Signing Off

Good evening readers,

Since when did it get chilly in Tucson. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and a good “food coma” that took place afterwards. My Thanksgiving was fun. I got to see cousins I hadn’t seen in a while and one of them is having a baby. Congrats.

As I said last week, this is my last blog of the semester and it’s been an experience. I’ve never really been a so-called “green” individual. The most I’ve ever done as far as being “green” is recycle, which is why I chose the topic. Writing this weekly blog has been interesting because I understand more about what can be recycled. I think my favorite blogs to research were clothes recycling and the copper recycling. Those were the ones I remember most but overall there were so many websites on recycling. I didn’t think I could updating but there was a lot of information for you folks. Hope you all took some time to check out what I found and were able to expand on those searches.

As the semester comes to a close, I’ve been thinking about what I’ve learned in the class. First of all I learned I can be out of my comfort zone for four months and survive. Green living was a tough subject because I don’t constantly remind myself of environmental issues and it’s not one of the first conversations I start with someone. I have to admit I learned a lot about the topic. I have a greater appreciation for those who work to make a difference everyday.

Future students who are considering The Cat Scan, give it a shot. It is an interesting class even if green living isn’t your favorite subject. Get out of your comfort zone. It’s a way to gain new knowledge on a topic you know nothing about. You should come up with stories but your fellow students can help you as well. It’s also good to have someone to work with. Even if you prefer to work alone at least work with a classmate or two on special projects. Don’t whine or complain because that won’t get any work done. Come up with ideas, do your stories, keep everything updated (blogs, online journalism article searches) and do the best you can because all of this will make the semester go fast.

Have a great holiday season everyone. Remember to STAY RELAXED.

Raymond Suarez

Copper Recycling

Good afternoon everyone.

Yes it is light outside and it is still Friday so there’s still a weekend ahead but probably not for me. I got projects and tons of reading to do which is why I’m updating now. For those of you who enjoy taking naps, take one for me this weekend.

This week I had a hard time thinking of what to research so I turned to the creative minds of my dad and my brother. They kept giving ideas I had already discussed and then copper recycling was mentioned. This topic was a good choice for the blog, especially this week, because the lights have been flickering on and off at my house for the past week.

Copper is 100 percent recyclable and can last a long time. Checking out various websites on copper recycling and seeing how much information is on it, I was surprised but at the same time I hadn’t research it. A site called CopperInfo is pretty straight forward and gives percentages on how often it is recycled. It said the recycle rate of copper is 80-85 percent and it can be remelted without further processing. I thought the next paragraph was interesting because it said 80 percent of all copper ever mined is still in existence. It has been recycled and used over and over again. Look around your house and check out the copper, who knows when and where else it could have been used.

Speaking of the household, here’s another site that has to do with copper recycling within the home. It is from The Copper Development Association and it gives ideas on ways to recycle copper within the home like cookware and of course coins. Here a couple of facts I thought would be helpful to see right off the bat. Check out the rest of the site because the facts I show here might not be as important to others readers:

• Known worldwide copper resources are estimated at nearly 5.8 trillion pounds, of which only about 0.7 trillion pounds (12%) have been mined throughout history - and nearly all of that amount is still in circulation, because copper's recycling rate is higher than that of any other engineering metal.

• Each year in the USA, nearly as much copper is recovered from recycled material as is derived from newly mined ore. When you exclude wire production, which mainly uses new refined copper, the amount of copper used by copper and brass mills, ingot makers, foundries, powder plants and other industries shows that nearly three-fourths comes from recycled copper scrap.

• The United States does not depend on imported copper - we produce more than 95% of all we use each year!

Copper has quite the lifespan of 30 years according to this website called the International Copper Study Group. This site gives a lot of the same facts as the others but one statement from this site I found that could sum up copper recycling is this:

“Recycling is an important economic activity with significant environmental benefits. Not only does recycling copper result in more efficient use of natural resources, but it also results in energy savings and a reduction in material sent for final disposal, such as to a landfill.”

This could have been a more intelligent way of saying that recycling copper is significant because it can be produced for another future copper uses.
Finally, for my fellow Tucsonans I found a company called Recyco. I thought this website was the most detailed in terms of copper recycling in town. In fact, it gave a list of metals and other materials recyclable.

Non-Ferrous Metals include:

• ALUMINUM/ALUMINIO
• COPPER/COBRE
• BRASS/BRONCE
• STAINLESS STEEL
• ELECTRIC MOTORS/MOTORES ELECTRICOS
• LEAD/PLOMO
• SOLDER/SOLDADURA

Some examples of materials we purchase are:

• insulated wire
• electric motors
• radiators
• transmissions
• aluminum cans
• tubing, etc.

There are others like Desert Metals Recycling Inc. located at 3119 E Pennsylvania St, and Amcep at 4484 E Tennessee St.

Next week will be my last post on Recycle This. It will be thoughts on the last three months and blogs I had some fun posting. Until then STAY RELAXED.

Holiday Recycling

Good afternoon readers,

Hope everyone is having a good weekend and using the extra time to catch up on sleep. Exercise is overrated so take another nap. For those of you who checked out my blog last week on clothes recycling, I decided to expand on that by writing a story which should be posting on the website very soon.

This weekend I bought my dog some food at Target and notice they brought out all their Christmas decorations. They probably had them up on Nov. 1 but this was the first time I was aware of the display. For goodness sake, isn’t there any decoration that has to do with Thanksgiving? According to department stores, there aren’t. For this week I decided to find information on how to recycle for the holiday season.

My folks have been using an artificial Christmas tree for the last five years. It’s nice enough but there’s just something about the scent of a pine tree on Christmas morning. The City of Tucson website provides tips for people on what to recycle during the holiday season. Here’s a short list of what they suggest to recycle and what not to recycle:

Please DO recycle:
• greeting cards: recycle unless they have metallic, glitter, plastic or other non-paper coatings
• paperboard boxes that clothing or shoes might come in
• fiberboard packing materials (like egg cartons).

Please DO NOT recycle:
• plastic packaging, toys, etc.; the only recyclable plastics are #1 and #2 bottles and jars with necks and screw-on tops
• wrapping paper
• tissue paper
• ribbon, string or twine
• tinsel
• ornaments
• anything with food residue
• paper towels, napkins, plates, cups



When I saw the DO recycle list, I thought these things could be recycled at anytime, not just during the holiday season. Then not a minute after saying that came the TreeCycle portion of the site. The program was formed in 1997 and it said that 229,000 trees have been collected and reused. There’s also a list that reveals different locations to take Christmas trees. They collect them from Dec. 26 to Jan. 9.

The CharMeck website also has tips for holiday recycling but it also gives people gift ideas and ways to wrap gifts. For instance, there was one way to wrap presents that I thought was funny. It said, “Use old homework pages to wrap gifts. Grandparents love to see them.” If I gave my grandparents a present that was wrapped in my homework, I could hear my grandpa Suarez say, “What is this, are you too cheap to wrap my present. There’s too much red ink on this.”

On the site there are also tips for New Year’s. Of course it says to make your New Year’s Resolution to be more involved with waste reduction.

I found a website out of Fontana, Calif. with more holiday tips and facts. It said during the holiday season (Thanksgiving to New Year’s) 25 percent more trash is thrown away. That is 5 million tons more trash. This site gives more advice about what to get people that would help the environment. It informs shoppers to buy recycled paper cards. When it comes to holiday cards, it said 2.65 billion are sold in the U.S. and that was enough to fill a football field 10 stories high. That’s tough to imagine. What was also interesting in this site was that if every American family wrapped three presents in re-used materials, it would save paper that would cover 45,000 football fields. Check out the rest of the site, there’s more facts like these and it provides ideas for those who are stuck on gift ideas for family and friends.

Hope this information was beneficial for the holiday shopping season that will be here soon enough. Happy Veterans Day to all those who have and still are serving our country. Have a good week everyone and stay relaxed.

Clothes Recycling

Good evening folks, happy Sunday…oops wait a minute, there’s still one more day in the weekend. Thank goodness. Enjoy it while it lasts. This week was hectic covering Superior Courts and getting things organized for an ecotourism story Ali and I are finishing. That story should be on the website very soon.

I’m surprised I didn’t think of this week’s topic earlier but it came to mind this week. My brother and I putting bags and boxes together of old clothing that we’re planning to recycle. I thought I’d take a look at spots in Tucson to take this stuff to and also look and see what else old clothing can be used for.



A few places in town your clothes can be taken to are Savers, Buffalo Exchange and the Salvation Army thrift stores. I’ve taken my clothes to the Salvation Army a few times because it was closest to my house. This site has a list of the Salvation Army locations in Tucson and others in Sierra Vista, Nogales and Casa Grande.

I’m sure a lot of you are familiar with Savers and Buffalo Exchange. The Savers website I highlighted talks about the benefits of recycling. They don’t just want people to recycle their clothing but also toys, rags, books and sporting goods, just to name a few. I went to Buffalo Exchange one time, dropped off a huge bag and took off before they could look through it. I didn’t want to take any clothes back with me. This portion of the Buffalo Exchange site gives some interesting statistics of ways they’ve helped recycling over the past few years, along with their benefits of recycling customer clothing.

I told you folks I was eventually going to highlighted Tucson Clean and Beautiful once again. I discovered other locations where people in Tucson can recycle clothing. It is the fourth category after recycling CD’s/videos, cell phones and Christmas trees. Don’t hesitate to look at those either. There’s a pretty good list with more addresses and other kinds of contact information. Casa de los Niños and Big Brothers Big Sisters of Tucson are a few they present.

I actually found a site that informs people of doing more than just taking clothes to a store. People can also make new items that come from the recycled clothing. Ohio St. University produces a website called Recycling Clothing Using Your Sewing Skills. There’s a part of this site that was interesting that I think I’ll share live and it has to do with different things people can do. Here are a few categories:

From a Dress
1. A different dress for yourself or a child
2. A blouse for yourself or a child
3. A child's jumper or short set
4. A boy's shirt
5. A pair of shorts for yourself
6. A top to wear with pants

From a Skirt
1. A child's dress
2. A child's skirt or play suit
3. A child's coat or jacket if the skirt is heavy fabric
4. A blouse or vest for yourself

From a Man's Shirt
1. A child's skirt or blouse
2. A smock or apron
3. A blouse for yourself

Finally, here’s one more site that gives more ideas on what people can do with other household items like table cloths being turned into organizers and bed spreads made from blue jeans. The site is called The Dollar Stretcher.

Hope you all enjoy the rest of the weekend and have a relaxing week ahead.

Recycling Companies

Good morning folks. Another week in paradise is ahead. Saturday was a day of recycling in my neck of the woods. My brother and I hosted a Halloween party and we didn’t even have to remind everyone to recycle. We put the green bin outside and the bottles and cans piled up. Remember when I said it takes one week to fill our recycle bin, this week it took one night. Well done to all our guests. I went as Fredo Corleone from “The Godfather.” I can’t tell you how many people asked, “Who’s that?” Some people need to catch up on their movie history.

This week I thought I’d do a search for various recycling companies around the U.S. The websites I’m going to discuss looked interesting and ready to help raise awareness.

A website called CharMeck had lots of options for people who want to know what to recycle, how to organize it and where to leave it. I was more interested in how they promote their companies. This portion of the site gives a list of what to recycle and once you click on the hyperlink of each category, it takes you to the company listings and also gives addresses and phone numbers for comments and questions. If any of you have family and friends in North and South Carolina and if they’re interested in recycling certain products, tell them to browse through this site out.

For those interested in lamp recycling, here is a gem for you. This site has a list of addresses and emails to contact. I have to help my fellow Arizonans. There’s contact information for Earth Protection Services Inc. which has an office in Phoenix. The entire website is lamprecycle.org and the portion of the site I focused on was “lamp recyclers (U.S. and Canada).” The website as a whole is very detailed including the benefits of recycling florescent bulbs and also the state lamp regulations for every state.

The last site I want to bring up is about the Salvation Army. When I was a kid I remember donating clothes. I thought this would be a good opportunity to check out the Salvation Army site. This one I found discusses recycling in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. It highlights textile recycling and one statement in particular sums up what the Salvation Army is about to lots of people who are less fortunate.
“The income The Salvation Army receives from its recycling activities helps to fund beds for the homeless, cups of tea for the thirsty, food for the hungry, comfort for the lonely, sick and deprived, and much, much more.”

Well folks another week ahead of court reporting for Reporting Public Affairs and working on an Ecotourism story with Alison Slater, a fellow classmate. Check out her blog that has a video of our interview with Mark Frederickson, who teaches Sustainable Ecotourism. Enjoy, have a good week and stay relaxed.

Kids and Recycling

Kids and Recycling

Good evening folks, first off let me just say that this weekend was just what I needed. I’m a big fan of blues music and I got my fill. I saw B. B. King at the Diamond Center with my brother and some friends and today I went to Reid Park for the Blues Festival. For those of you who missed it I recommend going next October. Good food, music and it was free. Those who went really got spoiled.

For this week I thought I’d take a look at websites that involve kids and ways to teach them about recycling. The first site I found was called Just For Kids Recycling. In this site there are many questions about recycling and waste. Short answers are provided after clicking the question. One of the answers on what is considered recyclable mentioned that playground equipment can be recyclable. I learned something new today.

This next website gives lots of information on the three R’s (reduce, reuse and recycle) but the main reason I chose this website is because at the end of the page are lists to other linked sites. Kids can go in and search for facts and even participate in different activities to help them learn about recycling.

The website is:

http://kids.niehs.nih.gov/recycle.htm

The “Recycle” portion of this website gives a pretty good overall definition of recycling which I don’t think I added to this blog in the first week. That would have been a good way to start but hey, better late than never. Here is one definition of it:

“Recycling occurs when you save and take reusable materials to places where they can be remade into either the same product or new products, rather than to just toss them in the trash. Making new items from recycled ones also takes fewer energy and other resources than making products from brand new materials.”

In the next paragraph I thought it was interesting when it talked about recycling products like a soda bottle and how it could be made into “T-shirts, combs, or hundreds of other plastic goods that can be used for many years.” I can’t wait to drink a soda and think to myself, ‘this will be a comb I might buy at the store.’

This next site called Kids Recycle Page will also provide fun ways for kids to learn about recycling. More games and facts are provided. The search is a little easier as well.

Wal-Mart also seemed to get involved with children and recycling. This site discusses how children can help and which Wal-Mart locations kids can take bags of recycling to. Unfortunately entries were taken until August but something tells me this isn’t the only year this will happen. Good luck to future particpants. The website is:

http://www.kidsrecyclingchallenge.com/index.html

Hope everyone has a good week and stays relaxed throughout the chaos. Talk to you all next week.

Workplace Recycling

Good evening readers. Back to the Sunday night blog. Hope everyone had a good weekend. Mine was a little more relaxing which was nice. I went to Tucson Meet Yourself and ate. I’m glad my brother dragged me to it. It was just I needed. Hope you all like the new photo; it’s the recycling in my house. It might be time to take it out to the bin but we might be able to fit a few more things in there.

Tonight I want to talk about office recycling. I just got off work and the most recyclable item I noticed was printed paper. Just walking around I saw four bins with lots of paper but I didn’t see any spots for recycling bottles or cans, etc. I might have missed them but from quick glimpses I didn’t see any.

I searched and found this website that discussed ways to recycle around the workplace. The overall site is:

http://www.wasteonline.org.uk/resources/InformationSheets/WasteAtWork.htm

There were a few categories I focused on. The “recycling” and “key office wastes and what to do with each one of them.”

Recycling in the workplace, I have no doubt is being brought to the attention of more employees, but I think it depends on the work environment and the dedication of people to want to recycle. Some companies recycle one or two things but not others that are just as important. Take my example from earlier about the printed paper. Of course some people will participate more than others but reminding fellow employees to recycle just might make even a difference. I remember in one of my previous jobs, cardboard boxes were never thrown away.

To get very specific of the section I’m talking about, here’s the link:

http://www.wasteonline.org.uk/resources/InformationSheets/WasteAtWork.htm#_Recycling

There were lots to the “key office wastes…” portion. The bullets helped in reading ways to minimize stationary. I used to type letters to a friend of mine who lived in Massachusetts but I’d send them by mail. When she responded, she’d write in pen on the back of my computer printed letter. It’s good to reuse paper clips and scrap paper as well. A lot of things on this list seem to be easy to remember when working but I forget almost all the time.

Recycle
Set up an office paper-recycling scheme. White paper is of a high grade and so is in demand from the paper industry. The market for this quality is much more stable than lower grades.
Check with your current waste management company whether they offer waste collection services for recycling.
Get in touch with your local authority recycling officer to check the services available. These may include storage containers or compacting equipment for large amounts of waste paper, as well as the handling of confidential paper waste.
Send CDRoms for recycling (see contacts)
Recycle ink cartridges or refill for your own use
Encourage staff to participate in recycling by keeping them informed about recycling performance.
Train your staff on the segregation of waste and provide appropriate storage containers, which are clearly labelled.

http://www.wasteonline.org.uk/resources/InformationSheets/WasteAtWork.htm#_Key

This is similar to what I was talking about with reminding fellow employees about recycling. It would be a tough job and I think one of the most forgettable recycling materials is ink cartridges. When we run out of computer ink, recycling it isn’t the first thing that’s on my mind. The ink is out, well time to throw it away and get another one. I might have to reuse a sticky paper to remind myself.

Hope you enjoyed this folks. Have a good week and stay relaxed.