Category Archives: Recycling

Recycling Myths

Recycling is one of the things people think of first when they think about being environmentally friendly. In some ways that’s a pity, as reduce and reuse really should come first, but recycling is nonetheless important, and one of the easiest for the government to encourage both individuals and businesses to do.

Recycling has improved greatly these past several years, but it’s still not great. Far more could be recycled, especially when it comes to paper. It is still easier in many areas to throw paper in the regular trash, whether you’re at home, work or out and about.

Myths about recycling abound, as many people don’t really think carefully about it.

One is that recycling is hard. This one really depends on where you live. Where I live it is ridiculously easy for the materials that are accepted. One bin, no sorting required. Other places require sorting, but do provide the bins. It’s not that common anymore for recycling to be difficult.

Some also claim that recycling takes up just as much energy as using new materials. Continue reading →

Is Recycling Worth it?

This should be an interesting thing to take a look at. I was reading over on Evolgen about whether or not it is really environmentally beneficial to recycle most goods.

Now, the concession is made that recycling aluminum cans is good, and nothing was said of other metals. Given the value of most metals I would expect them to in general be worth recycling.

However, there could be a case made that things such as paper and plastic take more energy to recycle than recycling saves. This is an arguement made by Penn and Teller on their show.

I’m pretty much a chronic skeptic, so when someone like Penn and Teller say it, I’m not going to take it too much to heart. But it can get me to thinking and exploring. Continue reading →

Goodwill’s E-Recycling Program

I was watching the news in my area talk about Goodwill’s program to recycle computer parts. What a wonderful idea. I headed right over to their site to learn more. After all, I do have an old computer we don’t use but haven’t disposed of yet. Wonderful to hear there’s a good way to do it.

They take all kinds of computer parts in my area. The unusable is recycled, the usable are used in job training programs.

This event runs until January 13 in the San Diego area.