Recycle this

Rethinking Recycling is Science. I don't mean, stop recycling. But lets look at where the trash comes from.



In the top circle, Gross National Trash, notice that only 2.5% comes from municipal solid waste. Most, 76%, comes from industrial waste.

Look at the bottom circle. What do you recycle? Paper? Some plastics? Yard trimmings? Even if we recycled 100% of the waste we generate in our homes, it would still just be a fraction of the waste that is generated in the country.

So, we need to focus on making sure we support companies that work to reduce waste, and encourage all industries to do better.

This article from Mother Jones, via my cousin at Niches, explains it all.

Whose waste do you think is more damaging to the environment. The neighbor's yard clippings and newspapers or the waste generated by the Mercedes Plant? Now don't get all over me for picking on Mercedes, I just used them because they are close by and big.

Robins and Recycling

Egg laying physiology is science.

Ms. Robin laid another egg yesterday. She is probably laying another one this morning. Robins are said to wait until mid-morning to lay their eggs, having spent the early morning eating worms and such. Some other species of birds lay their eggs in the early morning, and eat afterward.

Female Robins have just one ovary. This helps to reduce their weight for flight. The ovary consists of multiple ova, one of which develops as a yolky egg each day, and "drops" into the funnel like opening of the oviduct. It is fertilized and moves down the oviduct where layers of albumin and finally the blue shell are laid down covering the yolk.

In this diagram, it seems that the item labelled "ovary" is actually the ovum ready for shedding, and the ovary is the whole conglomeration of ova, but finding a diagram to display was not easy. Maybe I should have drawn one myself, but...

Picture credit: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Anatomy_and_Physiology_of_Animals/Reproductive_System

Recycling is Science (update).

As Jo pointed out the other day, at Publix we can recycle plastic bags, foam trays and egg cartons, and paper bags. These are the containers in front of the Publix at Tannehill.

We have really reduced the amount of garbage that the city has to pick up. Three things contributed to this. 1) My daughter moved away. Twenty something year old females produce a lot of trash. 2) Composting with the Nature Mill Indoor Composter. The Nature Mill composter accepts lots of things you don't put in the compost pile, like meat scraps, along with veggies, peanut shells, egg shells, coffee grounds and everything else but liquids and bones. Your scraps are made into compost in just a few days .

3) Increased recycling efforts.

We have gone from having two trash cans at the curb twice a week to one trash can every other or every third pick up. That's the "Reduce" part of "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle."

Reduce

Recycling and Reducing Waste is Science. And those plastic bags just pile up. Sure they can be used as trash can liners or dog poop bags, but I bet you throw away more of them than you use.

But did you know they are in the High Density Polyethylene category of plastics and can be recycled? A lot of the plastic bottles we use are in that category also. (You can find these symbols on the bottoms of plastic bottles and learn what they mean here).

So there, problem solved, right? No more plastic bags hanging in the trees, or blowing along the roadway (looking like a cat out of the corner of your eye) or ending up in the bellies of sea turtles.

Actually, no. First of all, most of the bags are not recycled. Second of all, many of the bags that are recycled end up in China or India where a lot of our recyclables are dumped. Third of all, the cost to recycle the bags far outweighs what the return is in dollars, so who's going to do it?

Some are proposing a tax on up to 20 cents per bag to cut down on their use. In County Cork in Ireland such a tax reduced the usage of plastic bags by 95%. (National Geographic). But that would never happen here, and analysts say the loss of jobs and such would have to be considered, and that the return to paper bags would actually use more energy and create more waste.

The best idea is to just quit using them.

Almost every store now sells (and some give away) these reusable bags. For me, the hardest thing to remember is to put the bags back in my car so I will have them next time I go to the store. But it's just a matter of changing behavior, never an easy thing to do, behaviorists will assure you.

Notice too that the cokes are not even in bags. The bag-girl asked me if I wanted them bagged, and I said no. But the buyer can take the initiative and request "no bag" for large items like drinks and laundry detergent and bathroom paper.

And using these bags makes it much easier to carry the groceries into the house. I estimate that what used to take 6-10 plastic bags now ends up in just 2 reusable bags.

Even using those bags I still end up with plastic bags from some stores or if I forget the reusables. So, for the past two weeks I have saved my recyclable plastics (Number 1 and 2 are accepted here in Bessemer). This would occupy a good bit of landfill space, don't you think?

Bessemer Recycling is located on First Avenue North across from Bessemer Utilities and is open Monday - Saturday from 7:00 to 3:30. They take Plastics 1 and 2, Newspaper, Cardboard (both the cereal box kind and the big corrugated kind) and used motor oil (no cooking oil). I wonder what happens to Bessemer Recyclables from there? I aim to find out.

I will be looking into other aspects of recycling in Bessemer over the next few weeks as we approach Earth Day.