กรกฎาคม 15, 2007 - 2:18pm — JJ Express
Recycling
In addition to conserving energy - which is a very important step, we as citizens of the world need to recycle and reuse as much as possible. I babysit for a lot of families who are uber rich and yet they are so wasteful. None of them have any recycle bins and I always feel awful dumping paper, cans, and glass in the trashcan because they could be easily recycled!
We have the technology to recycle and in Montgomery County, Maryland, its the law to recycle. Besides - it lowers your trash bill. The people who come to collect the trash weigh the trash when they get to the dump and charge the community based on how heavy the trash is. When you recycle, that load gets a little lighter.
Another great group to join is www.freecycle.com. It's set up as a Yahoo! group and it truly is awesome. There are hundreds of groups across the country and there's bound to be a group near you. When you sign up, you get emails everyday of people near you, just begging to give away free stuff. Its a great way to give new life to something that you don't want anymore - instead of dumping it into the trash.
Thanks for reading everyone - and remember to recycle/reuse!
Re: Recycling
I like this post. I agree with what you've said. I saw on CNN a couple in the Bay Area who went an entire year without buying anything new. Everything they needed they found at thrift stores or on the internet. They wanted to show it's possible to live and have everything you need provided for by purchasing second hand items. Not only did they save money, they helped the environment by not contributing to the pollution caused by the production of new goods.
Re: Recycling
I agree with what you've said. Where we live we do not have to pay for the trash though so there isnt really a motive to recycle. My family does of corse but many dont. If you are caught not recylclying you can pay fines up to 200.00 but most of the time im sure they dont mark whose garbage is whose and check to see if they've been recycling. Although we do not recycle paper up here and i have no idea why and it is rather not to be offensive but stupid.
Re: Recycling
And there we are: the necessity to recycle is becoming more and more apparent, but there is a certain neglect for even fining those that do not recycle. I hail from Portland, OR, where recycling is just a way of life: every street has two bins to each house and you just know one is for glass the other is for everything else, and you live your life with the idea of recycling. I know that I am lucky in that way, for it is a city wide process - everyone's involved.
But can we talk a little more about certain tips for people that find it more difficult? I lived a great portion of my life in Missoula, Montana, and there they do not have the funding to provide glass recycling. It was therefore necessary to not buy glass. In New York now, I see plenty of trash cans, but not many recycling bins, and all over town they are selling plastic bottles for water, juice, etc. But without the proper receptacle, I do not think it is right to buy any of these products, because I cannot properly dispose of them. Therefore I have a Nalgene bottle to carry water, etc. and can last me years. This has helped lessen my ecological footprint.
What do other people do? And how do we promote this more conscientious activity?
Re: Recycling
Like Vista James, I am very lucky because people in my community are encouraged to recycle. I live in Los Angeles, and reduce, reuse and recycle were three words that were pounded into our heads starting in elementary school. The City of LA makes it easy, also. They provide residents with three containers: black for trash, blue for recycling and green for yard trimmings. As for tips, I've recently started carrying metal chopsticks with me so that I don't have to use disposable bamboo chopsticks in Asian restaurants. The same can be done with forks and spoons. In Hangzhou, China, college students bring their own bowls to university cafeterias!
But what about e-waste? It is a growing issue in LA. Some people do not know how to dispose of computers, printers, televisions, VCRs, cell phones, etc. To fix this problem, both the County of LA and City of LA sponsor and operate collection centers or collection events (which few people know about) to allow residents to properly dispose of electronics and other hazardous wastes, like motor oil and household chemicals. I'm curious to know what other people are doing to reduce and dispose of e-waste.
Re: Recycling
Depending on where you live (apartments and dorms work best), you can set up bins to collect everyone's unwanted stuff. Its like mini-dumpster diving, but without the garbage thrown in. Many people in my neighborhood just set stuff that they don't want outside in a box marked "free" and in a week, its gone off to a new home. In the last year, I've found almost all my furniture for a 5 room apartment this way. On my second floor landing of my old apartment building, we did the same thing- that way the people in the building got first picks and it was fun to visit someone and see that they are using your old stuff. Lastly, its something that my family has done since forever. Once or twice a summer we would all go through our stuff for a rummage sale, but first we would pass the best stuff around to each others' families to see if anyone wanted it. Now that I've moved, its great to be able to look down at my outfit for the day and think about cousin Jackie or Aunt Jo.
All of which, by the way, has enabled me to rent an apartment, pay my bills, and support a husband who is going to school on $800 a month. After my AmeriCorps VISTA year, I'm going to keep using these ideas ('cause I love them) and spend the extra money on traveling to see my friends and family.
Re: Recycling
Yes, E-Waste is increasingly becoming a bigger problem. I saw this documentary called Electronic Trash Village - China (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHTWRYXy2gE).
"Every year, 35 million tonnes of electronic waste is exported to China to be scrapped. There the rubbish is broken down by hand, poisoning workers and polluting the environment. "Smoke from the computers is too strong to breathe", complains one disposal worker. "I feel dizzy and can't see any more". Many employees at the electronic disposal plant suffer from respiratory illness or skin diseases. They work for ten hours a day, with no protection from the hazardous chemicals."
It holds us to rethink about technology and how us are using them to "help" our development. If we do not consider the effects, we may end up creating another problem that hard to solve. It is a vicious cycle, we develop technology to solve problems and in term we do not careful about what we do, we create more problems that needed to be solved.
Zhenyu (James) Liao
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"We should all be concerned about the future because we will have to spend rest of our lives there."