It’s a familiar scene: you stand at the bin, trash in hand, and wonder: “Can I recycle this?” We tend to throw it in the recycling bin anyway, in the hope that some unknown person, somewhere else, will sort it out. Recyclers call this aspirational recycling, or wish-cycling. While recycling continues to be an essential tool for dealing with the flood of plastic inundating the planet, it’s time for a reality check.
You can mulch your paths with old cardboard, but definitely check to see if it is printed with ink. If it is, you want to be sure it has only black ink. Most black inks are made from soybean oil. Only use the material for paths. Paper and cardboard printed with colored ink is another matter, as this ink may contain some toxic heavy metals. Avoid using cardboard or paper for mulch if it contains colored ink. Of course, if your cardboard is more than merely dirty and has absorbed oil or other chemicals, it should probably not be distributed onto the ground.
I think it's always best to reuse and recycle materials as close to home as possible. Using cardboard for mulch, is certainly better then recycling it or burning it.
What happens to your plastic after you drop it in a recycling bin? According to promotional materials from America’s plastics industry, it is whisked off to a factory where it is seamlessly transformed into something new. This is not the experience of Nguyα»
n Thα» Hα»ng ThαΊ―m, a 60-year-old Vietnamese mother of seven, living amid piles of grimy American plastic on the outskirts of Hanoi. Outside her home, the sun beats down on a Cheetos bag; aisle markers from a Walmart store; and a plastic bag from ShopRite, a chain of supermarkets in New Jersey, bearing a message urging people to recycle it.
Waste Dive began tracking the effects of China's scrap import policies across all 50 states (and the District of Columbia) during Nov. 2017 in honor of America Recycles Day. Since then, a host of other foreign and domestic changes have spurred ongoing ripple effects that will continue for years to come.
Many service providers have taken this as an opportunity to reset pricing conditions and local governments are struggling to adapt to this new reality. While portrayals of all residential recycling programs being in free-fall are an exaggeration, it's clear that the system is going through a significant transformative period.
Glass is indefinately recycable in theory, but like most things, theory is different then practice. The problem is that glass is heavy, and the cullet has to be relatively clean if they want to recycle it. Dual stream recycling or deposit systems are better for recovering the material, but that doesn't help with glass with it's weight or breakage -- which can be very problematic with litter on beaches or anywhere else in the woods, with cut feet. Needless to say, I'm not a big fan of disposable glass products, due to the amount of it you find up in the wilderness.