BS: Doing your Part

Subject: BS: Doing your Part
From: Raptor
Date: 24 Jul 03 - 09:40 AM

I, after a while of trying, have reduced the weekly garbage at my house to 1 gerocery bag of trash!

We have done this through sorting, recycaling, and composting!

You can recycal almost all paper and cardboard products! and you can compost almost anything!

It all started when I heard David Sezzuki speaking about reducing I thought that we should try but living in a small apt we couldn' compost easily. Now we live in a house it is easy!
.
It was reported on the radio that Canada generates enough garbage in a year to fill 6 football fields 1 mile high and that 40%-60% of that is compostable.

Forgive me if you think I'm preachey I'm just happy about reaching a goal that benifits this Wonderfull Country! And our Wonderfull neighbours to the south.(We export our garbage to Michigan)

I will also start shopping with a less waste attitude!

If anyone has sudgestions or a similar story please post it here!

We need a break from all the war threads that we are fighting on!

Raptor

Subject: RE: BS: Doing your Part
From: katlaughing
Date: 24 Jul 03 - 10:23 AM

Good for you! Here's a relevant bit from an earlier posting:

...if we each commit to taking our own reusable drinking mug with us, everywhere, with a spare in case we forget it, and use it for our coffee, tea, water, etc. the average person will use it 1,000 times over a 3-4 month period. IF we do that, we, each of us, would reduce our energy use, in that choice, by 98% and reduce our volatile compound release into the air by 89%. Those are pretty impressive numbers for such a simple, thoughful, practical action.



I would urge anyone who really cares, to listen to the interview HERE of Julia Butterfly Hill about her new book, One Makes the Difference from which I took the above tip.

Subject: RE: BS: Doing your Part
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 24 Jul 03 - 10:30 AM

The problem with that kat, is that by LAW and Health Codes in many places a food/drink vendor may NOT serve into a person's own container . So if you wish to use your own mug - they have to first use their own and transfer it. no savings.

Subject: RE: BS: Doing your Part
From: katlaughing
Date: 24 Jul 03 - 10:34 AM

Except that, if enough of us started doing it, they'd have to accomodate, somehow, at some point. I'd haven't read her book, yet, but i understand it has a LOT of other suggestions, too, and perhaps she follows up the above with tips on how to work around existing laws. At least if we are handing them back the waste theyhave to take care of it and eventually that might get them in the pocketbook enough that they'd come up with alternatives.

Subject: RE: BS: Doing your Part
From: Teribus
Date: 24 Jul 03 - 11:09 AM

Hi Raptor,

Good on yer!!

Once was part of a project team that looked at this seriously due to problem of land-fill space. The problem we had to solve was how to take over existing land-fills, make them safe following decades of uncontrolled tipping, while at the same time coping with increasing volumes of refuse with the minimum amount of land being set aside for new land-fill sites.

The answer we came up with involved:
- Concerted recycling programmes at waste collection stations, which produced a revenue stream.
- What cannot be recycled was composted, the method and plant required, is used in the Netherlands and produces inert compost. The waste collection stations/composting plants were specified for a fifty percent over-capacity, to accommodate future increased volume and to allow land-fill reclamation.
- The compost produced is one-sixth the volume of the uncomposted refuse, therefore any given land-fill will theoretically last six times longer.
- For existing land-fill sites, we got in touch with a Canadian company that "mines" land-fills. Using the over-capacity of the watse collection stations and composting plant allows the refuse from existing land-fills to be recycled and composted, and existing land-fills can be cleared, made safe and re-used.

Normally land above a land-fill site cannot be used, but in filling a land-fill with inert compost, the land does have some useful applications and there is no resulting threat to the environment.

One thing we did find out was that waste incinerators are the worst possible solution and should be avoided like the plague.

Subject: RE: BS: Doing your Part
From: catspaw49
Date: 24 Jul 03 - 11:19 AM

I personally recycle edible foodstuffs into methane and a soft compost. That's about all I do but I'm happy to do my part.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Doing your Part
From: NicoleC
Date: 24 Jul 03 - 11:29 AM

Another simple change is to dump the paper napkins and paper towels, or at least try to eliminate a lot of them. Making sure you buy higher quality cloth napkins and towels helps becuase they work better and last longer. You can often pick them up for cheap on clearance, or find suitable material in the remnant bin at the fabric store and make your own. They take up almost no room in your laundry loads, and dry quickly if your hang them out. It pays off in about 6 months, depending on how much paper products you normally use.

Plus, people will think you are fancy for using cloth napkins all the time :)

Subject: RE: BS: Doing your Part
From: GUEST,furcone
Date: 24 Jul 03 - 11:44 AM

Spaw - eurgggghhh!

Subject: RE: BS: Doing your Part
From: GUEST,Kim C no cookie
Date: 24 Jul 03 - 11:45 AM

We compost nearly all of our food scraps. At home we don't buy sodas so there are no cans for recycling. We do take our cardboard and papers to the bins - the problem with that is, here in Nashville, they keep moving the bins around. There used to be some in my neighborhood, but not anymore. We have to go down the road a-ways, which is no big deal. But I'll bet, next time we have a pile to take, those bins will have moved as well.

Mister washes Ziploc bags.

Subject: RE: BS: Doing your Part
From: JennyO
Date: 24 Jul 03 - 12:18 PM

This puts me in mind of a song one of our local choirs sings, about some people who only pay lip-service to caring for our environment:

Green Like Me

Jenny

Subject: RE: BS: Doing your Part
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 24 Jul 03 - 12:19 PM

my mother always washed and re-used plastic bags of all shapes and sizes. (tanslation - gave them to her kids to wash...)

That's something most of her kids now REFUSE to do. period. ever.

Subject: RE: BS: Doing your Part
From: Raptor
Date: 26 Jul 03 - 07:29 AM

I just bought environmentaly friendly fabric softener. apparently you can drink it but it says it works. I'll let ya know!

Raptor

Subject: RE: BS: Doing your Part
From: mg
Date: 26 Jul 03 - 11:51 AM

I'm pretty good. I try to clean with steam when I can to reduce chemicals, paper towels, rags, etc. I don't have a washing machine here..I can of course wash in sink...

I just bought a steam buggy for Sunnycamp. Had some complaints about the kitchen last year.  It's not as powerful a steamer as I would like but better than the little hotshot I have. I also try to dry clothes outside and try to only turn minimal heat on between November and February. I live in a coastal climate.

What else..helps I am not a clothes horse..less to keep up with. I've pared down possessions pretty well. Quite often have lived without a car although I just got one again.

Some things I ponder: this whole Œndfill thing really bothers me. What a recipe for ecological and epidemiological disaster. Why don't we insist on separation of garbage? Some that they won't take for recycling could be burned safely I would thin?>=>=>=>=pizza boxes etc...they have highly sophisticated incenators that capture almost everything dont they?????

Also, this flush toilet thing...doesn't make sense to me.

Also, why do planes have to fly so dang high? Why can't we have something like a hovertrain??????

Why do people who can afford it not put in their own solar panels, windmills, etc. And why are they always moaning about hooking up to the power grid? That also sounds like a recipe for a disaster. Just take care of yourself and don't try to get money back by feeding electricity in at this point of the situation.

Also, I love the idea of solar candles. LIke the solar lights you leave in your garden but you take them in. Anyone who comes to Sunnycamp and can bring some of those if you have them, please do...

Why do we allow baby diapers in land fills? Kitty litter?

Why don't we allow clothes to go into Mexico so people can make a bit of money or clothe orphans etc...? There have been some stupid rules about that.

Why, when Mexican kids are shoeless, do we have tires in our landfills that could be cut into sandals?

Why, when so much of the world is without computers, do we have landfills full of them?????/

mg

Subject: RE: BS: Doing your Part
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 26 Jul 03 - 11:59 AM

"Canada generates enough garbage in a year to fill 6 football fields 1 mile high and that 40%-60% of that is compostable"

What does it matter, if it composts in the back yard, or in the land fill???

Subject: RE: BS: Doing your Part
From: Rapparee
Date: 26 Jul 03 - 11:59 AM

It's MY trash and I bought it and I'll do with it what I damn well please!

I've heard that argument over and over. Personally, I try to recycle it, reuse things, and so on. My wife and I have been doing this since 1973, which is pretty long as the environmental movement goes.

About cloth napkins: why not buy them or the fabric at a garage sale if possible? My sister-in-law has been doing that since 1974.

What I'd like to see is a reduction in the amount and type of packaging. I recently bought some software which came in an 8.5 x 11 x 2 inch box with a flap that explains how wonderful it is, and all that was inside was CD, a cardboard spacer, and a postcard. Sheesh!

At the moment I'd like to recycle Peace, but I can't think of a simgle time when there wasn't war somewhere in the world.

Subject: RE: BS: Doing your Part
From: Raptor
Date: 26 Jul 03 - 06:02 PM

Clinton

In my back yard it turns to soil and get spread out on a garden!

In a garbage bag at the dump it won't BREAKDOWN and it will take up space forever! Like I said I've reduced my garbage output! Thats less space bieng taken up!

Raptor

Subject: RE: BS: Doing your Part
From: katlaughing
Date: 26 Jul 03 - 06:40 PM

Good and thoughful questions, mary.

I didn't use paper towels for a long, long time,at least 15-20 yrs. With geriatric cats, though, in the past three years, I've bought ones made from recyled paper for the ocassional messes one of them makes. I don't want to clean up cat pee or poop with a cloth towel then count on the wash to sanitise it well enough.

I rarely drive during the week and only short trips around town on a Sat. morning. We've conserved water since about 1979, actually Rog did before, since living where we had to haul our own. Still take showers together to conserve. :-)

I do get tired of the waste in packaging, too. I just started eating a cereal which I get at the health food store. It comes in a standard sized cereal box, but when I take the waxed paper liner/bag out with the cereal in it, it takes up a third of the space as the box. So why do they need a box that big, or even a box at all? Seems so wasteful!

But, that is nothing compared to the waste of AOL. I hate that company for the endless CD's in horrible plastic cases they send out to every POB and street addy trying to get people to sign on with them.

Subject: RE: BS: Doing your Part
From: Amergin
Date: 26 Jul 03 - 06:48 PM

we use to burn our rubbish....ah nothing like breathing in smoke from plastic wood...cardboard...rubber..and food scraps....

Subject: RE: BS: Doing your Part
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 26 Jul 03 - 07:10 PM

" In a garbage bag at the dump it won't BREAKDOWN and it will take up space forever!"

Bollock! Everything bio-degrades eventually... The problem with landfills is not that there is garbage going into them, it's that it's going in faster than it can degrade...

And well, quite frankly, as 'In the right place' as home recylcing has it's heart, it's industry that is really generating the majority of the waste that 'could' be recycled... Home recycling is a 'feel good' program that really has very little impact...

Cast your votes by only purchasing things made from recycled materials... support those companies who DO 'clean package' and such... that'll do more for the envoirnment than sorting your papper and cans ever will...

Subject: RE: BS: Doing your Part
From: Rapparee
Date: 26 Jul 03 - 07:11 PM

Actually, true garbage WOULD break down in a dump (I ain't a-gonna call it a "landfill") if it weren't covered, or only lightly so. And it would have to be stirred and treated as any other compost.

Anyone ever hear of the "Garbage Project" at the U. of Arizona's Archeology Dept.? Check it out -- what they found is fascinating stuff.

Subject: RE: BS: Doing your Part
From: Raptor
Date: 26 Jul 03 - 07:43 PM

Clinton

How quick is a car gonna breakdown?

Rubber never BIO-Degrades.

Nor does metal

I think you need to go back to science class buddy!

No wonder you hate the human race so much, You have no faith in triing to save this planet!

We need to start at home educating people on the difference between BIO-degrading And just plain rusting!

We need to get people to realise that if we reduce the garbage by 40%-60% than thats 40%-60% less space taken up in the landfills, (its a simple equasion but you be suprised how many people DON'T GET IT)!

We can also send a mesage to the corperations through government lobbying but we need to practice what we expect them to do.

Raptor

Subject: RE: BS: Doing your Part
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Jul 03 - 08:02 PM

Look, I've got an idea here for Canadian garbage control. We could turn Clinton's apartment or house and yard or wherever he hangs out into a landfill site and store a good deal of Southern Ontario's trash there, specially if it is compacted sufficiently first. "Everything bio-degrades eventually", right? So why not? With a problem like this, you gotta attack it from every available angle, and I think this is a good one.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Doing your Part
From: Raptor
Date: 26 Jul 03 - 08:16 PM

Hey Little Hawk I've noticed that our friend here is always argueing with someone or cutting up someone elses views!

He's the most interesting chap on the cat! With his hate for mankind, his pissy atitude, and his neverending vigil to piss someone off! I think that he will be Brilliant live! We should go down to see him in Winsor. I got a feeling that He'd be somthing like Tom Waits. His web site is good too! Lets go down and Heckel him!

We need a place to stay!

Hey CLINTON If we come down to one of your gigs Can you put us up for the night?

Raptor

Subject: RE: BS: Doing your Part
From: GUEST,the drifter in the dell
Date: 26 Jul 03 - 08:22 PM

Forget it, guys. I've seen his place. You couldn't fit more than a couple of grocery bags' worth of trash in there and still have room to sit down.

Subject: RE: BS: Doing your Part
From: Rapparee
Date: 26 Jul 03 - 11:32 PM

Actually, a car will eventually rust and oxidize, at least the metal parts. I don't think tires are pure rubber, either -- they're made of synthetic materials, mostly.

Given enough time, EVERYTHING will break down. It's called the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

You guys are just too impatient, that's all. Probably the best way to get rid of really bad stuff is to stick it in the cracks when one tectonic plate is overriding another. That way it'll eventually be carried right back down into the magma, recycled, and spit back up in a volcano. Of course, it will take a while....

Nature is patient. People aren't. Sometimes I wonder if we harm nature more by our impatience or by our "use" of nature. Kudzu is one example that comes to mind....

Subject: RE: BS: Doing your Part
From: NicoleC
Date: 26 Jul 03 - 11:59 PM

Um. Clinton... where do you think those recycled materials come from?

Subject: RE: BS: Doing your Part
From: GUEST,Boab D
Date: 27 Jul 03 - 05:52 AM

When posted in Germany the "Pads" married people who lived in houses and not in the blocks, that the singlies lived in ,had to separate there rubbish.There was a bin for paper , food, metal and plastic which was great. If you chose not to use these bins or if one bin was contaminated with something from a different bin then you got fined. Some one actually went round and physically checked these bins from the army just to make sure no mixed rubbish was going into the system.
Why not introduce something like that everywhere. It would mean less smell and less polution nad all recyclable material was used again. Think of the potential for recycling throughout the world creating jobs for millions of people cleaning out the rubbish and then usingall the material. Endless. The Germans have a knack of getting things right these days. Why do others not follow such a great example.
Dylan

Subject: RE: BS: Doing your Part
From: Raptor
Date: 27 Jul 03 - 06:58 AM

That sounds great!

We here in north America could learn a lot from Europe!

We are creating tons of smog and poisoning ourselves with exost from our too many cars, and our governments solution is to build more roads. We're getting rid of our trains instead of making public transit more attractive.

We are overpopulating and don't have time to wait for Non-Biodegradables to rust and breakdown!

Raptor

Subject: RE: BS: Doing your Part
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 28 Jul 03 - 03:43 AM

What BoabD wrote about the Army way in Germany is law over here. We civilians are compelled to separate our garbage into different coloured bins for degradable, paper, not degradable and recyclable (plastic and tin cans). Bottles are brought to collecting points with containers spread all over the town. In the summer and fall every month garden refusals (grass, branches) are collected by special trucks and brought to the county recycling plant.
Bringing your own mug to a restaurant isn't necessary; you always get a reusable glasss or porcelain mug. Only hikers (like this man) use own mugs on their way when using clean springs or boiling their coffee or tea on the way.
At a street vendor's you drink out of the bottle or can. Only here salad is served on plastic dishes, with plastic cutlery which after use is collected in the yellow sack (recyclable garbage).
For shopping food we use cloth bags instead of plastic bags which are sneered as "Turkish valises". When I'm going to the market I always I have one or two cloth bags with me. The greenery is then packed in recyclable paper (not good to mingle cherries with onions).
It needs a time to grow accustomed to this system, but it works fine.

Wilfried

Subject: RE: BS: Doing your Part
From: Burke
Date: 28 Jul 03 - 06:15 PM

I have been a fanatic for recycling since anyone even started talking about it. I've used cloth napkins & hankies for 25 years. Wash em in HOT water. We have a really good & comprehensive recycling program in Oneida County, NY. I have to sort my trash several different ways, but it's all picked up at the curb weekly.

New York has deposits on soda & beer bottles so those are returned for the nickel or given to some organization collecting them for fund raising.

Container sort: glass bottles, plastic containers up to symbols with 6, foil, cans.
Paper sort: pretty much any clean paper or cardboard except freezer boxes due to platic coatings.
Yard waste: Just put it at the curb, picked up separately & hauled to a central compost facility
Garbage: None of the above, mostly things with food waste, goes into specially purchased bags. 10 gal. bag is $.85, larger is $1.35 (I'm not sure of it's capacity) I usually put a 10 gal. bag out every other week.
There's a facility for dropping off hazardous or questionable waste like old batteries, thermometers, paints, etc. Its open pretty frequently including Sat. mornings, unlike some areas I've heard of where you get one or two chances a year.

I always have grocery bags in the car. I both reuse brown paper bags until they break and use my own cloth bags. I also use my own bags for general shopping. I still manage to collect a fair number of plastic shopping bags. I save them & periodically return them to the a grocery store that has a plastic bag drop off.

My mom was like Mmario's in making us wash plastic bags, etc. Unlike him & his siblings, I continued the practice. I can still remember her complaining when soda started being sold in non-returnable containers, "I'm paying for the packaging." I reuse small plastic bags so often, that I need to buy a new box every 5 years or so.

I'm not composting because I'm not too sure about the logistics of it. My daily newspaper comes either in a plastic bag or with a rubber band around it. I'd like to figure out a way to have them reused.

Back in the old days garbage at dumps was burned & capacity was not terribly limited. All kinds of awful toxins were released that way & bad things were leaching into the ground water. Now the landfills are sealed, which helps with the local pollution issues, but means no air gets in to break organic materials down.

Subject: RE: BS: Doing your Part
From: Raptor
Date: 30 Jul 03 - 06:41 AM

Clinton

Are you ignoring us?

Raptor

Subject: RE: BS: Doing your Part
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 31 Jul 03 - 01:24 AM

Seven-Eleven will let me bring my own thermal travel mug into the store to brew my cup of tea, and they'll even give me a discount on the price because I'm not using their cup.

We probably don't use more than three or four rolls of paper towels in a whole year now. I have a bundle of inexpensive wash cloths I bought at Sam's club that we dampen and use at mealtime for hand wiping, and that are grabbed for occasional mop up of spills. There were 50 or 60 cloths in the bundle for about $10. (We started this as a practical thing when the kids were little and just kept it up as they got big).

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Doing your Part
From: Raptor
Date: 31 Jul 03 - 06:45 AM

Paper towels and klenex, we compost, they disapear quite quickly.
And my garden is happy!

Clinton We,re serious we want to visit you and see you play! (no heckling)

Raptor