Aluminum Recycling

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TonyPSchaefer @ Jun 7 2006, 11:36 AM) [snapback]267245[/snapback]</div>

Tony, thanks for posting this. Maybe some of us could write letters to our local newspapers, quoting these facts. And perhaps we could make placards, and ask our local stores to display them on the shelves where cans of soda are sold.
This is an example where a little bit of education, to get people to stop and think for a second before doing something thoughtless, could make a big difference.
Where did you find the statistics, BTW?

 

Tony, I have always been amazed at the duplicity of humans. Scream about the environment....throw recyclables away. Scream about oil use...drive gas guzzlers. It is not a liberal/conservative thing...it is a human thing (or more directly, spoiled RICH human thing)

Ever stop by AFTER an environmentalist rally....you still find human dietrus.

THINK GLOBALLY...act locally.

 

Recycling like any act of conservation is driven by economics, not emotion and logic. An aluminum can is worth 2.5 cents. So it is in the same cateagory of human self interest as collecting pennies. So most people don't care, it is not worth the hassle (work of collecting them, the stink and liquid mess of storing and moving them and not so easy task of finding a place to turn them in). If you local gov has a recycling program I guarantee it is a money loser. Sorry to be a Debbie Downer, I am all for this stuf but it has to make sense economically.

 

We subsidize and encourage waste and single-use in many items. When goods and services are priced proportional to their ecological footprint, recycling will accelerate. Germany is leading the way.

We subsidize (price to low) use of finite fossil fuels, use single-use plastic bags for shopping, single-use cameras, flatware, napkins, beverage containers, etc. Whenever a clerk attempts to make use of a plastic bag I ask, "Where do I recycle this?" I usually get a blank response. At the grocery store I'm asked "Paper or plastic?" I respond, "Cloth." This produces a blank response until I produce our own reuseable cloth bags.

Cups and plates for fast food are single-use styrofoam. What ever happened to paper cups and plates? Plastic flatware is used once then casually discarded. Many community recycling programs suffer because discards are not separated, there is no limit as to what is discarded and their is no financial incentive to recycle or re-use. Coca-Cola and other beverage producers promised major recycling programs when they moved from glass to plastic. Glass bottles are largely gone in the use, plastic is prolific, and producer-promised recycling programs are nonexistent. All this refuse is dumped on communities, cities, counties and states.

 

Skuse we are in agreement.

Gotta have patience. Politics is a slow process.

 

Among metals, iron and steel have the highest % recycle, followed by lead, and aluminum is in the group of "thirtysomethings".

http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/recycle/

Al may have the highest proportional energy savings with recycling, but I am not sure where to find that info.

Paper recycling about 35% overall

http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/muncpl/paper.htm

Glass about 22%

http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/muncpl/glass.htm

 

Here's a thought: Today's garbage dumps are tomorrow's resource mines.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TonyPSchaefer @ Jun 7 2006, 02:42 PM) [snapback]267366[/snapback]</div>

I'm totally with you there- I don't need an economic incentive to drive a Prius, or to recycle my cans. But sometimes you need a hook to get people's attention and to change their behavior. That's why I like the bullet that relates unrecycled cans to barrels of oil and capability for providing homes with electricity- that's something that the average person, I think, would relate to.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TonyPSchaefer @ Jun 7 2006, 11:42 AM) [snapback]267366[/snapback]</div>

Amen!

I could have purchased the gasoline version of my Rav4 for under $20k. I instead purchased my battery version for $42k. Most economical choice? Nope. Best choice - yup. And I'd do it again. Sometimes we have to think beyond the price of things today, and wonder more about what today's choices will cost us tomorrow.

We have examples all around us of "right" vs. "most economical." It is FAR more economical to dump raw sewage from factories into nearby rivers. And we used to do that! Now we take the more expensive approach of treating the waste first, because the initial "economical" approach ended up costing us too much. Sometimes we've got to spend the money where it will do the most good in the long run - not where it will only save us a few pennies in the short term.

 

People rail against the deposit laws, but, being a pretty good oberver of human behavior, my fellow NYrs would be throwing out their used soda and beer containers without the deposit.. AND it's only 5 cents in NY. (there is a proposal to extend the deposit law to juice/falvored water/sports beverages in cans & bottles)

I can see it where I live. It's not even that bad because when you take the garbage to the transfer station, you pay by the size & number of bags (or weight if you have enough to be 'scaled'). So, most people who do this take out whatever they can so as to not 'pay' for it through their garbage. Even still, it disturbs me to see all te metaal and plastic that is in the trash. I carry used cans, bottles in my car until I get home so they'll be recycled. Cardboard, people trash it though the recycling container is right there! People just don't seem to care.

 

The deposit system works. My own personal example comes from when I was in Med School in NY. Every day after lectures I would collect the soda cans left in the lecture hall. Consistantly netted me $10 a week. (Which I would parlay into $20 at our Wed. night poker game. Enough to cover my groceries. There was one guy who played every Wed who was guaranteed to leave $10-$20 every time!!!)

 

Good to hear confirmed about how beneficial aluminum cans were to recycle. I had thought that it was easier to produce a recycled alimuminum can rather than a new can, it's good to have it confirmed.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Catskillguy @ Jun 7 2006, 06:49 PM) [snapback]267495[/snapback]</div>

I agree! I don't think it is really about what is economical for most, but rather that most people just don't care. Sure, money is going to motivate some poor people, but not everyone. I see this apathy almost every day I go to school. We have a grassroots recycling program in our department on campus with bins on every floor of the building.

Well, there is a paper bin right there in the copy room to take all of that paper that people would normally throw away. Since part of my duties is to keep a monitor on this bin, I check it several times a week to make sure it isn't getting full or what not. Almost every time, I notice that there is paper in the trash can that could have been recycled. The difference in distance between the trash can and the recycling bin is 8-9 feet or 2-3 steps for most. So even when there is an easy dropoff that takes maybe an extra 2-3 seconds, they don't care.

Even though this is a minority in the department, these are people that are more educated and more liberal than the general public. Course, there is still a good deal of recycling done in the department (almost faster than we can keep up with it---i think the plastic multiplies like bunnies!).

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(micheal @ Jun 7 2006, 08:24 PM) [snapback]267571[/snapback]</div>

Alas. It seems to be true. My county has free curbside recycling for aluminum, glass, paper, and some plastics. On my street with approx. 15 houses, I am one of only four who use the service. Sure, we don't get money for it, but it takes me about an extra two minutes every two weeks to assemble and take to the curb.

I will say, though, that at work, I instituted a can/bottle recycling bin in my workgroup that I personally check and take home to recycle when full. I have implored my fellow employees to use the bin, and they do. I don't know if it's to support my ideals or because they themselves believe, but everyone participates. I love it.

 

we recycle as much stuff as we can (1,2 plastic, glass, steel, newspaper, cardboard, paperboard, office paper) and as a result we generate a small amount of trash everyweek, usually 1-2 kitchen trashbags full, and that's with an infant in the house! I the comingled stuff and newspaper is recycled curb side every 2 weeks. The rest I take to a recycling center once every other month or so. I've gotten my parents recycling (I'm working on getting them to get solar panels next) and my brother drops recycling off at my house since his condo doesn't have facilities. The sad thing is that it's so bloody simple to do.

Tony, are you sure about 1.28 Trillion tonnes? 1.28 billion sounds more in line with our stated coal reserves.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TonyPSchaefer @ Jun 13 2006, 03:26 PM) [snapback]270742[/snapback]</div>

Yeah, that was the polite way of saying "Dude, yer numbers are, uh, poopy". B)

When will they get rid of the TR key? It's always getting in the bloody way.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TonyPSchaefer @ Jun 7 2006, 08:36 AM) [snapback]267245[/snapback]</div>

Did you run across any comparative stats showing the effect that "deposits" like California's have had on recycling? When you can get a nickle back for each can, I would think that increases the rate of recycling.

We've recycled our cans and plastic bottles for 30 years. I can't imagine anyone not doing it.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(skruse @ Jun 7 2006, 09:25 AM) [snapback]267284[/snapback]</div>

You're in California ... here in Southern California, all of our supermarkets have bins to recycle the plastic bags. My deck off my master bedroom is made of recycled grocery bags (a Trex-like product). Our community has a recycling bin that takes half the room of the former trash only bin, encouraging our residents to recycle (and believe me, everyone puts their recyclables in the recycle side of the bin because otherwise you don't have enough trash room!)

I'm surprised Fresno is not doing this.

 

I'm not so sure that putting deposits on cans is the best way to approach recycling. I went to college in Michigan where the deposit is 10 cents per can. It is true that there were very few cans (at least local ones) lying around or thrown into the trash, but bringing cans to the store seemed to be as far as anyone would go to recycle. Sometimes I brought a case of soda from home and noone seemed to understand why I would go thru the trouble of bringing the cans to the store to recycle since I couldn't get any money back. Once I even had a store employee tell me they couldn't accept my cans even though I wasn't trying to get money for them. Not being able to recycle drove me crazy since I was used to curbside recycling at home. (Carrying my recyclables home on the train every couple months was not plausible)

I think curbside recycling (or convienient local drop off points) and maybe charging per bag for garbage pickup need to become more commonplace. There will always be people who go out of their way NOT to recycle, but I think a lot of people participate as long as its convenient. And once they start it just becomes a habit. Most houses in my neighborhood puts their recycle bins out regularly. Charging deposits may help in some instances if it isn't possible to make recycling convenient, but I think it makes people forget that things other than cans can be recycled.