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Problems that solve other problems
Trash and recycling truck I came across a fascinating post on another blog called Using Garden “Problems” as Solutions. There is nothing really new about turning a problem into a solution. The author...
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Can you put dead batteries in the trash?
I had long thought it was illegal to put dead batteries in the trash. I said so in a group once and a friend immediately contradicted me. He’s a retired Regulatory Affairs Manager. His professional...
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27 Ways Not to Be Inundated With Trash at Home
On average everyone in America (including babies) generates as much at 5 pound of trash every day! How can that be? For every garbage can emptied at the curb, the amount of waste generated by obtaining...
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The High Cost of Not Recycling
This post is scheduled to appear on Christmas day, so Merry Christmas to all of my first readers. Christmas means many things, and all of the gift-giving also means that we will generate more trash...
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The World’s Largest Paper Wad, Belatedly Recycled
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency estimated how much paper Minnesotans throw away in 30 seconds and then combined that much into a giant ball to display at the Minnesota State Fair in August 2014....
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Crawling to the Paperless Society
Half a century ago, even before anyone ever thought of the World Wide Web or most of the gadgets we now use to access it, visions of a paperless society began to appear. Soon, futurists promised,...
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6 ways to turn waste plastic from a problem to a resource
Plastic is everywhere. You know that just chucking it in the recycling bin doesn’t solve the problem. In fact, most of it never gets recycled at all. That’s because in our wasteful society, plastic...
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18 Ways to Reduce Wastepaper at Home
Minnesota’s giant paper ball, which set a Guinness record. Do you remember the promise of the paperless society? Hah! We’re awash in paper. Not only paper for reading and writing, either. Making paper...
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A Bottle’s Journey
Have you ever wondered what happens to your recyclables once they’re hauled away from the curb? Plastic, metal, paper and glass must be sorted and subsorted. Many recyclable materials can never be...
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6 New Municipal Recycling Initiatives
Bales of recycled plastic ready for reprocessing When you go to look something up, you never know quite what you’ll find. If you don’t find what you’re looking for right away, you might find...
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Shipping Container Homes
Used shipping containers Recycling shipping containers to make homes solves two problems—the plethora of containers piling up at every port in the world and the shortage of affordable housing. Shipping...
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Why recycling can’t save the environment
No one talked or thought about recycling on that first Earth Day in 1970. Municipal recycling programs got off to a rocky start, but the recycling rate rose to 25% in the 1990s. In recent years it has...
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Focus on fly ash: a useful resource, not a toxic waste
Do you know how to annoy an engineer or scientist who works with fly ash (coal ash)? Call it a toxic waste. Environmentalists scorn climate change deniers’ resistance to science. Too many of them...
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Recycling industry takes a beating as prices plunge
Trash and recycling truck Do you remember when municipal recycling first started? If you do, you remember that some people assumed it would make a profit. What the city or county collects becomes a...
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EPR: is it a solution to our recycling crisis?
After the London marathon The recycling industry is in a crisis right now. Participation is low. Recyclables fetch low prices on the commodity market. Centers are closing. A concept called Extended...
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Food waste collection for community composting
Community composting collection area, Elwood, Melbourne, Australia The idea of food waste collection for community composting appears to have started almost by accident within the past few years. It is...
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A Bottle’s Journey
Have you ever wondered what happens to your recyclables once they’re hauled away from the curb? Plastic, metal, paper and glass must be sorted and subsorted. Many recyclable materials can never be...
View ArticleClik here to view.
6 New Municipal Recycling Initiatives
Bales of recycled plastic ready for reprocessing When you go to look something up, you never know quite what you’ll find. If you don’t find what you’re looking for right away, you might find...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Shipping Container Homes
Used shipping containers Recycling shipping containers to make homes solves two problems—the plethora of containers piling up at every port in the world and the shortage of affordable housing. Shipping...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Why recycling can’t save the environment
No one talked or thought about recycling on that first Earth Day in 1970. Municipal recycling programs got off to a rocky start, but the recycling rate rose to 25% in the 1990s. In recent years it has...
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