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
My Recycling
This crate is filled once a week and taken to the big blue bin for Saturday recycling
Monday, October 8, 2007
Monday, October 1, 2007
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.
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.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
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.
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.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
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.
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.
Monday, September 10, 2007
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.
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.
Monday, September 3, 2007
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.
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.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
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
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
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