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.

Freecycle and a Recycling Robot

Good morning readers. The second week in a row I’m writing on a Monday morning. I do not like this trend. Hope everyone had a more relaxing weekend than I did. My weekend was full of traveling around Tucson and into Vail with a fellow Cat Scan classmate. We’re in the process of writing about how various golf courses in Tucson manage their water. We’ve taken a lot of photos but now it’s a matter of getting the interviews we want. Time is ticking away.

I didn’t get to talk to people about what they recycle but once again the internet comes through and so I found more interesting stuff you folks should check out. Last week I found this freecycle website and I looked a little more into it. Tucson has its own Freecycle Network group. There are 8,496 members in the Tucson group. The website didn’t look like much but the information it provided can be very helpful for those interested in joining. I want to reference a couple things from this website but please visit it anyway.

Here’s some brief information on the Freecycle Network:

“The Freecycle Network is open to all who want to recycle that special something rather than throw it away. Whether it's a chair, fax machine, piano or old door, feel free to post it. Nonprofit groups are welcome! One constraint: everything must be free, legal and appropriate for all ages. More info and list guidelines are sent on membership approval.”

For those who are interested in the statistics of the Freecycle Network and wonder how many joined, there’s a chart that shows it. The numbers fluctuate but it has come a way since beginning in 2003. This and more can be found at this website:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/freecycle/

I also found another website that’s full of materials that should be recycled. One product I haven’t brought up is yellow pages recycling. This website has a lot on recycled materials and I’m probably going to reference it again in the future. This is one section of the website on recycling yellow pages.

Yellow Pages
· The dye in these directories makes them unsuitable for normal recycling. Also large numbers are discarded around the same time, as a new edition arrives, and so much material would taint batches of paper pulp.
Most collection services will take Yellow pages through a box collection or from designated local collection points. Contact your local council for more information.

What Happens Next?
Yellow Pages are treated in a different way to other types of paper. Covers and glue are removed, pages are shredded and used in lots of imaginative ways: for animal bedding, Jiffy bags, cardboard and insulation for houses. An innovative scheme in Devon used shreddings beneath road surfaces to reduce noise. Near the Tewkesbury-based Highbed Paper Bedding company, some larger stables send used bedding for composting, so ensuring yet another ‘life’ and making maximum use of old Yellow Pages.

http://www.recyclingconsortium.org.uk/recycling/index.htm

I thought I’d leave you all with a funny article to read. This was on the same website where I found the recycling consortium index. It’s about a robot named Cycler and it teaches kids how to recycle. Kids were excited to see this recycling robot. It made me chuckle, did any of you have a recycling robot visit your school because I didn’t.

http://www.recyclingconsortium.org.uk/news/index.htm

Have a good week folks and stay relaxed.

If you wish to learn more about freecycle, read John DeDios story:

Freecycle Network Offers Tucsonans a Sense of Responsibility, Community

Good morning readers,

It feels weird posting on a Monday morning. I’m used to updating this on Sunday nights. Like any normal college student this last week was crazy. I put together a story on green foods and products and ran into some difficult people for interviews but got the job done. That’s all I can ask for.

I interviewed Mike Elton, the store director for Sunflower Market, and without asking a question regarding recycling he told me he recycles in his household.

“I try to buy products, like recycled cartons,” Elton said. “I recycle my newsprint and my cans and bottles.”

I know it sounds like basic recycling but hey every little bit helps. I thought to myself if he works at a place like Sunflower Market, I hope he recycles. Just kidding.

I also interviewed Joanna Kewin, the office manager at Destech, said she’d love to recycle more when her and her husband Sean get a house.

I found a couple of new websites on recycling that might interest you folks. If you get a chance, check them out. The first one I found is called The Green Girl Recycling Services. This company is out of Colorado and they go out and pick up your recycling. On the main page I noticed they pick up wood pallets and I don’t think I’ve mentioned anything about wood recycling on this blog. Unfortunately when you click on it, it says, “More info soon.” In the “About us section,” there’s information on various ways to recycle and how to prepare the items.

This is a list of what this company takes and what they don’t. Here are some items I thought were interesting. If you want to look at the whole list the site is:

http://thegreengirl.com/about.html

Hard-to-Recycle Items:1. Packing Peanuts-tied in plastic bag, books, sneakers, small scrap metals, clothing, computer components and loose plastic bags.

The following is a list of all of the items that The Green Girl recycles and how to prepare them for recycling.
Glass:
Jars and bottles only (Green, white and brown).
No dishes, mirrors, light bulbs, window glass, auto glass or drinking glasses
Please rinse glass out well, labels o.k.

Cans/Steel/Aluminum
Aluminum, tin and steel cans (rinse please)
Aluminum foil (please rinse if soiled)
Aluminum pie pans and go-to containers (rinsed)
No scrap metal with the aluminum please

Once again I recommended looking at the whole list.

This was a little less than what I’ve wanted to address but there’s always next week. This week I’ll look around this site called freecycle.org. Until then take care folks and have a relaxing week.

Waste Recycling

Waste Recycling

Good evening readers. Another busy week down but another awaits. Hope everyone had a relaxing weekend.

Last Monday I visited Richard “Rocky” Brittain in his office to interview him for a story I was doing on graywater. After our conversation, I shifted to the subject of recycling. He told me he separates and recycles his glass and paper. Then he brought up batteries and oil. I went brain dead because I had recycled my car batteries before but it completely slipped my mind. I couldn’t recall how oil was recycled.

“A lot of people don’t think about recycling their oil,” Brittain said. “All you have to do is drain the oil out of your car, take it to Checker Auto Parts and dump it into their barrels and it gets recycled.”

I learned something new that day.

Car batteries aren’t the only kind that can be recycled but also rechargeable batteries. Brittain mentioned power tool and little flashlight batteries could be taken to Home Depot.

This website on battery recycling is broken up into three categories: businesses, government/municipalities and household. I found these tips under the household section because it brought up some good points. People might think twice before throwing a battery away. The website is:

http://www.batteryrecycling.com/household.html

Benefits of a Battery Recycling Program:
· Keeps all the hazardous metals in one place
· The metals reclaimed are reused and put back into the manufacturing process to build more batteries
· The plastic is recycled to be used again
· The cost of landfilling the batteries is saved
· Establishes good environmental policy
· Saves natural resources
· Protects the future
· Conserves for future generations
· Countries have gone environmentally bankrupt by not managing their waste products. Recycling helps prevent this from ever happening!

The main website is:
http://www.batteryrecycling.com/?src=google

This last website I liked because it lists the locations in Tucson where people can take their batteries and oil for recycling. AutoZone and Checker aren’t the only ones listed. It showed locations for other types of recycling like aluminum and appliances. Scroll down and you'll find a lot.

http://www.cityoftucson.org/tcb/rd/rmbsr.htm

Enjoy folks and talk to you next week.

Buy It Recycled

Hello readers,

Another day in paradise. Hope everyone had a good weekend. For this week’s post I wanted to write about products I didn’t know could be recycled. I hit the jackpot because I found a website that displays various products and people can buy them. Now I could be a little out of date here, because before creating this blog the only things I knew that were recyclable were cans, bottles, and pizza boxes.

The overall site is:

http://www.ecomall.com/biz/recycle1.htm

I searched through it and the list of recyclable materials people can buy, to say the least, surprised me. I hope I’m not going to be one of those people who promote these products just so people would buy them, but I do want to reveal the ones that shocked me most to the point where I said, “Those things are actually recyclable?”

The only time I’ve “recycled” a bag of any kind is reusing a Ziploc bag for traveling. I put my toothbrush, toothpaste and deodorant in it and after I’d return from a trip, I would keep it around to use for the next vacation. On this website there’s a product called Bag-E-Wash (http://www.bag-e-wash.com/). It is a little appliance someone can put in the dishwasher to clean plastic bags and reuse them. I know people who use Ziploc bags to put a sandwich in and afterwards, reuse it for storing fruit. I can understand rinsing it out, but I’ve never heard of cleaning a bag in a dishwasher in order for it to be reusable. I thought that was an interesting tool.

Another site I found interesting had products from shoes to mattresses. This was the ultimate site for me in discovering what recyclable and earth friendly materials can be. The site is:

http://www.earthfriendlygoods.com/

I browsed through clothing, furniture, and accessories and there was a lot more. I was amazed how much was presented. It was one big department store online. The site also presented shoes and pet accessories like leashes and toys. I thought that was funny. The site explained a bit about the online store and how it grew just from people spreading the word.

This last site is:

http://www.chopstickart.com/information.php?info_id=2

I wanted to mention this site because the products here came from recycled chopsticks. The highlighted materials were necklaces, baskets and lamps. I’ve seen little ornaments made out of chopsticks at the Fourth Avenue Street Fair and a few times at The Tanque Verde Swap Meet but I never thought of them being made from recyclable ones. On the mission statement or “About Us” section, the idea is plain and simple that chopsticks people used in restaurants were thoroughly cleaned, sanitized and finally used for different creations. It is called Kwytza Kraft.

Hope you enjoy checking out the overall site. There is so much more. I’ll never look at recycling the same again after seeing all the ideas out there. Talk to you all next week.

UofA Recycling Part II

Greetings. Hope everyone had a good weekend. This week I had the pleasure of conducting interviews for a story I wrote in class on the new Architecture building at the UofA and how important green living is to the department. I spoke with Charles Albanese, the Dean of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, Ron Stoltz, the Director of Landscape Architecture and a professor in the department and Jackie Moxley from the Water Resource Research Center.

My interviews were very productive and a lot of recycling was incorporated with the whole construction process. During my interview with Albanese, he told me that the brick and concrete from the old building were detached, smashed and broken up. The pieces were then used to cover the ground. I thought that was a good idea because it keeps a part of the old building alive and fits it in with the new look. It would have been a waste of time and money if it all had been taken to the dump and disposed of.

During my interview with Moxley, who helped design a website that raises awareness of sustainability on campus (http://www.sustainability.arizona.edu/), she told me the issue has been raised of putting more recycle bins on campus.

“There have been lots of complaints among students, staff and faculty that there could be a lot more depositing recyclables. You just see a lot of bottles and cans in the garbage. That’s really frustrating. It should be really easy that you don’t have to go searching for bins to put it in or at least think about where you’re putting it and not dump it in the trash.”

It is a good idea to raise more awareness about recycling but regardless, there will always be people who don’t care. I think if more bins are placed on campus, there will be an increase in recycling.

Another campus organization Moxley mentioned was the Arizona Student Recycling Association (http://clubs.asua.arizona.edu/~asra/index.htm). The website has some photos from 2001 on America Recycles Day and a short mission statement along with contact information.

I also tried downloading this YouTube video but it wouldn’t let me play it on my blog. It was promoting Recycle Mania and posted last January by EcoCoordinator. Here’s the URL:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UWZVSJ5xV0

Enjoy folks and talk to you next week.

Recycle Blog (Part I)

Greetings. Since this is my first real recycling blog post, I thought I'd start with my own thoughts on the topic. Recycling has been a habit ever since I was in high school and the product that is the most recycled in my house today, is plastic bottles. My roommates and I go through countless water and green tea bottles. We just bought more at Costco yesterday and I noticed how much we recycle just from the packages the bottles come in. We filled up our recycle bin half way just from the cardboard boxes. On the back of those boxes it said, "Recycle Please."

Now that I've given a little incite into what my exciting week in recycling was I want to discuss a little bit about what I found out about recycling on the UofA campus. I'm sure a lot of us have seen the big bins in the Student Union that are separated by garbage and recycling. That has seemed to be a good idea because I see a lot of people separating trash from recyclable materials and I'm sure they're not even noticing.

The UofA has dedicated a website to recycling paper. This site gives the do's and do not's of what kind of paper to recycle. One part of the site that through me off was in the non-recyclable category. I've always been taught to recycle any cardboard material, phonebook and newspaper but on the site those are listed in the don't recycle category. Then a little further down, it said to recycle newspapers and magazines. I might be missing something but at the same time all I could think of was, "make up your mind." The site is: http://www.fm.arizona.edu/recycle/Paper%20Guide.pdf

In January, the UofA took part in a ten week competitive activity called Recycle Mania. The site is: http://www.life.arizona.edu/recycling/recycle_mania.asp. The competition was also between different halls and apartment complexes. The school that won got a trophy and was recognized by various medias. Check out the Power Point presentation they had, it was interesting. I didn't see an advertisement forthe next competition but I'll keep an eye out for it.

Check out http://www.life.arizona.edu/recycling/opening.asp. This site is dedicated to Residence Life and recycling. The highlight of the website is presented below with statistical information on students moving into the Residence Halls and La Aldea Graduate Housing.

2004 - Total Collected: 17 tons of cardboard
The recycling we did at hall opening saved:
289 trees
118,201 gallons of water
7,871 gallons of oil
9,979 pounds of air pollution
52.02 cubic yards of landfill space
69,309 kilowatt hours of energy

2006 - Total Collected: 25.2 tons of cardboard and 1.3 tons of polystyrene
The recycling we did at hall opening saved:
433 trees
177,301 gallons of water
11,806 gallons of oil
14,968 pounds of air pollution
78.03 cubic yards of landfill space
103,963 kilowatt hours of energy

Have a good week folks and talk to you next week.

Here we go

Hello everyone, my name is Ray Suarez and my topic for the semester is recycling. If I had a choice, green living wouldn't be my No. 1 conversation starter nor would recycling but this could be a pretty good learning experience.

In my blog for the semester I want to explore recycling for my knowledge as well as my readers. I want to take a look at different products that are tricky to determine whether they're recyclable or not. Some products have the recycle symbol but not all of them are recyclable. I want to explore the reasons why.

I want to find websites that explain the different ways to recycle and discover how local Tucsonans feel about recycling. I'm sure there are various recycling companies around town so I'm hoping to talk to supporters and employers/employees.

This link gives a list of recycling companies in Tucson. Enjoy folks.

http://www.tucson-spot.com/Recycling-Services-Equipment-Supplies/Recycling-Centers/Tucson-Recycling-Centers.htm

First Blog

School is a week away. This is it folks. After December I will have my bachelor's degree in Journalism. Three classes left. Cheers...here's to a very very quick semester.