we need to do more (recycling)

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 04 Aug 2002, and now archived in the Forum Library.

jade	04 Aug 2002
i was just thinking this morning......as i heard that it snowed in the middle of summer in calgary, alberta, canada yesterday! that we need to make a difference here............what we are all doing as individuals is NOT enough. we need to do more. i recycle, reuse everything that i can. we don't use tp, we use 4 ply flannel wipes that i make myself. we don't use disposable diapers or menstral pads, kleenex or paper towels. we haven't for 8 years now. when i purchase something i look at the amount of packaging that is used and this has an effect on whether i buy the item. we compost and grow as many trees as our yard will allow.............. but we need to do more! jade

amyel	04 Aug 2002
Jade, while I do agree with you, to an extent, and do recycle and compost as much as possible, it is not enough that we *do* more... For example, one major city (name escapes me at present *might* be Toronto!) has recently stopped its recycling program. Why? Because there weren't enough recycling companies to cope with the amount of recycling being brought in. The city's program was *too* successful in this instance, if you can believe that. Because there were not enough places to send it, and not enough plants to process the recycled material. While it is easy to blame *us* on all the weather, let's also not forget that mother nature, El Nino and La Nina weather patterns have existed a very long time. I believe some of the crazy weather patterns to be just plain cyclical. But I think we humans forget this and count on a regular weather cycle. I am interested in your "flannel wipes" instead of TP. Do you reuse these? Or dump them? If you dump them, how are they any more biodegradable then unbleached TP? (*NOT* trying to attack you here, just curious as to how you use these)...

jade	04 Aug 2002
hey, you can ask all the questions you want. i've assisted about 50 families in changing their bum wiping habits heehee i take nice thick soft flannel and make it into 4 ply bum wipes. this way you have lots of softness between your fingers and your bum heehee. they are approx. 3" x 6" in size. although i make them in varying sizes depending on the piece of flannel i'm using. i reuse alot of receiving blankets, sheet diapers, even flannel sheets etc. we have two bins beside the toilet.....one holds the clean ones, all stacked neatly and the other one holds the used ones. i wash them, just like i wash flannel diapers........4 drops of tea tree oil, in hot water. then into the dryer. no we don't touch the dirty ones, just turn the bin over into the washer. :D we are still using many of the original bum wipes or fbw's as we lovingly refer to them. (flannel bum wipes) that's 8 years of use and they are still hanging in there! kleenex is made from a single layer of flannel, stiched on the edges to avoid them coming apart in the wash.......and a bit larger. paper towels are even larger, although we have found that tea towells work fine instead. (and less sewing for me) i NEVER mind sharing this information. lots of men and women love using them, although i have a few friends that bring their own tp when they visit. doesn't bother me at all............i just know how much $$ and trees i've saved in 8 years! love jade

lunalafey	04 Aug 2002
I do as much as I can to recycle, I go as far as getting into my friends garbage and pulling out the bottles and cans, etc. I have 3 trash cans that I call G.A.P. each letter is painted on the side, G=glass, A= aluminum P= plastic. They are the "gap" between existance and extinction. My boys dad works at the festivals we have in the area as one of the recycling crew 'officers' as he says, It's a dirty job, but someone HAS to do it.

RedWood	04 Aug 2002
I agree we should all do more...But you also need to look at the cities an companys..we are made to recycle or get fined..but the Shop my mom works at is not made to recycle or the printers shop next door...The business..like the water bans we have..I personally do not water my grass...The businesses again are not made to follow...Write letters maybe? to newspapers etc..

Mermaid	04 Aug 2002
Quote: Originally posted by jade i NEVER mind sharing this information. lots of men and women love using them, although i have a few friends that bring their own tp when they visit. doesn't bother me at all............i just know how much $$ and trees i've saved in 8 years! That's such a cool idea jade, I'm going to start doing that once I get my own place or find flatmates who're sympathetic (My flatmates are the kind of people who would be probably consider me depraved and disgusting if I suddenly announced that I had a new ass wiping policy })...) As for the rest, i do my best but the place I'm living doesn't have a kerbside recycling collection (like it does for rubbish), and as I live out of town and don't have a car I find it really hard to get everything that could be recycled to a recycling bin! (though I like to thing that me not using a car sort of compensates ;))

jade	04 Aug 2002
we don't have curbside pickups either anymore.....so we collect it all and every two weeks we take a couple of car loads to the recycling depot. it's amazing how much a family of five can create in a couple of weeks! i understand what you mean, without a car, but if you saved it up......and you were going into town with a friend,....couldn't you perhaps get them to drop you by the depot? in light, jade ps here in bc, canada.......they have started giving money for many recyclables which i think is a great incentive! i donate my $$ to a local shelter for animals....they have it set up right there at the depot so it's easy to do!

RedWood	05 Aug 2002
i think money for recycling is a good idea..Like here in Michigan you have to pay a 10 cent deposit on pop...Well you get it back when you take it to the store..they should do that for everything..

Kaz	05 Aug 2002
here, and it's different for other parts of netherlands, i recycle milk and fruitjuice cartons, cans/tins, paper, "green" stuff, and plastic bottles. the rest is garbage. if, if if i could operate a sewing machine, this alternative for tp is a great idea. but i don't know how to make these sewing machines work and how to do this. this id so stupid, i can work with any machine, for wood, metal etc, but not textile fabrics :( kaz

Mermaid	06 Aug 2002
Quote: Originally posted by jade i understand what you mean, without a car, but if you saved it up......and you were going into town with a friend,....couldn't you perhaps get them to drop you by the depot? LOL Jade, thanks for the suggestion but this is a student town... only one of my friends has a car so I don't get a ride into town that often! I do take the tin and aluminium cans and waste paper on the bus to the recycling place every now and then, but I mostly skip the plastics ... pure laziness, but it's such a hell of a trip carrying big bags of clinking recycling on the bus, and then walking allthe way to the depot... Quote: My grand recycling scheme (just in case the prime minister decides to ask me my opinion on the subject, you never know :P) is that weekly kerbside pickups of washed and sorted recyclables should be done for free... but pick ups of bags of 'rubbish' should be charged back to the house by the council at the end of the month. How's that for making recycling easier? Love

jade	06 Aug 2002
excellent idea! i pay for my garbage pickup.....$30 for three months. and i would love to have my recyclables picked up too. in light, jade

RedWood	06 Aug 2002
We have to pay 1 dollar a can..recycling free..What ticks me off..Is I live in Plymouth CIty..which is dinky..surrowndint the city is Plymouth Township..they do not have to pay for their pick up..Plymouth City gets tons of money..I dont think we should have to pay for garbage..atleast recycleing is free

jade	07 Aug 2002
wow, that's cheap! i pay $2.50 a can! in light, jade

Mermaid	07 Aug 2002
Here rubbish pickup is included in your household rates (which are paid to the city council). So if you're flatting like I am, you don't have to pay because you don't own the house - the landlord pays the rates. I wouldn't mind paying for rubbish collection, but only if recycling was free (or heavily discounted)...

Diana	07 Aug 2002
The Swiss are champions in recycling. It's part of our culture now. Glass (very often recycled by colours), plastic, batteries, electrical appliances (we pay a recycling tax for them when we buy them), paper, aluminium, compost. You name it, we have it. In some cities, there are even schemes for repairing and recycling old or broken toys. More and more communes are introducing a rubbish bag tax, i.e. you can't just use any old bag to throw your rubbish away. You can only use an official one approved by the municipality, and it costs quite a lot of money. So people are really careful what they throw away. Kids grow up finding it absolutely normal to recycle, which is a good way to grow up.

catlin	07 Aug 2002
Recycling in Germany is similar to the Netherlands and Switzerland but what bothers me a lot is the fact that we still have to pay fees for the introduction of this recycling system called "Grüner Punkt" this made prizes go up for stuff as most companies took chance to make stuff more expensive, besides, we pay for the normal litter bins (and this is not cheap!). Furthermore, we have yellow plastic bags to put all the plastic recycle crap in but the problem is that rats and mice love to chew the bags open so there is a problem with rats and mice in the city. Instead of putting up yellow plastic litter boxes as it it done in Heidelberg or setting up a programe with spayed stray cats to get rid of the mice (this would also reduce the number of them in the local animal shelter), the local community places out poison.

mara	07 Aug 2002
Here in The Netherlands we are also (as the Swiss are :)) champions at recycling. The way it goes here is the same as in Zwitzerland. We recylcle glass by the colour (bins at every supermarket) and cans, batteries, plastic, just about everything. We also have to pay a recycling tax for electrical appliances (even for the really small ones like eg walkmans and stuff like that). They pick up large electrical appliances for you if you don't have the transport to bring them to the depo (like we do). Each home has two large bins a gray one for regular garbage (non recyclable) and a green one for compost things like food scraps and garden scraps. And also every second Saturday of the month they come and collect all paper and cardbord stuff to be recycled (newspapers, magazines, junkmail etc.). All you have to do is place it at the same pickup area as where they collect the regular house garbage every week. So over here in The Netherland it makes it pretty easy for people to recycle and anyone who doen't (over here that is ;)) is just plain foolish or lazy!!! I mean it is practically all arranged for you and all you have to do is put it in the proper bin or make a phone call for it to be collected. I my self (and my family of course) am all for recycling. I recycle everything from cardboad packaging, food packaging to glass (by the colour), plastic, paper, batteries, appliances and food and garden scraps.......but that tp idea needs a bit of sinking in I think ;) Mara

wavebreaker	07 Aug 2002
Apart from all the recycling (as Mara already described it) I also use so-called "green" electricity. This means that most of the electricity I use is solar energy or wind energy. And obviously I try to use as little electricity and water as I can.

jade	07 Aug 2002
i wish canada and the us would come on board with your countries. when i lived in my other house and town, we were able to recycle EVERYTHING and for free. we had a huge bin with an orange band around it that we put the composting in.............everything from chicken bones to pizza boxes was accepting in that one. i was putting out a little bag of garbage a week and that was it. now in this town, they don't pick up recyclables and there's no composting garden set up............so my two huge composts are getting full sooooo quickly :( i love the earth so much and it saddens me to see it filled with rubbish. love jade

debins	07 Aug 2002
we have two recycling boxes picked up once a week: grey for all paper products and blue for plastics--both rigid and soft, glass, styrofoam, aluminum. My husband and I are careful to recycle as much as possible in this way and put out only a very small bag of biodegradable garbage. There's no compost--garbage facilities. But our neighbours don't seem to use the recycling boxes "religiously". They seem to make token efforts. My sister in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, has NO recycling pick-up at the curb whatsoever. I was shocked when I last visited her to see her throw a plastic dishwashing liquid container into the "garbage" can. She said there was a depot somewhere in the city if she elected to drive there and deposit her recycling material. I have also switched to biodegradable cleaning products. Jade, that's quite a planetary gesture: you and your flannel wipes. Are you washing the flannel wipes with biodegradable, "natural", soap? P.S. No, Toronto has NOT stopped its recycling program despite that horrific City workers strike that caused "garbage" to be piled in the streets. Such shameful, headline news. Overall, I think the majority of people don't care enough. HOwever, I've noticed in the workplace that people are easily lead to be better stewards on this planet if guided by people who do care. Programs are easy to set up and people will take notice and participate. MY SOAPBOX FOR THIS SPEECH HAS BEEN MADE OF 100% RECYCLED MATERIAL. Namaste, Debins.

Mermaid	07 Aug 2002
Quote: Originally posted by tarotlady Apart from all the recycling (as Mara already described it) I also use so-called "green" electricity. This means that most of the electricity I use is solar energy or wind energy. :confused: Do you mean that you get to pick where the electricity you use comes from Tarotlady? How does that work? (Over here you can pick a different power company to supply your house, but the electricity all comes from the same power stations to begin with.)

Kaz	08 Aug 2002
yep, we have the green electricity here as well. people can choose if they want regular or green, green is a bit more expensive here, but loads of people have green. (me too) and, to save electricity cut back on machines that use a lot, like washdryers (laundry drying machine) and microwave, i don't have these. for lightbulbs use those special energy saving ones, "spaarlampen" , i don't know if these exist in other countries as well. if you buy new electric machines, here they are divided in classes, A for low energy use, to E for high energy use, and all in between, so you can see what you buy. edited to add: mermaid the green electricity they produce on demand i believe, if more peeps want it they need to produce more, it's not i GET green electicity, it's in ratio. if 20% wants green then 20% of the total delivered electricity is green. tarotlady, please correct me if i am wrong coz i am not sure. kaz

jade	08 Aug 2002
wow, i would LOVE that and would gladly pay more for green electricity. come on north america.........catch up! jade

wavebreaker	08 Aug 2002
Quote: Originally posted by Kaz edited to add: mermaid the green electricity they produce on demand i believe, if more peeps want it they need to produce more, it's not i GET green electicity, it's in ratio. if 20% wants green then 20% of the total delivered electricity is green. tarotlady, please correct me if i am wrong coz i am not sure. I'm not sure how exactly it works either. You can choose your own power company and then you can indicate whether you want regular or green electricity. I suspect it's like you're saying, kaz, I can't imagine how they would be able to "divide" the different types of electricity, for example sending me the green electricity and my neighbours the regular electricity. Most of the green electricity is created here in the Netherlands, but some power companies buy it in other European countries if they don't have enough to meet the demand. The types of energy used are solar energy, wind energy, energy from hydroelectric power stations and energy from burning compost. As for paying extra: I don't mind that at all, but I really think that regular energy should be more expensive. Not all power companies charge extra though.

Diana	13 Aug 2002
I've just read in the news that Switzerland recycles about 45% of all it's rubbish. We recycle 64% of our paper, 82% of our PET plastic, 91% of our aluminium, and 91% of our glass. We still need to make more of an effort for all the rubbish that can be turned into compost. Trouble is, we're producing more and more rubbish. So now they're planning ways to see how we can produce less, especially when it comes to packaging. I was really glad to read this.

catlin	13 Aug 2002
Just a comment on green electricity: most ppl are not aware of the damage done by wind energy. The big rotors disturb with their noise breeding sea birds and otehr animals living on the shores, the fundaments of these things have to bevery deep so there are deep holes bored into the shores. Pl think also of the CO2 which is caused by burning compost.

wavebreaker	13 Aug 2002
Obviously, green electricity has its disadvantages too, but on the whole, I think it's still better than conventional electricity. Wind energy for example is free, non-polluting and produces no emissions. And unlike energy based on fossils, we'll never run out of it. Talking of fossils: what about the damage done to the environment by mining them, by oil drilling, not to mention oil spills at sea during transport... So as long as there's no better solution, I'll go for green electricity instead of conventional electricity.

floracove	13 Aug 2002
In my opinion, I think that the stores should have a mini~recycle bin for you to put your already seperated items into.... Or the schools or even churches that are trying to raise money for something, should have a mini~ recycle bin. And then what ever is recycled and given money for (if that's done) would go to benfit what ever was most needed.

Mermaid	13 Aug 2002
Wow green electricity sounds really cool, I wish they'd do that over here.

Kaz	14 Aug 2002
tarotlady and other dutchies: have a look here, guaranteed green electricity, and it's cheaper than dirty electricity :-) isn't that GREAT ???? http://www.greenchoice.nl/ kaz

wavebreaker	15 Aug 2002
Check out this website, here you can send a message to the world leaders who will be getting together for the Johannesburg Summit at the end of August to decide on measures to conserve our natural resources. Let them know what you think!!

purplelady	18 Aug 2002
Recycleable toilet paper! Gotta smile at that one! Not to say that it isn't a good environment- friendly idea! At my old apartment complex for a time they had set-up where a company left 4 big bins out for recycling, I think for newspaper, cans, glass , and plastic. I put a lot of newspaper in there! I read somewhere that the Chemicals used to recycle paper actually pollute though! So what do you do about that? I don't know the details but just remember reading it. I also heard that if Hemp were allowed to be grown we could save A Lot of trees ( to make paper and a lot of other products) . But that the logging industry is especially against Hemp (I wonder why?) Hemp is related to marijuana, or is a type of marijuana, But it does not get you high. In times past it was grown and used for paper, rope, clothing etc. It's cheap and easy to grow.

jade	18 Aug 2002
hemp is way better than cotton and would solve alot of problems if it was grown in larger quantities. :D jade

The we need to do more (recycling) thread was originally posted on 04 Aug 2002 in the Chat board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Chat, or read more archived threads.