Recycling Myths: PM Debunks 5 Half Truths about Recycling

There are some eral nuts out there who need to learn the facts!

http://kemptonmooney.com/did/wordpress/2008/11/11/trash-monitor/

There are, however, places where space is getting tight:

Yeah North America is soooo _tiny and so HUGELY over populated...oh puhlease.
<Slaps furry head with paw>.
We have enough scaremongers un the UK saying the UK is overcrowded blah blah...if you go up in an aeroplane you have trouble spotting the towns.

Oooh yes and the sea level is rising.... so we have too much low lying land and too much rubbish...jeez someone put two and two together....
It's nothing to do with space it's about cost and political will and finding someone with a bit of wit who is willing to play with tons of sh*t ...hey that rhymes

There are plenty of solutions to most of our problems..it's just that we have been accustomed to a cheapskate throw away mentality...buy now pay never, I'm alright Jack, someone else will do it cheaper, sod the third world, let's spend our way out of trouble...bonuses for the incompetent...

We need a complete change of attitude..rein in the financial institutions..only let 'em trade stuff they actually own... lets base our GDP on actual real goods and value added services not a miasma of virtual wealth which is merely being removed from someone elses pocket (usually the taxpayer).

My bonus this month? This year?... The usual SFA. (hint the S=sweet and the A=all)
<exit rant mode>

Del

As a cheapskate engineer (that may be redundant?) I've never had much problem with recycling. I still, when my wife isn't looking, go trash picking. At the least, you can find a fair amount of aluminum that people throw away. I compost (well, I don't but the little bacteria in my pile do), I have a pile of scrap metal that's worth up to $1.50 a pound, I burn scrap wood if it's suitable (if not suitable, I make brush piles for little critters), I buy many of my clothes at Goodwill, and I buy most of my tools at estate sales. I just finished reusing the lumber left over from tearing down a pressure-treated deck in 1994.

Now, community mandated recycling is a different story. Somehow that doesn't seem to break even. I live within 10 miles of two huge landfills (We call them Mount Trashmore I and II) and so I sort of pay attention to trash collections. The volume of recyclables can't be more than 10% of the total trash pickup.

This is an area where, it seems to me, the free market really does work. If it's viable to recycle aluminum, somebody will pay me $.60 or so for a pound. If not, they won't. End of story.

$.60/pound of Al? It has been a while since I took a load obviously but back when I made regular runs it was $.04/pound. I have got to get back to taking my own to the junk yard. What is the going rate for Cu? I used to get (on a good day $.50/pound)

I should have been more clear. The price per pound varies greatly depending on what you have. Aluminum wire, extrusions, and castings are over $.60 a pound. Mixed scrap is closer to $.20. The slowdown in the economy has caused aluminum prices to drop recently. Copper is now going about $1.00 per pound (that's bare and not mixed with anything).

I get .50 per pound here in Maryland for beverage cans and .45 per pound for all other aluminum. I save my aluminum, the rest of the recycles the county picks up. My trash to recycle ratio is about 50% and sometimes a lot less.

call your local scrap yards and get there pricing,they shouldn't be that much different,prices vary depending on your location,Ca is higher than Oklahoma,your land locked states will be less than your coastal states.Few months ago Cu was priced at $3.40 lb now in Ca $1.90-$2.00 Good luck! Make sure ,if you can sell the scrap clean,receive more money.

I'm with TPV45 on this. My house is built with about 80% recycled materials. I keep my cars longer than most people because I fix them myself. I never buy something new without looking around for something used first. I don't go after every new gadget coming down the pike. I find that if you wait awhile you find that, invariably, one or two things will happen. First off the price will drop when the new wears off and second it will have been around long enough for it's flaws to be noticed. You can, if you still want one, probably find a good used one by that time.

I find that I wind up with very little trash to dispose of, partly I'm sure because my concept of what is trash and what can be kept for some other use has been refined over the years.

Never too late to recycle----there are so many ways to get treasure from the rubbish! Bale and sell!