Hazardous Disposal Recycling Hazardous Waste, and we all know by now that recycling is a good thing, but recycling hazardous waste (or trying to) can be just as hazardous as throwing them in the trash. Here are some tips for the disposal of hazardous waste.

1. Contact your local solid waste authority, environmental protection agency, or household hazardous waste center. These agencies can guide you in how to recycle dangerous things and help in hazardous disposal.

2. Car batteries should be returned to the place where you purchased the car or the car battery. Continue reading “Hazardous Disposal Recycling Hazardous Waste” »

How to save money going green in easy steps, and one of the best things about going green and saving money is that the two principles go hand-in-hand. Here are some steps you can take to implement both of these ideals.

1. Buy seasonal, local food. This is eco-friendly because it reduces “food miles,” thus saving fuel. It saves you money because seasonal, local produce takes less effort to grow and to transport. (You have to pay for a lot of extra energy if you’re buying hot-house tomatoes in the middle of January.)

2. Combine your shopping trips. This will save fuel – you buy less of it, and fewer emissions go into the atmosphere. Continue reading “How to Save Money Going Green in Easy Steps” »

City Trash Pickup

We have compiled a list of the more populous regions of the country and added links to their waste disposal sites. Some of these sites have some many links it can take hours just to weed through a bunch of useless links. So in trying to keep things simple for you, we have made this list. If you wish us to add a site, feel free to send us a line on the contact us page. Thanks and have a good day!

Albany, NY. City of Albany Trash & Recycling

Albuquerque, NM. City of Albuquerque Solid Waste Management Department

Amsterdam, NY. City of Amsterdam Garbage & Recycling Pickup
Continue reading “City Trash Pickup” »

Originally posted 2010-04-10 16:56:15. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

How to stop junk mail no littering for our environment, ahhh, junk mail – all those unwanted credit card solicitations, flyers, and requests for money – is a bother. It is also an environmentally-destructive practice, particularly because it is done on such a large scale. It has been said that Americans receive 4 million tons of junk mail annually. That is a whole lot of trees. Not only that, but unwanted junk mail ends up as litter on streets, in oceans, and in landfills.

Where does all that junk mail come from? Well, you receive junk mail because someone, somewhere has obtained your name and address. That brings us to the first tip on stopping junk mail and its subsequent littering of the environment. Continue reading “How to Stop Junk Mail No Littering For Our Environment” »

Disposal of food waste recycle food waste smart ways to reduce your home food waste, as sometimes it seems like we throw out more food than we eat. While that probably isn’t true, the average household does waste a lot of food. Here are some ideas for cutting down your home food waste.

Food Waste Composting

While you are still discarding the leftover food when you compost, you are recycling it into a useful substance that can be used to grow more food (or anything else you like) in the garden. Only compost food that has no other use and can’t be recycled in the kitchen anymore. Food waste composting is a very efficient way for the disposal of food waste. Continue reading “Disposal of Food Waste Recycle Food Waste Smart Ways to Reduce Your Home Food Waste” »

There are so many ways to compost your food waste. There is some sort of composting option for everyone! Here are some of the ways you can compost your food waste.

1. Trench Composting

If this is allowed in your area, trench composting is a very simple and odor-free method that can be done easily without a great deal of effort. Basically, you dig a hole or trench near the plants you want to fertilize with compost. The shape doesn’t matter – it depends on your garden or lawn needs and lay-out. Continue reading “Different Ways of Composting Food Waste” »

China is one of the latest places to ban non-biodegradable plastic bags from supermarkets, grocery stores and markets. The notice includes a ban on the production of ultra-thin plastic bags (thinner than 0.025 mm) that are not biodegradable. New criteria will be made on the production of plastic bags while more durable plastic bags still will be permitted for sale by markets and shops.

In order for people to comply with the ban the notice says that government at various levels must be responsible and those who fail to observe the ban will face disciplinary penalties. The ban takes effect shortly before the Beijing Summer Olympic Games which has already speeded up other measures to try and reduce pollution and smog in the capital.

Cloth grocery bags, which were barely seen in China before the ban was issued, becomes the must-have for every family. Prices range from free to several hundred yuan RMB, which indicates a new business and a huge market. At an import and export fair last month, a variety types of cloth bags were shown by some fabric companies who are eager to open up the marker originally belonged to the plastic bags, according to Xinhua news.

Wise Companies Take This Opportunity to Give Free Promotion Gift Bag

This “Green bag” business does not only benefit the fabric manufacturer. Epson launched its grocery bag design competition and Nokia gave out its fancy cloth bag for free to housewives in some communities in Beijing several weeks ago. Of course, those bags all have their companies’ logos on, which might be a kind of “soft ad”.

Some local real estate agents are more straightforward – just put their ads on the bags and everyone who carries this bag help to promote them. Greenbang could not imagine life without plastic bags a few months ago, and was worried about how the ban on plastic bags really carried out and whether people would accept this “radical” policy. But it seems going well at the moment, and with the help of so many pretty grocery bags, people will get rid of their relationship with plastic bags soon. In case the same embarrassing thing happens again in the supermarket, Greenbang now puts a grocery bag in her handbag.

The value of promotional gifts in today’s competitive marketplace can’t be underestimated. Many businesses nowadays turn to promotional gifts to help them enhance their brand awareness, improve customer loyalty and increase sales.

A very common promotion gift is bag, but at this time, many companies changed there previous plastic bag to the cotton or nylon one, trying to catch up this coming trend and the receiver are also happy to got this kind of bag, since it’s very practical . A lot of people are collecting this reusable bag for daily use so that they will not feel too nervous when the day really comes. As to I know, lots of people will not get used to this trend soon since we seem to can’t get around without plastic bags. I was worries sometimes when it comes to buying fish from the food center, you know, the fish is so smelly and dirty, what should I do then.

What Other Countries Have Done to Prevent Plastic Pollution

Elsewhere in the world, such as in South Africa, Ireland, Taiwan and Bangladesh, legislation has already been introduced to cut the use of plastic bags. Last year, San Francisco became the first US city to ban petroleum-based plastic bags in large grocery stores while in Germany retailers must pay a recycling fee if they wish to offer bags. Other supermarket chains, such as Delhaize of Belgium, and a number of competitive retailers in New Zealand have taken it upon themselves to stop distributing plastic bags at the check-out.

This demonstrates the way the government can simply declare an end to a technology for environmental reasons, even a 1950s technology like plastic bags. Whether enforcement will actually end plastic bags is not something I care to guess about.

Cannot Imaging Life Without It? Well, not that Horrible at all!

It’s a fact of life in China that just about anything comes in a little plastic bag. That’s all about to change: In what all reports are calling a surprise move, the central government has banned ultra-thin plastic bags and will require regular bags to be sold with a clearly marked price starting June 1.

The bags subject to the ban are even thinner than what I was used to–less than 0.025mm thick. I first encountered them when buying j?anb?ng, known as Chinese crepes or Chinese pancakes, at a university convenience store. Once the 25-cent treat was ready to eat, the cook slipped it in a tiny sack, and I walked off to savor my junk food. These bags started accumulating in my trash bin. Fried noodles came in them, as did roasted nuts, baked goods, and fruit, among other things. I can only imagine that these ultra-thin bags deteriorate faster than the stronger ones.

There’s even some hope that the pay-for-bags structure may make the sort of biodegradable bags used at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 appealing to more people. At the very least, one hopes the 2008 Olympics in Beijing will deal with waste gracefully.

In China, it is becoming a fashion in many places for people to carry cotton bags or bamboo baskets when purchasing goods. There are even cool-designed cotton bags for fashionable young people. In markets, many people are now accustomed to saying, “I don’t need plastic bags.”

Committee accepts Danville trash bid; recycling on hold
In what was at times a contentious meeting Friday, the Danville Recycling Committee voted to advise the city commission to accept the low bid for the new 10-year solid waste contract, but put off making a recommendation about whether to pursue curbside recycling.

Read more on The Danville Advocate-Messenger

Recently, I was invited to a party. The hosts were lovely, the home was large and beautiful in a well-to-do area. Everything about the day was fantastic, except for one thing…they didn’t recycle.

I noticed glass bottles in the trash, I thought maybe some partygoer made a mistake. Then I noticed another and another, no mistake.

Does their township not offer recycling? I can’t imagine these intelligent, well read people would have a blatant disregard for the environment. I didn’t ask. That would be poor etiquette.  I should have though, I could have at least taken those bottles with me and recycled them at my house.

It leaves me wondering, why don’t they recycle? Cans, bottles and paper are the most widely recycled products in the nation. Why not there? I am sure there are many areas of our country that are still in the dark about recycling. We are the self-proclaimed leaders of the world, yet many other countries have far surpassed us environmentally.  There are some countries, such as Sweden where composting your food scraps is mandatory.  They have been able to reduce the amount of green waste going into the landfill drastically.   Food scraps will not effectively breakdown inside a plastic bag in a landfill, in fact it contributes to the production of methane gas, one of the leading destroyers of the ozone.

It is our responsibility, to hold our government and ourselves accountable. The USA is more than capable of implementing recycling in every state, county and municipality… we should insist on it.

It is more cost effective over the long term to have these programs in place.  Recycling products, makes new products with  a smaller footprint than products using virgin materials.  Recycling saves thousands of acres of landfill space every year.  Recycling also reduces the amount of methane gas being produced in landfills and chemicals from leaching into our soils and making its way into our ground water supply.  Once the damage is done, it is difficult and costly to undo.

As my Mother always said, “Do it right the first time and you won’t have to go back and do it again.”  We only have one country, one Earth, we should honor it, revere it and take care of it.  Over the last 100 years of the world’s growth we have taken for granted that the Earth would just sustain.  It would always be here for us to manipulate it and abuse it as we chose.

What can one do if recycling is not offered in your area?  Take Action, write a letter to your local newspaper, the township officials and your county freeholders.  Make everyone aware of the damage that is being done.  You voice will be heard.  Get children involved in your quest for a better world.  Children are innovative thinkers and can make a real difference.

For example:  Recently a local Boy Scout Troup in our area provided a hard plastics pick up to their community. Hard plastics are items like: Plastic lawn furniture, kids molded plastic play sets, 5gal water bottles, etc. Any large hard plastic items. They sent out fliers, collected these items on a particular date and took them to the township Public Works Facility, where from there it was taken by the township to the County Recycling Facility. They collected over 500 pounds of hard plastic that would have ended up in the dump!

It does take some effort on our part to recycle hard plastics, however a quick trip to the Township Public Works Dept. will keep these items out of our landfills. They can then be recycled and turned into other useful products, like Polywood Furniture. By asking our local municipalities, maybe they will offer one or two pickups per year. By recycling these hard plastics we can save valuable space in our landfills.

These young boys made a difference in our community and our environment. We should all follow their example. If everyone nationwide would make this small extra effort to recycle, the effects would be staggering. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!

Vera Pappas is author of several articles on organic gardening and environmental issues and is owner of Green Nation Gardens, an online retailer of Green Living Products for the home and garden.  Visit greennationgardens.com today!

The smallest biodegradable trash bags that I can find are 10 gallons- still too big! Do you know if there are any grocery bag-sized ones out there? Maybe some tiny ones for scooping kitty litter,too?