Do you re-cycle ? (Earth, vain, charity)

[michel]

Originally Posted by sparc872

I do my best but I wasn't born and raised into a family that recycles a whole lot, so it makes it a little difficult. I do have a box in my room that I organize all of my papers so that I can recycle them later though, and I'm a member of freecycle.

I know what you mean (about it all being 'new'); I lie awake at nights wondering if I should have taken the paper off the youghourt carton!

Seriously, my wife picks something up and says to me "does that count as plastic ?".beats me.

[evearael]

Do you re-cycle ?

Absolutely! Most things we buy, excepting food of course, is second hand. We donate our things to charity if we no longer need them and they are in good repair. We recycle all our glass, plastic, paper, and so on, and only need to take out our one trash bin every month or so.

[Buttercup]

I don't buy the notion that everything that is recycled goes back into a landfill.

Millions of products from carpet to stationery are made from recycled products. It's not just lip service.

We recycle practically everything that comes into our house. From old windows, car oil, cereal boxes, batteries and the tons of standard items our local recycler takes. Oregon has a 5 cent deposit on bottles and cans which practically forces return unless you like to waste money. If we go out of town, most of the time I save our glass or plastic bottles to recycle at home. I feel really guilty if I don't try to recycle everything that I can.

[MaddLlama]

Originally Posted by Buttercup

I don't buy the notion that everything that is recycled goes back into a landfill.

Not everything. About 20%-40% of what you recycle ends up in landfills.

But, not everything that is recycled is more cost effective or even equal quality to what is made from raw materials.

[Buttercup]

Originally Posted by MaddLlama

But, not everything that is recycled is more cost effective or even equal quality to what is made from raw materials.

I agree. It is still important to contine to strive for reuse of products however, even if it's more expensive. And I think the entire Western world needs to manufacture products and packaging that is multi use instead of once and thrown away. We're such a disposable global society anymore and it's a shame.

[Tigress]

Originally Posted by MaddLlama

I do not recycle.

It is a huge waste of money, a waste of time and resources, and all of the things made from recycled plastic and paper would be cheaper to make from scratch. We're not running out of landfill space, some beaurocrat simply made it up, and that lie is what started the recycling movement. And, recycling paper causes more harm to the environment than cutting down trees. Besides, we make paper from trees so we grow more trees to make paper. It's just more tax money wasted on something that doesn't work. Most communities *loose* money on recycling programs every year.

Recycling aluminum is good recycling though. It's cheaper to recycle aluminum than to make new.

Strange coming from someone who concerned for the environment, but I choose not to tow the line on this.

Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle, courtesy of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Do the Benefits of Recycling Outweigh the Costs?, courtesy of About.com

[Todd]

I absolutely recycle. It's a pain sometimes, but I feel better that about half or more than half my trash goes to recycling instead of the dump. Plus, we sometimes make compost piles out of excess food and leaves and we also throw old food out in the backyard for the birds to eat.

[Booko]

We could certainly do more here in Atlanta, but there are some things I do regularly.

The biggest thing I do is composting. My fellow Master Gardners joke that I am the Compost Princess, being 2nd in line behind our Compost Queen. I compost *lots* of things. Paper shreddings, veggie scraps -- all go in the compost bin. Sometimes new neighbors leave plastic bags of leaves out, thinking the lawn waste guys will take them (they won't) so I do everyone a favor and chuck them in the back of the van, and toss the detritus into the compost bin.

I give talks and demonstrations on practical ways to compost. It doesn't require fancy equipment or any significant time, unless you're in a rush for the finished product, which I'm not.

Recycling other things is not so easily accomplished, but I use very few tinned goods or glass bottles anyway. Mostly I just need to find a place to accumulate the stuff until I head to the big farmer's market where they have a recycling station. I'm using fewer and fewer tinned and bottled goods because I can't eat prepared foods anyway. I just make my whatever from scratch and keep what I've made in reusable containers. If I lived down my street a bit in Chamblee proper, I would just be using their recycling program.

Like Michel, I've been known to go trash dump diving. I've picked up several perfectly fine bulletin boards and white boards that way. I have no idea why they were tossed instead of given to charity.

Most of my furniture has been bought secondhand. The exception is a couple of upholstered pieces. The secondhand furniture is, quite frankly, more likely to be made of actual wood, as opposed to being particle board with a picture of wood grain glued on it. So I get a better product a LOT cheaper. If it needs refinishing -- I love refinishing anyway.

I keep things until they die. I never own a car less than 10 years (and I put a lot of miles on a car). My "main" teevee is this tiny little portable thing that we've had for nearly 20 years now. But it still works, so there isn't much point in tossing it. It was cheaper to buy the RF box to make it work with the DVD and satellite box.

I've seen all the tips on "how to save gas" ....I haven't seen anything new show up on those lists for years, and I've been doing all of that since I learned to drive. I'm just waiting for the plug in hybrids to show up. *Then* I'll replace my van.

We had a new garage door and windows put in the house years ago, and that made a huge difference in our heating and cooling bills. Also when we remodeled the downstairs, we had some actual insulation put in (what a novel idea). We have themostat controlled exhaust fans in the roof, which is very important in warm weather to keep the upper part of the house cooled.

My landscape is arranged with decicuous trees on the south side, to let the warmth in in winter and keep it off the house in summer. There are evergreens on the north side to block the winter cold, and there won't be any warmth coming from that direction anyway.

What I'm really interested in is how I can hook up solar panels to my house.