Category: Recycling

Is Recycling the Answer to Holiday Waste?

A version of this post appears on BlogHer.com today.

Actually, no. Recycling is certainly important. We do it in our home. But it’s not enough, and here are a few reasons why.
Recycling is a business.
Like any business, recycling relies on markets to survive. Do you know what happens to the metal, glass, [...]

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The Sweet Smell of Burning Plastic: Mindfulness Fail

I thought the smell was coming from my computer. I even turned the machine off and opened it up to make sure the fans were working properly. Then I remembered… Oh crap! I’d put water for pasta on the stove probably an hour before! Here’s what happened when I attempted to [...]

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To CD or not to CD? How even a singing lesson can be an opportunity for less plastic.

I’ve had two singing lessons so far and have been spending my free time doing funny exercises with my lips and various other parts of my personal sound system. Good thing I never get embarrassed anymore.
You might not think a singing lesson would involve much plastic, and if so, you would be [...]

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Plastic into Oil? What do you think?

This just in: Oregon plastics recycler, Agri-Plas, has begun converting plastic waste back into crude oil. According to Businesswire, “the company recently delivered its first full tanker (8,200 gallons) of oil to a refinery in Tacoma, Wash., which translates to a final delivery of 196 barrels of oil.”
The method was developed by Plas2Fuel, [...]

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Plastic Gift Cards: Re-use, Recycle, Speak Out!

I’ve been carrying around two plastic movie theater gift cards for over a year. Gifts from co-workers, they are much-appreciated because they represent gifts of experiences (movies) rather than more stuff. The fact that I still have them simply means I need to get out more. But the cards themselves, of course, [...]

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Gimme5, Brita, Preserve, and You!

Can you believe that the day this photo was taken I was so sick I could barely stand up?
I wrote all about the culmination of the Take Back The Filter campaign in a post on the Take Back The Filter web site, but I forgot to write about it here… until today. Michael [...]

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Dec 18: Day Without A (Disposable) Bag

Have you all seen the recent article in the NY Times about the decreased market for recycled materials? Apparently, much of the cardboard, newspaper, metals, and plastic that we toss in our recycling bins is piling up and making its way to landfills, as recycling contractors are unable to find buyers for the stuff.
I’ve [...]

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Brita® and Preserve® Announce Filter Recycling Program

After months of campaigning to urge Brita to take back and recycle used Brita filters, we (the Take Back The Filter group) are thrilled to announce the details of the take-back recycling program that Brita has developed. Read their full press release here.
1) Collection: Beginning in early January, Brita users will be [...]

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More sad plastic news. Plus Year 2, Week 21 Results: .05 oz of plastic waste.

The format of this post will be a little different from most of my weekly tallies because I want to emphasize three stories in the news this week which illustrate more of the problems with plastic and plastic recycling.
First: I learned from JessTrev of The Green Phone Booth (via Twitter) that one of the [...]

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Carnival of Trash #3

Hello my trash-talkin’ friends. As promised, here is the the third monthly Carnival of Trash, which was hosted last month at Mrs. Green’s My Zero Waste blog and will be hosted next month at Wiggly Wigglers The Rubbish Diet on Monday, October 13. If you’d like to contribute, please get your submissions in by [...]

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