RECYCLING

Almost Everything Can Be Recycled

Recycling is significant not only because it reduces the use of resources and the creation of wastes, but it saves the energy that would have been used to make new products. The process of sorting all wastes also changes consciousness. It requires people to think about recycling and chose actions that are based on values other than efficiency.

Reduce - Reuse – Recycle
The Three Parts of the Recycling Process
Ten Reasons to Recycle
General Internet Sites
Composting – Recycling yard waste
Composting toilets

See also
Recycling and using less paper and wood
Recycling old Electronics including Computers
section on the Production of Materials on the national level

REDUCE - REUSE – RECYCLE
1. FIRST - Before recycling- concentrate on using less in the first place, shopping carefully, and encouraging manufacturers to use less packaging.

2. Then re-use products whenever possible.

3. Only then recycle. There are THREE PARTS TO THE RECYCLING PROCESS: collection, manufacturing and buying. These three components are so important that they are represented by the three "chasing arrows" of the recycling logo.

The nation's composting and recycling rate rose from 7.7% of the waste stream in 1960 to 17% in 1990. It's currently up to around 30%.

Recycling is significant not only because it reduces the use of resources and the creation of wastes, but it saves the energy that would have been used to make new products. The process of sorting all wastes also changes consciousness. It requires people to think about recycling and chose actions that are based on values other than efficiency.

RECYCLING

• FIRST, Before recycling- concentrate on using less in the first place, shopping carefully, and encouraging manufacturers to use less packaging.
• Next re-use products whenever possible.
• Only then recycle.
  There are three parts to the recycling process: collection, manufacturing and buying. These three components are so important that they are represented by the three "chasing arrows" of the recycling logo:
  
  Collection and Processing - Don't Send Recyclables To The Landfill.
  In this phase, materials are separated from the waste stream and prepared to become raw materials. Different cities and municipalities have different systems for sorting and collecting materials that can be recycled. Most communities now have recycling bins for curbside collection, or recycling stations where the materials can be taken. There are four primary methods: curbside, drop-off centers, buy-back centers, and deposit/refund programs.

Manufacturing - Using Recycled Materials Instead Of Virgin Raw Materials.
Recovering the materials is just the first step. There must also be a market for it - companies that want the materials and are able to remanufacture them into consumer products. Recyclables are bought and sold just like any other commodity. Sometimes these companies have to invest a significant amount of money in adapting their manufacturing processes to accommodate the use of recycled materials in their products.

Buying - "Close The Loop" By Buying Products With Recycled Content.
In order to make recycling economically viable, there must be a market for recycled products. If people buy them, companies will be encouraged to make them, and the whole system works. From http://www.americarecyclesday.org/Recycling_101/how_it_works.html

TEN REASONS TO RECYCLE -- And why you should buy recycled products if you don't already.

1. Recycling saves trees. This critical fact, one of the first environmental lessons many children learn, cannot be overstated. Half the Earth's forests are gone, and up to 95 percent of the original forest area in the US has been cut down.
2. Recycling protects wildlife habitat and biodiversity. Using recycled materials reduces the need to chop down, extract, process, refine and transport natural resources such as timber, crude petroleum and mineral ores. As a result, destruction of forests, wetlands, rivers and other places essential to wildlife is also reduced.
3. Recycling lowers the use of toxic chemicals. Making products from already refined waste materials reduces -- and often avoids altogether -- the need for manufacturers to use toxic chemicals, essential when using virgin materials.
4. Recycling helps curb global warming. Using recycled materials cuts down on the energy used in the manufacturing process, dramatically reducing emissions of greenhouse gases and other air pollutants. For example, recycling one ton of glass results in energy savings of more than 300% and lowers carbon dioxide emissions by 3.46 tons.
5. Recycling stems the flow of water pollution. Making goods from recycled materials generates far less water pollution than manufacturing from virgin materials. Turning trees into paper uses more water than any other industrial process in the US, dumping billions of gallons of wastewater -- contaminated with pollutants such as chlorinated dioxin -- each year into rivers, lakes and streams. Paper recycling mills don't pollute the water nearly as much, and almost always use less of it. In addition, some recycling plants use treated wastewater for the manufacturing process.
6. Recycling reduces the need for landfills. Toxic pollution from landfills -- including cyanide, dioxins, mercury, methane, hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid and lead -- escapes into the air and leaches into groundwater.
7. Recycling reduces the need for incinerators. Municipal waste incinerators spew out all kinds of air pollutants; in addition they produce contaminated ash. And they are often located in urban neighborhoods where they seriously threaten the health of the community. Keeping paper, glass, plastic and metal out of incinerators by recycling them cuts both how much incinerators pollute and how harmful the emissions are.
8. Recycling creates jobs and promotes economic development. A recent study by the Texas Natural Resources Conservation Commission found that recycling added about $18.5 billion in value to the economies of 12 Southern states and Puerto Rico in 1995. A recycled newsprint mill in the Bronx, started by NRDC and a local community group, will create 600 permanent jobs and clean up an industrial site abandoned for a quarter of a century.
9. Cities may profit by selling recyclables. While landfills are always dumping grounds for municipal money as well as garbage, cities with high recycling rates can actually make money selling recyclables when markets are good.
10. Buying recycled products contributes to the demand for more recycled products. This will, in turn, save even more resources, reduce more pollution and protect more people's health. On the other hand, as the size of the market grows, recycled products will cost less.
    From National Resources Defense Council's Cities & Green Living: Recycling: at http://www.nrdc.org/cities/recycling/ften.asp.

INTERNET RESOURCES ON RECYCLING

Earth's 911 - http://www.earth911.org/master.asp. A comprehensive website with information about recycling programs organized by zip code.

Environmental Resources Defense Council Recycling Section. http://www.nrdc.org/cities/recycling/default.asp

EPA's WasteWise Program http://www.epa.gov/wastewise/

EPA resource entitled Getting More for Less: Improving Collection Efficiencyhttp://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/muncpl/coll-eff/r99038.pdf explains several important strategies for improving efficiency as well as case studies of communities that have reaped the benefits of improved solid waste collection.

EPA Full Cost Accounting (FCA).http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/muncpl/fullcost/index.htm On using FCA to assist with identifying and assessing the costs of solid waste management.

EPA Recycling Measuring. http://www.epa.gov/recycle.measure/ on measuring the success of your state or local recycling program.

Freecycle - http://www.freecycle.org/ Online bulletin boards, organized by city, where you can give away your old stuff to keep it out of a landfill.

Garbage: How Can My Community Reduce Waste? http://www.learner.org/exhibits/garbage/intro.html

Grassroots Recycling Network http://www.grrn.org advocates corporate, government, and individual responsibility for waste.

How to Recycle the Family Carhttp://www.environmentaldefense.org/article.cfm?contentid=2195 including recycling the antifreeze, tires batteries, oil, and - when junk - the whole car.

Institute for Local Self Reliance Waste to Wealth http://www.ilsr.org/recycling/. A program helps demonstrate the economic and environmental benefits of recycling, including building deconstruction. Publications and articles on deconstruction are offered, as well as training.

Internet Consumer Recycling Guide - http://www.obviously.com/recycle/ A starting point for consumers searching the net for recycling information.

National Recycling Coalitionhttp://www.nrc-recycle.org/default.htm. A nonprofit organization that provides technical education, spreads information on recycling issues, helps shape recycling policy and encourages recycling market, and gives a list of state organizations.

Recycler's World - http://www.recycle.net/recycle/. A world wide trading site for information related to recyclable materials.

Sources of Recycling bins and Recycled Products
Green Market Place http://www.Greenmarketplace.com
The Real Earth http://www.treeco.com.
Real Goods http://www.realgoods.com/
Seventh Generation http://www.seventhgeneration.com/

COMPOSTING

Good composting is a matter of providing the proper environmental conditions for microbial life. Compost is made by billions of microbes (fungi, bacteria, etc.) that digest the yard and kitchen wastes (food) you provide for them. If the pile is cool enough, worms, insects, and their relatives will help out the microbes. All of these will slowly make compost out of your yard and kitchen wastes under any conditions.

Cityfarmer on urban agriculture, http://www.cityfarmer.org/homecompost4.html#composting

Master Composter http://www.mastercomposter.com/. Composting information and supplies.

VermiCo information and products, for different types of interest in vermiculture (breeding earthworms) and vermicomposting (converting organic waste into worm castings—a valuable soil amendment that acts like a bio-fertilizer and bio-insecticide).

Worm Woman.com http://www.wormwoman.com/ Worm composting resources.

COMPOSTING TOILETS

City Farmer Composting Toilets http://www.cityfarmer.org/comptoilet64.html

Oikos http://oikos.com/library/compostingtoilet/ What is a Composting Toilet System and How Does it Compost?