The Good Human » Recycling

Eliminate Plastic Bottles At Home Forever

david — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 14:00:11 +0000

A few years ago I received a SodaStream, which I mentioned in my 2009 eco-friendly holiday gift guide as a great gift for anyone who drinks a lot of carbonated beverages. Well, it’s now been 2+ years later since I got it, and it’s still going strong in my house.

The SodaStream machine is a home carbonation kit, which makes both plain fizzy water and any flavored soda of your choosing, all using bottles that are just washed in between each use. It uses no electricity and produces no waste, and also doesn’t require any recycling. Other than swapping the CO2 cartridges at a local retailer or through the mail, it’s a rather painless, inexpensive way to always have bubbly water on hand without any of the waste normally associated with buying plastic bottles full of the stuff.

We go through about two liters of carbonated water a day around here. If I had actually bought two liters of carbonated water at the store every day for the last two years, I would have purchased at least 730 plastic bottles filled with bubbly water, all of which would have needed to have been made, bottled, packaged, shipped, and then recycled. But because I have my own carbonator at home, that’s hundreds of bottles that didn’t need to go through that process at all. Imagine if everyone had one!

If you normally buy bottled bubbly water, I highly suggest you get yourself one of these machines. They produce far less waste than buying water at the store and can save you a ton of money in the process. It’s a win-win for the environment and your wallet, without having to sacrifice your favorite drinks of choice. Check them out if you haven’t already.

Help support The Good Human! If you do your Amazon shopping through my Amazon link, a very modest sales commission is generated. This is true for any product at Amazon, not just the eco-friendly ones. Please keep this link in mind for all of your Amazon purchases, as when you click through one of them and do any shopping, it really helps keep The Good Human going. -> My Amazon.com Affiliate Link. Thanks!

Why Aren’t There Deposits On All Beverage Containers?

david — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 14:00:09 +0000

Q: Why don’t more states mandate deposits on beverage bottles as incentives for people to return them? Most bottles I’ve seen only list a few states on them.

So-called bottle bills, otherwise known as container recycling laws, mandate that certain types of beverage containers require a small deposit (usually five or ten cents) at checkout beyond the price of the beverage itself. Customers can return the empty containers later and reclaim their nickels and dimes. The idea is to provide a financial incentive for consumers to recycle and to force industry to re-use the raw materials.

According to the Container Recycling Institute (CRI), a California-based non-profit which encourages the collection and recycling of packaging materials (and runs the website BottleBill.org), the benefits of bottle bills include: supplying recyclable materials for a high-demand market; conserving energy, natural resources and landfill space; creating new businesses and green jobs; and reducing waste disposal costs and litter. The 10 U.S. states that currently have container recycling laws recycle at least 70 percent of their bottles and cans; this amounts to a recycling rate 2.5 times higher than in states without bottle bills.

Beverage containers make up a whopping 5.6 percent of the overall U.S. waste stream, so every bottle and can that gets recycled counts toward freeing up landfill space. And CRI reports that beverage containers account for some 20 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions resulting from landfilling municipal solid waste and replacing the wasted products with new ones made from virgin feedstock. So by promoting more recycling, bottle bills indirectly reduce our carbon footprints.

The 10 U.S. states with bottle bills are California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Oregon and Vermont. Delaware’s legislature repealed its bottle bill after almost three decades on the books last year as the state’s bottle recycling rate had dropped to just 12 percent due to more and more retailers refusing to deal with the hassle of accepting returned containers. In place of its bottle bill, Delaware enacted a $0.04/bottle recycling fee that will help defray the costs of starting up a curbside recycling pickup system to service the entire state.

“We are extremely disappointed they chose to repeal their law, rather than enforce it,” reported CRI’s Susan Collins, adding that the new fee places a burden on consumers only. “Consumers will be subsidizing the producers and that is unfair.” CRI supports “extended producer responsibility” where producers and consumers together pay for the life cycle costs of product packaging.

Beyond Delaware, the main reason bottle bills haven’t caught on is because of opposition to them by the beverage industry, which doesn’t want to bear the costs of recycling and claims that the extra nickel or dime on the initial cost of the beverage is enough to turn potential customers away. The U.S. Public Interest Research Group (USPIRG) found that the beverage industry and its representatives spent about $14 million in campaign contributions aimed at defeating a national bottle bill between 1989 and 1994. Meanwhile, members of a Senate committee who voted against national bottle bill legislation in 1992 received some 75 times more in beverage-industry PAC money than those who voted in favor of the bill.

CONTACTS: Container Recycling Institute, www.container-recycling.org; USPIRG, www.uspirg.org.

EarthTalk® is written and edited by Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss and is a registered trademark of E – The Environmental Magazine (www.emagazine.com). Send questions to: earthtalk@emagazine.com. Subscribe: www.emagazine.com/subscribe; Free Trial Issue: www.emagazine.com/trial.

How To Responsibly Recycle Used Motor Oil

david — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 14:00:56 +0000

Still changing your own motor oil? You aren’t alone. Ever since the automobile was invented, self-made garage mechanics have been spending Saturdays changing their motor oil and filters. While many years went by that the used oil was just dumped in backyards and trash barrels without much thought of any environmental impact, we now know that we need to recycle and dispose of used oil in a responsible manner. According to the EPA, oil is a hazardous waste which contains heavy metals and is toxic to humans, animals, and plants. Oil change facilities and dealership repair shops have their own systems in place to deal with old motor oil, but what does the home mechanic do with the oil that comes out of their car, lawnmower, chainsaw or generator? Thankfully there are many resources available to find out how and where to dispose of motor oil, and hopefully you will find one that works for you.

Before you take your oil to be recycled, though, you need to transfer it from your oil catch pan you collected it in from your car into solid plastic gallon jugs. These can be new or used (used is better, though, to avoid buying new single-use plastic containers) and need to have a screw cap in order to prevent spillage. These jugs can then be transported to your closest motor oil recycling facility. Sound good? Now let’s find a recycling/disposal center near you.

Call 1-800-RECYCLE or visit 1800recycling.com/ to use their recycling location search engine.
Visit Earth 911 for tips and disposal locations.
MobilOil has their own search function. To locate your nearest oil recycling center, just enter your zip code in the search box.
The American Petroleum Institute has some tips as well.
Your local waste transfer station, local government office, or hazardous waste day can also help you out.

The important thing is that you do recycle and dispose of used motor oil in as a responsible way as possible, especially since oil is a finite nonrenewable resource here on earth and it needs to be recycled as much as possible. And if you see your neighbor changing his oil, be sure to offer up the suggestion that the used oil be recycled as well. We can all help each other out!

Photo from Big Stock Photo

Buying Checks Made From Recycled Paper

david — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 14:00:52 +0000

Still buying and using paper checks from your bank? There is a better way! While some banks provide checks and checkbooks for free, most of them charge a small fortune for a book of checks. Luckily, there are plenty of companies offering checks at discounted rates far below whatever your bank is charging you, and there are even a bunch of them offering checks made from post-consumer recycled paper — perfect for us environmentalists who still need to write a check once in a while! Besides, who needs checks made from freshly cut-down trees? I wrote a post about this a few years ago, but here is an updated list of some companies offering recycled paper checks for you to check out:

Although I recommend that if you need to buy checks that you buy ones made from recycled paper, I also suggest you look into managing and paying all or most of your bills online. It eliminates paper altogether, saves you money on checks and postage, and results in less trash in need of disposal or recycling. Check and see if your bank offers online bill pay for free, and if they don’t consider changing banks; there are plenty of them that do!