How the Price of Oil Impacts Recycling Practices

If there is one thing that greases the engine of society, it’s oil. The flow of cheap oil has had perhaps more impact on the creation of what many critics have termed as the “throwaway” society. When the price of oil goes up, so does transportation and just about everything else. The cost of hauling trash to a landfill is no exception.

You might think that a rise in the price of oil would decrease the amount of packaged goods that people are willing to buy. That is only partially true and depends upon the length and “slope” of the increase. If there is only a short spike in the price of fuel, then less expensive purchases tend towards many lesser-priced goods with more packaging, such as fast food instead of a sit down meal at a restaurant.

However, in the case of long-term higher energy costs, reducing, reusing and recycling are seen as far better options. You could expect to see more emphasis on consumer sorting, as investment in recycling infrastructure decreases.

When Free Market Recycling Mechanisms Must be Tampered With

As was evidenced toward the end of 2008, free markets don’t always work as they’re supposed to without a bit if intervention. The same is true in the case of recycling. There would be no such thing as municipal recycling programs if it were not for public monies to help these industries get started.

The same is true whenever a new recycling technology is introduced. To offset the cost of innovation, the “free market” is manipulated by the injection of large sums of public cash to make it affordable more quickly.

Like many other services that are invested in for the public good, recycling is something that has tangible benefits beyond the basic balance sheet. It is an investment in future savings by encouraging a behavior and establishing a market for recycled products.

Complimenting Recycling With Reusing

Recycling isn’t the most environmentally friendly game in town, but it’s a good start. If you really want to make your contribution to the environment go a lot further, you can simply get in the habit of reusing items instead of throwing them in the bins after a single use.

There are many ways to reuse products, often limited only by your own imagination and certain health concerns. For instance, it is never safe to reuse a pesticide container to hold drinking water for you or your pets. Other than that, reusing containers or sharing them with other people who can use them (as in the case of cooperative groceries) is a far more environmentally friendly option.

Of course, one can always turn old materials into very different items. For instance, DIY jewelery makers routinely find new ways to infuse old objects with new art and up-cycle them into much higher value commodities.

Do Co-Mingled Recycling Schemes Result in Higher Recycling Rates?

In some areas, consumers are required to do all the sorting themselves, with recycling facilities merely checking their work on the other end. On the other extreme are programs where all the recycling is tossed together in a single bin to be sorted through with a combination of automated and human effort. Cities that practice co-mingling further designate that glass should be kept separate.

But, which is better? Does removing the requirement to do the sorting by consumers really result in higher overall rates of recycling? Recent studies would suggest that it does, even in cities where most people are accustomed to sorting. Furthermore, it allows collection vehicles to fill up higher when they don’t have a bunch of separate compartments to manage, since one always fills up faster than the others.

With nearly 80% of many trash streams being recyclable or compostable, investment in the equipment that makes co-mingling schemes possible is thought to pay for itself in a few years of higher recycling rates and revenues.

Plastic Resin Identification Codes On Plastic Containers

No doubt you’ve seen them on the bottom or top of plastic containers – the little numbers contained in a triangular, three-arrowed recycling symbol. These “plastic numbers” are a simple code that tells you what sort of plastic you’re dealing with, just in case you don’t have a degree in organic chemistry. They were adopted in the late 1980s by the plastic industry to improve their public image and assist with recycling efforts.

There are six generalized categories that do, or are expected to, respond to the same type of recycling procedures. It is important to note that not all of these are actually recyclable at the present time.

1. Polyethelene or PET – polyester fibers, pop and water bottles and the plastic straps that hold bundles together
2. High-density polyethelene or HDPE – the hard plastic found in bins, equipment and other rigid plastics
3. PVC – water and electrical pipes
4. Low density polyethelene or LDPE – plastic bags, tubing and some bottles
5. Polypropelene – ducting, auto parts, food containers
6. Polystyrene – styrofoam, rigid knick-knacks, video cases

There is a seventh category that includes everything else such as poly-carbonate, acrylic, fiberglass, nylon and many others you may not have even heard of. As such, the #7 designation is more of a “none of the above” that tells you what you can’t put in the bin, rather than giving an indication of what you can do with it.

For more plastic recycling information visit our: ‘Plastic Recycling Guide‘

Supporting Recycling With Your Purchases

Since recycling is a market-based solution to a public problem, improvements to it are similarly market-based whenever possible. That’s why recycling programs are most likely to be profitable and have the capital to improve when demand for recycled products is high.

This can be legislated to a certain extent. For instance, there are many states and provinces that have passed laws requiring a minimum of post-consumer recycled paper fibers in newspapers sold there. However, the most powerful force remains the purchasing power of consumers.

You can purchase products that are made from recycled products. This is most helpful to the overall recycling economy when you purchase goods from emerging markets such as the plastic “wood” that can be made from recycled carpets and plastic bags.

You can also purchase services from companies that recycle, such as “green” auto repair shops. You may also choose to purchase items that come in containers and packaging that either is made from recycled products or can themselves be easily recycled.

For more recycling information visit – ‘Recycling Guide‘ – or for more specific information view our guides listed.

Are Plastic Bags Really That Bad?

Absolutely yes! When it comes to making recycling difficult and causing a massive amount of litter, plastic bags are an environmental disaster.

For starters, the 100 billion or so plastic bags that were consumed in North America in 2006 alone required the equivalent of 12 million barrels of oil to produce. Most of these are eventually sent to the few remaining landfills, but because they so readily take flight, plastic bags are one of the most common forms of litter in both urban and rural areas.

Plastic bags are a bane to recyclers, most of whom do not take them in their sorting facilities that would seem to take nearly everything else. Instead, those that do end up there are a threat to the proper function of most sorting machines.

On the rare occasion they are recycled, these bags are turned into “plastic lumber” or other inherently non-recyclable materials.

For more information on plastic recycling visit our  – ‘Plastic Recycling Guide‘

Also receive our free report on ‘Recycling Works – Simple Daily Plan‘

Recycling Computers Saves The Environment and Waste

Nearly everyone has owned at least one computer. The only thing they all have in common is they all become effectively obsolete in just a few years time from their date of manufacture. If you no longer have a use for your old computer, someone else will be able to put it to good use.

Some of the most effective schemes for recycling computers are those that actually teach people how to use a less powerful machine, cobble computers of their own for sale. These organizations, often established as non-profit-organizations, are often able to recycle nearly all of a components into useful parts that can be made into new computers, allowing the materials to maintain much of their value.

Though very complex, people are able to eventually recycle many of the parts out of most computers that can no longer be used to build another, possibly slower computer. The computer gold is recycled. The gold that is found on circuit board contacts are a very common metal to be removed, though the circuit boards are very often destroyed in the process. Eventually, the circuit boards are ground down and disposed of as hazardous waste due to the lead and antimony found on those boards.

For more information on computer recycling, visit our Computer Recycling Guide.

Recycling Containers – The United States First Bottle Bill

Oregon’s landmark 1971 legislation that established the “bottle bill” was the very first law regarding container waste in the United States.

It was the result of hikers and backpackers who were sick of encountering container waste in the forests of Oregon. While British Columbia enacted the very first such bill a year earlier and Vermont passed an abortive attempt to outlaw disposable containers in the early 1950s, Oregon’s bottle bill was to become the model by which several other states and provinces would model their own laws in the next decade.

It has proven to be enormously successful. While states without such bills average about 25% rates of recycling of such containers, Oregon’s rate has held steady at about 90% for over three decades.

Oregon’s law focuses on the specific industries of soda pop and beer, regardless of the type of container used. In 2007, the state was also among the first to add plastic water bottles to the list of beverages covered under the bill.

Recycling and Putting An End To Junk Mail

In an average week how much junk mail comes to your home? For the average American family, with two adults and two children, they could probably weigh their junk mail at the end of any given week to equal the weight of a small animal. An average American home can get items from; clearing houses, credit card offers, insurance offers, lottery winnings, mortgage advertisements and promises of lowering monthly mortgage bill, college flyers from schools all over the United States, entries into contests that had never been entered in the first place, solicitations from charities and the ever present retail catalogs.

Along with the simple fact that all of these items are unnecessary and annoying, the amount of waste they create is drowning the average American family in misused, unread paper. How can this issue be dealt with and the waste be reduced, or never pro-duced, for Americans all over the country?

The answer to that question is, yes, there is something we can do to stop the madness of junk mail that litters our mail delivery every single day! There is a group that has done all of the work for us, and they have all of the information needed to put an end to the junk mail that we are assaulted with in just a few easy steps and with the patience of a few weeks.

First you order the Junk Mail Reduction Kit for $15.00. Once you have purchased your kit, you simply sign on to the website and have the kit activated by clicking on the appropriate link. It is as simple as entering your name and address and the names of any other people living at your house, even variations of a name that appears on junk mail can be added. The next step is to register your name and the names of the others at your address with the Direct Marketing Association Mail Preference Service, which will remove the names from hundreds of mailing lists. This service is a one time fee of $1.00 per name and along with monthly monitoring to ensure your name remains off of unsolicited mailing lists. The option of having mail addressed to “resident,” “occupant,” or even “neighbor,” can be done, too.

Because the fact that conventional or “snail” mail isn’t instantaneous, it will take a few weeks for things to get rolling but in a few short weeks you will receive customized pre-printed postcards to sign, stamp and mail in and your name will be removed from as many lists that have your name in their data base.

Eventually all of the companies that have your name will be notified and the endless barrage of junk mail will cease. If a piece of junk mail finds its way into your mailbox, simply sign in to your online account and have your name removed as quickly as possible. Just imagine the impact of one house on one street in one town will make and why shouldn’t it be YOUR house?

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