E-cycling News on Recycling

Afterlife for Empty water bottles- shove those bottles uner the carpet

Responsible Recycling- You pay to get labour intensive, hard to recycle stuff, recycled

EnergyCalculator- so what are the stakes of your device

Why Recycle

• Good For Our Economy -companies rely on recycling programs to provide the raw materials they need to make new products.
• Creates Jobs
• Reduces Waste
• Good For The Environment -Recycling requires far less energy, uses fewer natural resources, and keeps waste from piling up in landfills.
• Saves Energy -Recycling offers significant energy savings over manufacturing with virgin materials.
• Preserves Landfill Space -No one wants to live next door to a landfill. Recycling preserves existing landfill space.
• Prevents Global Warming
• Reduces Water Pollution -Making goods from recycled materials generates far less water pollution than manufacturing from virgin materials.
• Protects Wildlife -Using recycled materials reduces the need to damage forests, wetlands, rivers and other places essential to wildlife.
• Creates New Demand -Recycling and buying recycled products creates demand for more recycled products, decreasing waste and helping our economy.

Recycling Facts
• Recycling a ton of paper saves 17 trees, two barrels of oil (enough to run the average car for 1,260 miles), 4,100 kilowatts of energy (enough power for the average home for six months), 3.2 cubic yards of landfill space and 60 pounds of air pollution.
• Americans throw away enough aluminum to rebuild their entire commercial fleet of airplanes every three months.
• Recycling creates six times as many jobs as landfilling.
• Recycling glass instead of making it from silica sand reduces mining waste by 70 percent, water use by 50 percent and air pollution by 20 percent.
• Recycling just one aluminum can saves enough energy to operate a TV for three hours.
• The energy saved each year by steel recycling is equal to the electrical power used by 18 million homes each year
• If every U.S. household replaced just one roll of 1,000-sheet virgin fiber bathroom tissues with 100 percent recycled ones, it could save 373,000 trees, 1.48 million cubic feet of landfill space and 155 million gallons of water.
Sources: Eco-Cycle, Environmental Defense Fund, Colorado Recycles, Steel Recycling Institute, Seventh Generation Co.

Simple Stuff You can Do to Make a Start

• Ebills- say no to paper bills
• Online transfers
• Re-Using 1 side used paper- taking notes, printing, converting to tiny notepads- use it for must writes like recipe notes, shopping lists, grocer bill track etc
• Printing on both sides
• Not printing at all
• Using a white board on your office wall / desk / calendar for short term notes instead of paper
• chalk & slate/ magnetic board for kids instead of paper and pencil for general doodling
• Recycling packing foam/ cartons
• Using bottles/ beakers/ cracked vase as planters- they look overtly pretty too
• Using large calendars for lining cupboards
• Converting old cotton dresses to kitchen napkins/ wipes