I don't use much ply but all my sawdust and chips go to friends for their horses stables. I get it all back along with the manure in a year or so to go in my garden beds. I have a couple of turner friends that take all my pen/pencil stock and several BBQ buddies that get all of my leftover cherry and oak chunks.
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Scrap dealers in these parts are paying $.60/lb for aluminum cans. I am also currently recycling plastics, glass, newspapers, cardboard, phone books, magazines, catalogs, etc. I don't get paid for this material except for the satisfaction of knowing that it is not going into a landfill.
After this past Saturday I will be recycling water using a rain barrel that I made at a local workshop. The water I catch from my downspouts will be used to water flowers and vegetables thus saving that much on my water bill and sewage bill. So, I will be getting paid to recycle water.Comment
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I think the best motivation is to consider the alternative - what would happen if we did not recycle? What if the pure 'cost' factor won, and recycling (being more expensive than producing new) was abandoned or sidetracked?
At the risk of being equated with the old man with the 'DOOMSDAY IS HERE' sign down the road,
I have to say we would end up like this, sooner than later :
believe it or not, a river flows underneath that. Link.
When I first saw that picture, I sought a tree to hug
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I also vowed to make a difference, however small : I stopped buying bottled water, and now refill with water from the fountain.
I tell you : I am worried!It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
- AristotleComment
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In San Jose, the "waste management" company provides a medium-sized bin for garbage, a large bin for mixed recyclables (paper, glass, plastic, metal; they have an expensive automated sorting system), and allows us to deposit compostable yard waste in any number of piles each up to 4'x4'x4' near the curb in front of the house. They have a front-end loader with "pinchers" that hoists the yard waste into a truck. Very convenient, the entire operation. As someone mentioned, we're running out of space for this stuff. If you take an old fridge or construction waste to the local dump, you're lucky to get away paying less than $30 minimum.
I've read that Naples, Italy, has exhausted local dump sites. For about 2 months, no trash pickup there. People are taking matters into their own hands; Pompei's as-yet-unexcavated sites have been buried in illegal trash, resulting in an emergency government program to at least keep that area clean. Mafia apparently controls the garbage collection, and attempts by local citizens and municipal representatives to come up with non-mob solutions have resulted in the usual cement overshoes and ventilated skulls. Hope it doesn't get to that here!- David
“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” -- Oscar WildeComment
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-off topic- Interesting concept.. It seems that I always get fined for not following the laws. Maybe it ought to work both ways.
We get charged for trash pickup on our water bills. The fee is a sanitation charge based on the size of waste container you get. Bigger container, bigger charge. Trash is also bagged and put in these containers. We also get a wheeled recycle container that loose recyclables go into. The funds generated by the recycle program supposedly go to offset the sanitation program. We can also get a yard cart for vegetation, or purchase yard bags.
I'm always getting on my wife and kids about what they put in the recycle bin. If people would pay more attention to what they should and should not put in there, the initial processing costs would go down considerably.ErikComment
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We don't live within the confines of a municipality but the township has a recycling program which picks up sorted plastic and glass (no steel cans), twice per month. Unfortunately, those dates are not on regular pick-up days and they change when there is a holiday in that week. After you get stuck holding a month's worth of recycs you would think that it would teach you a lesson but, generally speaking, it doesn't. Although mandatory you just don't see many recy containers out on those nights. Personally, I would be more apt to recycle if there were containers for that purpose where I could conveniently make a drop off. Unfortunately, in the past some saw this as an opportunity to drop off any and all household waste and save themselves the bill for this service. I am able to make a newspaper and magazine drop a the local recycle faclity but that's the only materials that they make bins to handle. I guess that I'm just rationalizing my way around getting back into curbside pickup again. I think I just talked myself into it.Blessings,
Chiz
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Um, yeah, why would anyone pass or follow a law if they didn't expect to be compensated... That doesn't mean it's all in the form of dollars. I stop at red lights even though they slow me down because I am compensated by assuming others will do the same and I won't be killed tomorrow on the way to work...
I'm not arguing that recycling is bad, or undesireable, just that fundamentally trying to "force" people to do something will always have worse compliance than making it worth their while....
Kristofor.Comment
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Somewhat off-topic but I'm interested in the responses.I'm not arguing that recycling is bad, or undesireable, just that fundamentally trying to "force" people to do something will always have worse compliance than making it worth their while....
One of my clients (also a former employer) is in the business of helping large energy consumers like manufacturers and commercial office buildings take advantage of programs that pay them to reduce energy use during heat waves. In theory, these customers should react to the monetary incentives. In practice, it becomes a bit of a game because there's no reliable way to determine energy reductions other than making estimates that people work really hard to game. All you can do is measure what they actually use.
My take is that the only practical way to get consumers to use less of something when it's deemed to be scarce is to make it more expensive (think gasoline while I dodge the bricks), which also happens to be consistent with a branch of psychology known as "economics".Comment
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Our original recycling plan forced us to separate paper from plastic and metal and place it in separate bags in the small recycling tub. Cardboard had to be tied up separately from other paper. Then the county went to a non-sort system with a bigger bin and recycling rates went way up.
Moral: If you make it difficult to do something, don't be surprized if people tell you to buzz off.
K.I.S.S.Bob
Bad decisions make good stories.Comment
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We have recylcle here in State College, and I agree with the others who would like a better planet for my children. We do not pay for recycle, and they furnish a tub to put the glass and metal in. The newspaper has to be seperate from the magazines. We get enough plastic bags from the grocery store to put the paper and magazines in. LOML also has now purchased reusable bags from the grocery store so we don't get so many of the plastic bags. I was home sick this past spring for a few days and I watched a program on Discovery Chanel about all the plastic we send to the land fills. I was flabbergasted at the amount. It set mind to thinking right away. We were getting 20oz bottled water at work , 6 cases of 24 /week. I returned to work and put a stop to that . and went back to the big 5 gallon bottles on the coolers. Sometimes I have to be hit over the head witha 2 x 4 to get it, but this sank in right away."The power of kindness is immense. It is nothing less, really, than the power to change the world."Comment
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In our town, we pay by the can to have trash removed. They pick up what I put in the recycle bin the same day for free. For me, it's like having a can/week removed for the cost of my time to separate what can be recycled from the rest. We don't even have to separate the recyclables by, glass, metal and paper/cardboard, it all goes in the same bin.Comment
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