Do you recycle the cardboard cylinder in you toilet paper rolls?

Absolutely!

I even cut open the dreaded blister packs to get the paper out of them. I keep a bucket in my shop,, and all the broken nuts and bolts, small scrap metal go into the bucket to be recycled.

Icarus.

 

I recycle everything possible. BUT the center here will only take certain plastics, only corrugated cardboard, no junk mail, no food box cardboard! I give them every wire, metal I come across.
Styrofoam! Wish there was a way to recycle that!!!!!

 

i am an avid recyler. so of course i do.

as far as what i recycle that most probably dont...BATTERIES!!

i also have a small plastic bucket (used for butter) that i store used batteries in. they are recycled by being taken to transfer station "hazo" house where hazardous materials are handled.


now what i used to be able to recycle but can no longer find anyone who will take them is those plastic bags the grocery stores hand out. the grocery stores themselves used to take them, but like all free services, people abused the right, tossing garbage in with the mix, so now stores dont offer the option...

cant do Styrofoam around here either. as far as paper though, we can do all kinds, even the glossy mags

 

Recycling in Japan

I do. I try to recycle most everything.

But municipalities in the US make it difficult. Here in New York City, we only have two broad categories for recycling: (1) Paper, and (2) Metal, Glass & Plastic. I couldn't easily recycle batteries or compact fluorescent bulbs if I wanted to.

But in Japan ... great New York Times article about recycling in Japan where one municipality requires its residents to sort recyclables into 44 categories:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/12/i....html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=recycling in japan&st=cse

 

Re: Recycling in Japan

On the contrary,,, most major hardware chains including Home Depot, lowes, Ace and True Value will take back and recycle Cfls! You must be some where near one of these,,, even in NYC. I suggest you pick up your phone book and make a few calls. Cfs shouldn't go into the trash!

Icarus

 

If you mean taping them together to make Pan flutes and dance around like a, sure...um...oh...anyway, yes, we do...

Our local dry cleaner gladly recycles the wire hangers they use; when we use their services to clean/iron my dress shirts they get a big stack of 'em...

 

Re: Recycling in Japan

Thanks! I'll look into that.

I haven't thrown out a Cfl ... they're lying around in cabinets waiting for the right recycling moment.

Curious, do they recycle Cfls or do they just make sure that their mercury content is disposed of safely?

 

actually in the vein of true recycling, those batteries i referred to earlier. i recharge them first until they no longer take a charge. i dont keep track of how many times i can recharge and i think it probably has to do with the initial quality of the batteries anyway.

the reason i do this is because i have a 2 year old. he has literally a million battery operated toys (YES HE IS SPOILED!!) and most come with the first set of batteries. now i have heard that regular batteries can be recharged anywhere from a few to several dozen times.

some points to consider if you are thinking about doing this...

full recharges not recommended. batteries that are not designed to be recharged, overheat and will leak. charge them like 20-30 mins until they get warm. take off charger for 10 mins then do another 20-30 mins. they will last longer this way. and remember a half-charged battery is much better than throwing it away and buying another one that will eventually go to the dump

 

My wife and I recycle what we can. She also brings home the drink cans and bottles from her work.
We have to go to 4 different places for recycling:

1. The local Publics grocery store takes plastic bags and styrofoam
2. There is a dumpster at the city building for newspaper
3. There is another dumpster at the city park for other items though they have recently posted a sign limiting what they take. Originally it just said no glass or newspaper. Now it limits items collected to: Plastics 1 & 2, aluminum cans, and cardboard.
4. There is only one place I know of in the Birmingham metro area that takes glass and that is downtown and a 40 mile round trip. They actually take everything but hazardous materials but they are too far away to go on a regular basis.

I don't have any place local that takes ferrous metals so all small pieces of metal are being collected in an old cat litter container for now. I guess I will eventually take it to a scrap metal yard and collect my $0.15.

As an example of how I recycle, I just recycled a flashlight that came with my Makita cordless drill. The drill quit working 2 years ago but I still used the flashlight. The last battery died recently making the flashlight useless to me. I disassembled the flashlight and:

• The NiMH battery went to Lowes to be recycled
• The plastic housing and lens went into the recycling bin
• The small screws, metal contracts and socket when into the steel bin
• Light bulb when into the trash
• Copper wire went into my misc wire drawer.

I still have the charger which works fine though it is no use to me. Anyone know of a good way to connect with someone that might what it?

 

Re: Recycling in Japan

I honestly don't know,, but securing he mercury is paramount! The amount of glass, and metal is pretty small.

Icarus

 

we have curbside recycling for everything except the hazardous stuff. that has to be taken to transfer station. pretty sure WA state requires every county to have at least one drop off location for each county in the state.

 

Other than for club/school projects that want them, no, I've not been recycling the rolls. When it comes to paper products I have only done major cardboard recycling periodically. Most of the time paper/cardboard go out with the trash. I was going to do more sorting a few years ago but there was a paper glut and they quit accepting it for a time.

PriceChopper grocery stores give 5 cents back for reusing their paper bags (nice heavy ones with handles that work.) So we take advantage of that. I can't stand plastic bags (Wal Mart sucks in that regard...plus they are the most godawful slow checkout of any chain I've ever been to) as they have no structure leaving the contents to scatter all over the vehicle unless well secured. I use the plastic bags as bathroom garbage liners (why buy separate ones when they are free?)

I recycle aluminum, stainless steel, copper, brass, some misc. alloy, and rarely (as in if I happen to have about 1,000 pounds) iron. When you replace plumbing fixtures there is typically a lot of brass/copper to be had. You might have to take a hacksaw to pieces to sort it into copper, brass (different prices), and valve cores that might be a stainless alloy. I don't give any of this away...I wait until I have enough of a load of crushed cans and prices are decent, then convert it to cash. I've been hanging onto my aluminum since last fall waiting for prices to rebound some more as energy prices rise.

A few weeks ago the hinge pin on my daughter's scooter failed. The riveted/welded construction was such that I could not get the sliding pin back in place. So I removed these steel parts and the wheels to recover the rest that was primarily aluminum.

When I had old power supplies and PC parts to get rid of I made a few dollars off of the mix of aluminum and copper heat sinks I had accumulated.

We re-use various cooking oils for frying things quite a few times before discarding them. I filter them and put them in storage containers. We currently have three types: One for deep frying fries/okra, sunflower oil (for fried ripe plantains mostly), and some reserved for fish (we don't keep this one long...)

I've been using a mulching mower for ~17 years (the same one.) My yard waste is limited to one or two pick up loads of leaves/branches per year that I carry to a center that converts it to mulch.

Now that we have more space and are getting settled, I intend to start sorting glass, plastics, and paper products for periodic free recycling.

 

Most Wallmarts & Home Depot stores take CFL's. Our So Cal city has a program too, where they collect 2x a year at the local high school. In MT i'm sad to say, all bets are off. Kind of an irony. So many lakes, streems, etc near by, but when it comes to the toxic stuff, the state defaults to the bare minimums set forth by the feds. As for T.P. rolls ... yea ... a few years ago I somehow got the position of dumpster diver, where I have to separate out the glass, plastic, paper etc.

 

When I was a kid I did recycle toilet paper rolls. They make fine forms for winding small Tesla coils. (Unfortunately, I would sometimes use "extra" paper to get at the rolls more quickly.) My parents never caught on.

Richard

 

J-I have lost my Makita battery charger and thus have both a cordless drill and flashlight that are useless. These are the 'old' battery types which are long and thin (unlike todays' batteries which are squat) I'd take your charger off your hands if you'd care to mail it to me. I'll gladly send you back any postage involved!

Thanks, MJ

 

Before you recycle those toilet paper cores, re-use a few as organizers for extension cords. Keeps the cords from getting all tangled together.

 

They make recycling so easy here there is no excuse NOT to recycle. We get 3 bins from the garbage co:

Green: garden waste

Gray: trash (it's the smallest of the 3 bins and rarely gets even half full)

Blue: all recyclables go here mixed together...glass, paper products and metal. Nothing gets separated or washed.

I keep a half-gallon washed out milk carton in the kitchen where I dispose of all old batteries (they are EXTREMELY toxic in landfills) which I then take once a year to our local drug store which handles battery recycling. A couple times a year a company parks it's trucks in the local supermarket lot and we can recycle ANY electronics with them. I understand they strip the salvageable stuff for recycling.

My house and my neighbors share garbage pick up since with all the recycling and carefulness of not bringing home much extra packaging, we send as much to the garbage and recycling trucks as many unconscious households do alone. We have been proactive by passing laws forbidding Styrofoam and plastic grocery bags in our municipalities, so that problem is fixed town-wide.

 

Our curbside recycling in Camas, WA includes used motor oil which is a benefit for sure. As far as Cardboard from toilet paper and Non Corregated Cardboard in general, I have always considered it to be thick paper and place with Misc Paper Bin. Am I causing greif for the Recycling Center?