers home to recycle them and I encourage others to do the same. I will be leaving the company in a week because I am graduating, but I plan on writing a letter to the newspaper of the surrounding cities because in general my campus and city is VERY into recycling. I guess I am encouraging people to look into these large retail stores and see if they recycle, some how they slip under the city's radar.
This is more of a question...What is the best way to get rid of leftover/unwanted or expired liquids, such as sunscreen, medicine, or old non-green cleaning products found in plastic bottles? I'd like to recycle the plastic, but am VERY hesitant to dump the stuff into the sink and or toilet. Would it be safer to throw it away in the plastic and hope the chemicals degrade, (or whatever), by the time the plastic does? Please advise. Thanks much.
for unwanted cleaners etc, if its not too old, you could freecycle it @ freecycle.org for expired stuff i guess you'd have to go to toxic disposal? (or see what it says on the container)
The American government DOES PAY MILLIONS for not recycling in Germany. I am sure there are some bases that require the same stringent recycling rules as the German Nationals, but I live on the most populous base in Germany and recycling is not untilized, promoted or even talked about. We have the paper/cardboard bins next to the trash bins and people can't even get that right. I am an avid recycler and seperate everything and have to haul it to the "recycling center" which my neighbors didn't even knew existed and most people just dump their trash there indiscriminately. They are all pigs here; it makes me sick.
Hi everyone,
I have a recycling question. Many condiments, such as mayo and mustard, come in both glass jars and plastic bottles - both of which can be recycled. Which is the better option? Does recycling one use less energy vs. the other? Please help me choose the best packaging! Thanks!
I believe glass is better, it's more natural. Many plastics cannot even be recycled, and if they are, they cannot be recycled indefinately. Then there's the petroleum issue too. I would go for glass.
Watch out, I'm about to go really radical on you...
If you're buying condiments, try to buy them in canning jars. The jars can then be reused by someone who makes their own sauce, jam, whatever. If you buy relishes at the farmer's market, for example, they are usually in canning-type jars. They may be willing to take your old jars too.
You can mix up your own mayonnaise and mustard. Mustard powder can be bought in bulk. An easy starter recipe is 1 Cup regular mustard powder (4 oz. by weight), 3 fl. oz. vinegar, 3 fl. oz. cool water, ½ tsp. salt, and 1 TB. honey. (from: http://www.penzeys.com/cgi-bin/penzeys/p-penzeysmustardpowder.html) They also advise letting the mustard mellow for 6 weeks at room temperature, then refrigerate. The longer you leave it, the milder it is.
For mayo, see this link:
http://homecooking.about.com/od/saladrecipes/r/blcon64.htm
And who can forget ketchup: http://homecooking.about.com/library/archive/blcon74.htm
I would keep a few plastic squeeze bottles on hand for dispensing these items. And remember to refrigerate; they aren't full of preservatives like their manufactured replicants. Especially, use up the mayo in a week.
Hope this helps!
Hi, for Christine-in Indiana where I live, there is The Lake Michigan Districts Household Hazardous Waste Mobile collection unit that goes once a month to different areas of our county.They take:batteries, solvents, expired/wanted meds,oils,pesticides, old CFL bulbs(mercury) etc.I gather up my stuff until they come by me( which happens to be this Sat 6-23).Maybe you might have something like that near you. Much better than it going to the landfill! They dispose of those things properly. Good luck.
I cannot find the source for where I read this and am hoping someone can verify for me. We have single-stream recycling in my community and our Service Provider accepts office paper, junk mail, newspaper, etc. Is it true that if these items get wet with liquids, say for example, laundry detergent or soda from a pop can that they will become contaminated and not be recyclable?
Can you find out from the recycling provider where the paper goes after it's been sorted and baled? I ask, because different paper mills have different rules on what they'll process and why.
What happens, in a nutshell, is the stuff is slurried according to fiber type (e.g. newsprint, white ledger, corrugated). There's machinery that skims off the non-recyclable content (such as the metal from spiral bound notebooks, plastic windows on envelopes, plastic film from frozen food boxes, glass bits, metal and plastic residues), and at a certain point, the equipment starts to have problems when the contaminants get over critical mass, which cases breakdowns (this is part of why some of the paper mills are refusing to buy paper from single-stream programs, by the way).
Liquid contaminants aren't as big of an issue at the mill as say a ton of broken bottle shards, and gads of plastic film would be. Because the stuff is slurried. But a lot of food contamination is a problem. Detergents might be problematic, but I haven't seen data on that.
As the recycling provider for more information, if you can. If they cannot answer your questions, see if you can find out who processes the paper after it leaves their hands. And so on.
I have a question. My apartment building does not have a separate recycling bin, and my landlord said that all of the trash gets taken to a center where everything is sorted out and then recycled. Is this legit? I've tried asking the landlord for our written recycling policy (in Chicago it's required that the landlord include/post this info, but I can't find it anywhere, and they seem hesitant to tell me the name and exact location of this center). I have also contacted the waste management company listed on the dumpster, but no one has gotten back to me yet. Should we be preparing our containers in any way? Has anyone heard of this kind of service? It seems way too easy to be true...thanks for you help!
I think he is lying to you Melanie. Check out this article:
http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/recycling/
PHOTO ALBUMS
Posted by: melissa | May 03, 2007 at 05:10 AM