Reducing Municipal Solid Waste.
Everything that goes into the trash stream took energy to produce. Expending energy to create trash seems like a big waste, doesn’t it? On top of the energy required to produce the trash, we then expend energy on throwing it ‘away’ - hauling it, burning it…
Reducing the amount of garbage you produce is a big energy saver. Here are some ideas on responsible waste generation/disposal. This is not exhaustive - we welcome your ideas on how to waste less.
PREvent waste before you reCYCLE!
Precycle!
The best strategy for dealing with trash—recyclable or otherwise—
is to not produce it in the first place.
Stop waste before it happens • Prevent waste at its source • Reduce the amount of waste we produce • MAKE LESS GARBAGE!
Be An Environmental Shopper
Look for..No Packaging
Buy in the bulk food section.
Buy fruit & snacks loose instead of in packages.
Bring your own canvas or reusable bags to the store.
Bring your own travel container for coffee, water etc.
Look For Minimal Packaging
Look for concentrates.
Buy larger sizes of products.
Reusables and Refillable Packaging
Refillable milk & soda containers
Choosing glass or aluminum over plastic is even precycling, as glass and aluminum create less hazardous waste in their manufacture and are more likely to come from recycled materials.
Choose the reusable alternative to disposable products.
@Home
A cloth towel instead of paper towels.
A reusable razor instead of disposable ones.
A mug instead of paper or plastic disposable cups.
Washable plates or china instead of disposable plates.
Cloth napkins instead of paper napkins.
Rechargeable batteries instead of disposable batteries.
Get off unwanted mailing lists.
Save and reuse boxes, mailing tubes, and Styrofoam "peanuts."
Donate used clothing and appliances to charities.
@ Work...
Make double-sided copies.
Circulate, instead of distributing individual copies of memorandums, letter and magazines.
Periodically review mailing lists, remove duplicates
Consolidate mailings whenever possible.
Use E-mail whenever possible.
Get off unwanted mailing lists.
Save and reuse boxes, mailing tubes, and Styrofoam "peanuts."
Bring reusable dishes, mugs/cups and silverware to the office instead of disposables.
@ School...
Use both sides of paper.
Save and reuse boxes, mailing tubes, and Styrofoam "peanuts."
Reuse three-ring binders, Manila folders, pocket folders, report covers and other school and office supplies. Use reusable dishes, cups/mugs and silverware.
Bring "reusable lunches" to school (bring your lunch in a lunch box or canvas bag, plastic sandwich holder and reusable drink container.
Close the loop
After you’ve precycled everything you can think of, RECYCLE!
Is your trash someone else’s treasure? Check with local charities & consignment shops. Use clothing drop bins, many of which support local or national charities. All textiles that are not reusable, things you’d call rags, can be dropped at the blue clothing bins at the DPW garage. These textiles are shredded & repurposed into new material.
Note that corrugated cardboard is a valuable resource: the MRF actually employs workers to separate it out by hand.
With regard to glass & plastics recycling, returning bottles for deposit is better than putting these out for town pick up. When a bottle is returned, it helps strengthen the system and promotes stronger bills, such as the “bigger better bottle bill.” http://www.nypirg.org/enviro/bottlebill/.
Wire hangers are recyclable at the drycleaners. Do not leave them out for pick up with commingled
Plastic bags are not recyclable at the curb – you can bring plastic bags to the grocery store where they provide a bin for collection & recycle the plastic into bags!
The official word from the MRF is that books are not recyclable. You didn’t hear this here, but… paper from books can be recycled (if you are unable to donate them); you must remove the spine and hard cover and recycle just the paper.
Finally, send in recyclables in clean condition, for the sake of the MRF workers! The small bit of juice or milk in the bottom of a container rapidly adds up when there are thousands of containers, and creates a noxious environment for MRF employees (not to mention encouraging pests).
What about stuff you can’t precycle or recycle?
- If it’s organic waste, compost!
Organic waste comprises approximately 1/3 of our municipal solid waste & it is often the heaviest stuff we throw out. Turning this “garbage” into nutrition for your garden or house plants is easy—and satisfying—if you’ve got a bit of space in your yard or can give over a corner of your kitchen to a worm bin.
On backyard composting:
On vermicomposting (worm bins):
OK there you have it.
1) You avoid making garbage in the first place in what you buy and how you use your purchases
2) What garbage you do make, be sure that you can either put it into the recycling stream or that you can compost it!
Well ok, we’ll still need to send some stuff to the incinerator. But if we all put a little more time and effort into dealing responsibly with our garbage, we can greatly reduce the current environmental insult on many levels.
Here’s to a healthy, happy, less wasteful New Year.
There is much to be discussed and understood about the end products of our consumer world. We will leave it at this for now, but welcome questions, concerns, and observations you have on all this stuff.
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