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.