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21 Things You Didn't Know You Can Recycle

coopamerica.org — Garbage. Americans produce more and more of it every year, when we need to be producing less.

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  • jeffko387, on 12/09/2007, -2/+64That sandwich you're eating is made out of old, discarded sandwiches.
  • robbiedo, on 12/09/2007, -10/+6People can be recycled into Soylent Green! Now available in Soylent Red in the Chinese market.
    • Veni_Vidi_Vici, on 12/10/2007, -0/+1Please explain, or I will be forced to recycle your family into Soylent Brown.
  • kestrel1989, on 12/09/2007, -1/+26For years my wife and I have diligently placed out our recycling bin each and every week. Now that we have 4 young children, and go through several gallons of milk a week, we have switched from a the typical recycling container to a full sized garbage can. In a community newsletter earlier this year we learned that our local recycling facility is unable to handle the volume that is picked up each week. What do they do with the excess you ask. Well, it seems that more than half of what they pick up for recycling ends up in the landfill. ??????
    • l00s3r, on 12/09/2007, -0/+6The landfill is where most "recycling" goes. Government hard at work!
      • PopcornDave, on 12/09/2007, -0/+3I've often wondered why they don't use prison inmates to sort recyclables. They use them in Nevada to sort and repackage casino cards.
  • didgital, on 12/09/2007, -3/+8If anyone knows what to do with small e-waste like CDs that are trash, please post.
    • TacticalPenguin, on 12/09/2007, -0/+8Coasters.
    • Murdats, on 12/09/2007, -0/+10what makes a cd e-waste instead of regular waste?
    • Rikkochet, on 12/09/2007, -0/+3There are recycling depots and services that can recycle CDs. No idea what they do with them, but they are recyclable. We had them taken away at work along with a wider range of recyclables that residential pickup can handle.
      • megaloid, on 12/09/2007, -0/+3The place I've brought discarded CDs to sends them off to be made into automotive components.
    • deinspanjer, on 12/09/2007, -0/+2The article listed a company that repairs CDs and DVDs. That company accepts them for recycling as well.
  • minnymoo, on 12/09/2007, -5/+4oh, i knew. i knew.
  • vault, on 12/09/2007, -7/+20Recycling is kind of a pain, really.
    • bbeer, on 12/09/2007, -3/+2i agree with you
    • bob_the_alien, on 12/09/2007, -1/+5Yes, I agree with you as well, I'll recycle cans and such, but having to put every single thing into different bags, and keep everything separate is annoying. You know I'd like to Recycle everything, but where I live we have no Recycling service, so if I do separate everything, then I have to take it 20 miles away to closets recycling center
      I pay to have my trashed taken off, I mean I'd pay another 10, 15 bucks a month whatever, if they'd just recycle the stuff for me. I don't see why we have to do all the separating ourselves, when we could just pay our normal trash service to do it. Most of them go through the stuff anyway. how much harder is it to actaully recycle what needs to be.
      • Rikkochet, on 12/09/2007, -1/+2If your trash service is going through your trash you're probably under surveillance...
    • Murdats, on 12/09/2007, -2/+4really? where i am everyone recycles everything, we just throw it in with the regular trash.
      seems just as easy as throwing out regular rubbish (which itself is a bit of a pain)
      • bob_the_alien, on 12/09/2007, -0/+4well, it's not that way here, the Recycling center, will not take the stuff unless it's been separated, and it must also be brought to them. Also, the regular trash service is taken to a transfer station, and they do go through it, to check for things that can't enter the landfills, but they recycle nothing, if it can go in the landfill, it goes.
    • Elliuotatar, on 12/09/2007, -0/+9People don't need to sort stuff themselves to recycle.

      On one episode of Dirty Jobs, Mike Rowe visited a recycling facility. I think it was in San Francisco. There they just take ordinary garbage and run it through a bunch of machines to seperate it into various metals and plastics and have people standing by to pick out the stuff that isn't sorted properly by the machines. The problem is communities aren't willing to pay to build these multimillion dollar facilities because they're not profitable.

      I live in a city in New Hampshire, and their recycling program appears to consist of having a few places where you can drop off bottles and cans. The small towns I lived in did a better job. One picked up bins by the side of the road. Another didn't have trash pickup, so people were going to be at the dump anyway and people would see them dumping recyclables into the crusher if they didn't seperate the stuff, so they did.

      They also had a room at the dump where people could leave items that were still usable. I picked up a big nice sony TV there that was practically new. The only thing wrong with it was that lightning had shorted out the sensor for the remote, so you had to change the volume by hand. I'm glad there's sites like craigslist now where I can put stuff like that which I don't want any more and get stuff for free if I need it. I'll never have to buy myself a dryer because of all the perfectly good ones that get posted to craigslist, if I don't want to.

      It's downright criminal that people throw out perfectly good appliances, books, exercise equipment, and other stuff.
      • hobophobe, on 12/09/2007, -0/+3"not profitable" > Obviously if the cost of recycling was built in to the products we'd see how truly profitable the products themselves were to begin with. But ultimately recycling is a cost-of-doing-business for humanity.

        Residential service > Should be simpler, ideally the SanFran model you mentioned. But often what a curbside pickup will recycle isn't what you'd think. Ours doesn't do glass, for example.

        (re)Usable stuff > Another should-be-simpler, the easier we make it for people to be green the more green they'll be. Same thing with being healthy, for example. Or financially responsible. Etc.

        criminal > I'd like to see things like tax breaks for people that actively recycle. Better to encourage the good behavior.
    • argo2d, on 12/09/2007, -1/+1I don't see it that way at all.... I would be sorely disappointed if we automated all recycling. It would not only cost more energy (and hence waste more energy) to recycle, but it would also cater to the human ability to become apathetic and indifferent to the environmental problems we are currently encountering
  • Xnkuro, on 12/09/2007, -7/+1condoms
  • afdlips, on 12/09/2007, -0/+10"Donate cell phones: Collective Good will refurbish your phone and sell it to someone in a developing country."

    Thats a little counterintuitive, don't you think?
    • wildgift, on 12/09/2007, -1/+6Don't they make the cel phones in developing countries?
    • lintmonkey, on 12/09/2007, -0/+2Sort of like spending additional money and wasting fossil fuels to ship a product back to the manufacturer along with your paper letter stating that they need to be more environmentally conscious... so they can throw the product and your letter into the trash?

      EDIT: Woops, see next comment.
  • Andareed, on 12/09/2007, -0/+20"21. Stuff you just can’t recycle: When practical, send such items back to the manufacturer and tell them they need to manufacture products that close the waste loop responsibly."

    The manufacturer won't care and you'll waste money and packaging material.
    • MaybellineSP, on 12/09/2007, -0/+11haha if i worked for a company and got the waste back from a consumer, i would just feel bad for the psychopath who spends all his time shipping boxes of garbage around the country.
    • l00s3r, on 12/09/2007, -0/+1I think the case is that most consumers don't care. Manufacturers only sell stuff they think people want and can afford.
    • Bartboy919, on 12/09/2007, -0/+5Well, there is a good way to get rid of junk mail. Tear up everything except the return envelope and stuff all the bits in it and ship it out. Return to sender!
      • 955701, on 12/09/2007, -0/+1If you do this, take note: some of the reply-to envelopes have a tracking number on them so they can trace the address to which it was originally sent back to the return envelope itself. Cut this part of the envelope off first before you send it back.
        • PopcornDave, on 12/09/2007, -0/+1Why? You were sent something non-lethal in the mail, so why should there be any problem in returning same? Besides if they *do* have your address, perhaps they won't send you anything else.
  • gta3mobster, on 12/09/2007, -0/+12If you didn't know that cardboard could be recycled, I don't even want to know what normally goes into your recycling bin...

    But yeah, recycling just one aluminum can saves enough energy to power a TV for three hours... Or so they say (I did hear it from a TV). As a reminder before recycling, rinse out the container first if there's leftovers (like spaghetti sauce jars) and rinse milk jugs/throw the cap into the garbage. As for the article, I hope it's common sense to donate items that aren't garbage to thrift stores.

    As for used motor oil, in Wisconsin any oil change/lube shop is required to take used oil at no charge. I put the oil into empty laundry detergent jugs (much easier to carry/more sturdy than empty milk jugs). I'm not sure if other states/countries have a similar policy, but it's worth trying next time you change your oil.
    • Daiken, on 12/09/2007, -1/+3Ever wonder how much energy it costs to reuse that aluminum can?
      • Rikkochet, on 12/09/2007, -0/+4Exactly! There's a good episode of Penn and Teller: *****! where they go after a lot of the recycling movement. One fact they researched/dreamt up (whatever your take on their show) is that the only thing actually worth recycling is aluminum because it costs more money to mine it out of the ground and refine it than to recycle a post-consumer one. Everything that doesn't have deposits on it is basically a net loss economically (hence why recycling isn't really a money generator) - we just "recycle" things because it has less of a raw materials impact.
      • 7thGate, on 12/10/2007, -0/+0That was an awesome episode, I was curious about it so I ended up doing a lot more research on the topic for a school paper. Everyone gets brainwashed as a small child, "recycling is good. throwing out garbage is bad. we all must reduce reuse, recycle, or the earth is doomed!". In reality, everything except metals and some types of paper are way more effort than they are worth, they save a miniscule amount of energy for a small amount of human effort. Personally, I stopped recycling non-aluminum cans after I realized this. We have a ton of landfill space here in the US, and we always will; why not use it?
  • sajnikanth, on 12/09/2007, -0/+3722. Front Page Articles
  • Nudar, on 12/09/2007, -0/+6You lost me at recycling (and then buying recycled) toothbrushes.
    • thewfirestarter, on 12/09/2007, -0/+0You fail at reading.

      TFA states they created the toothbrushes from recycled yogurt cups, sell them, then when you send them back, they turn the toothbrushes into plastic lumber. Toothbrushes aren't ever recycled into new toothbrushes by that company. They're just recycling the plastic into new products.
  • Mono1ith, on 12/09/2007, -1/+6Eat recycled food. It's good for the environment, and OK for you . . .
    • l00s3r, on 12/09/2007, -0/+3Everything is recycled in the greater scheme of things. We are all stardust.
  • capiCrimm, on 12/09/2007, -4/+1022. digg articles.
    • lostmongoose, on 12/09/2007, -1/+10Which brings us to:

      23. Other People's Comments
  • halcyon626, on 12/09/2007, -4/+2"Ending is better than mending. The more stitches, the less riches."
    • Bartboy919, on 12/09/2007, -1/+2are you promoting pollution?!
    • leftyslament, on 12/09/2007, -0/+2You're getting buried? Come on people read a book. It's a reference to "Brave New World" you know, the one where humanity is subtley enslaved by a government that conditions it citizens to consume in order to sustain the economy. Hey, that sounds familiar...
  • AaronCo, on 12/09/2007, -0/+2I always kind of laugh at this a little. I mean it's not like throwing stuff away actually gets rid of things, it just moves them to a big pit that gets covered-over. So why exactly can't we just go dig up some of the old landfills and recover some of that lost plastic or metal? I'm sure it's still there...
  • PolarBearFire, on 12/09/2007, -1/+7Incorrect title. Most of the list comprises of pawning or selling your junk to other people. That's not recycling. Recycling involves turning something into raw materials and creating something new from it. People don't sell their crap on eBay say they're recycling it.
    Anyway, aluminum is very recyclable and everyone should be doing it but I don't know about cardboard. I could be wrong but I heard that recycling cardboardor other paper products is not that environmentally positive compared to just letting it rot because of all the chemicals that you need to use to process used paper.
  • hallelujahV, on 12/09/2007, -0/+1Although most of the stuff on the list is common knowledge, the contact information is awesome. Way to go Co-Op America. We need more thorough sites such as this.
  • bcr8u, on 12/09/2007, -0/+2only exercise videos can be recycled.
  • StanleyKoolPrik, on 12/09/2007, -1/+722. Old jokes
    23. Vomit (cheap dog food--shut up, they love it)
    24. Pickup lines
    25. Prophylactics (turn them inside out)
    26. Crappy Christmas presents
    26. Menstrual blood (makes great fertilizer)
    27. Toilet paper (yes, it has two sides)
    28. ...

  • zeptobyte, on 12/09/2007, -1/+6Virtually none of that is recycling. It's all reusing, which is completely different. -_-
  • juckru, on 12/09/2007, -1/+0You lost me at recycling (and then buying recycled) toothbrushes.
  • rarson, on 12/09/2007, -5/+11***** recycling. It creates more pollution, more unnecessary work, and more energy to make a ***** product. We aren't running out of landfill space any time soon.
    • kije, on 12/09/2007, -1/+12We're not running out of space as long as there's a New Jersey.
  • Mothrog, on 12/09/2007, -1/+3Which of these things did people not know could be recycled? Who the ***** doesn't know Goodwill will take old appliances? Buried for being retarded.
    • moisie, on 12/09/2007, -0/+1Unfortunately in the UK most charities won't or can't take any sort of appliance because of liability issues. One charity that someone iI know works for couldn't take a candlestick holder because it was a potential fire hazard!
  • goeric, on 12/09/2007, -0/+12You can recycle cardboard boxes?

    NOWAY!
  • xgambetx, on 12/09/2007, -0/+122. bottles
  • corripio, on 12/09/2007, -1/+1I never knew you could recycle "Miscellaneous."

    I agree with the other comments, most is reuse not recycling.
  • zzhiwen, on 12/09/2007, -0/+4Well, it's been said already, but not in a very, um, graceful way. Recycling = energy usage. Recycling = various chemicals. Now, since I'm told Global Warming is going to kill us all (not sure) shouldn't we minimize manufacturing processes (like recycling) instead of increasing them. Honestly guys (and gals), it's pick your poison. I'd rather fill landfills than make inferior products that cost more energy. If only someone would take all this into account and tell us the best solution. Oh, someone did. Aluminum recycling is very worthwhile. For now, that's it. Still, I like to recycle complex computer parts, cause that ain't biodegrading anytime soon.
    • Bartboy919, on 12/09/2007, -1/+1Its also a case of not filling the landfill at such a high rate. If everyone was to throw ALL there ***** a way, that would add a a ton of extra garage a day.
    • mal1964, on 12/09/2007, -1/+1Making new ones = energy usage. Making new ones = various chemicals.
      • blast_flame, on 12/09/2007, -0/+1Yes but less energy and chemicals then recycling.
        The exception is glass and metals which are good to recycle.
        • mal1964, on 12/09/2007, -0/+1I'm not being a smart ass but how do you know?
          • blast_flame, on 12/09/2007, -0/+1I watched penn & tellers bs and then checked their facts.
  • mal1964, on 12/09/2007, -0/+122, Condoms
  • roguewriter, on 12/09/2007, -0/+3If you haven't seen the Penn & Teller: ***** episodes on Recycling and Landfills, watch them and re-read this article. Some forms of recycling cost more resources and energy, and create more pollution, than simply throwing some items away. The entire concept of all recycling being good, given current technology, needs to be taken with a grain of salt.
    • iLemon, on 12/09/2007, -0/+2Youtube Penn & Teller - ***** - Recycling 1/3
  • CaviMike, on 12/09/2007, -0/+2I didn't know I could recycle miscellaneous!
  • dichotom, on 12/09/2007, -0/+322. The cloud of smug emanating from you (see 21).
  • Commonwealth, on 12/09/2007, -0/+4"When practical, send such items back to the manufacturer and tell them they need to manufacture products that close the waste loop responsibly."

    What a dick thing to do. I think I'll mail a letter to Frito-Lays "I bought and ate your potato chips, but here's your bag back, you piece of *****."
  • H2Glitch2007, on 12/09/2007, -0/+11. Condoms
  • magnus3994, on 12/09/2007, -0/+1that was about 3 things i didnt know i could recycle
  • mwrl, on 12/09/2007, -1/+2Just throw it away. Everything. Recycling is a lie. It was a money saving option for metal and paper groups. It doesn't save anything, all it does is make you do all the work. The same materials are picked up before it enters the dump system anyway. Not to mention large recycling programs generate 20% more energy waste then standard garbage pickup which in the end does the same thing.
    • blast_flame, on 12/09/2007, -0/+2Don't throw away everything. Recycling aluminum and glass is good. You're right about everything else though.
  • oojamaflip2006, on 12/09/2007, -1/+1Purhaps the digg 'bury' button could be changed into a Recycle button? I certainly see a lot of the same old comments re-used over and over again.
  • cfuse, on 12/09/2007, -1/+3At the risk of inciting hippy ire:

    Recycling is totally bogus - it doesn't address the root cause of the problem: mountains of disposable crap. If things were made to last and we stopped consuming rubbish (plastic happy meal toy anyone?) then we might have a better time of it. Don't get rid of it after it's made, just don't make the ***** in the first place.
  • toxicityj, on 12/09/2007, -0/+1I'm not exactly against top lists, but i am against ones that aren't even remotely interesting. the 50 things i didn't know = awesome. this = not awesome.
  • moisie, on 12/09/2007, -0/+1Forget recycling, that's the last of the three R's. Do your reducing first, don't generate so much crap in the first place. When you buy fruit and veg, don't put each type of item in it's own individual bag. It amazes me that every week I see people put a bunch of bananas in a clear plastic bag, a bag which they then put in another bag at the checkout. Often they will tie a knot in the bag, so you know they're just going to rip it open and chuck it away. Forgetting the materials, it's a waste of time - bananas have a thick skin, what the ***** does a clear plastic bag do!
    • Kzoo, on 12/10/2007, -0/+0Indeed, reduction is the best first step... Often costs less too.

      I haven't seen anyone with bananas in a bag, did see a woman with a -commercially bagged salad- in a produce bag...
  • Tusa, on 12/09/2007, -1/+1Free carbon is generally blamed for global warming, right? Putting your cardboard and newspapers in the landfill is locking up carbon and thereby slowing global warming.
  • doyadigg, on 12/09/2007, -3/+2How necessary is recycling? It's more expensive and requires more energy to recycle things than mine them. The stuff in the land fill isn't going anywhere. Why not just wait until the natural resources are scarce and it becomes cheaper to mine land fills. The other R's are effective at reducing waste, but why waste the energy and add CO2 to the air just to recycle if it only makes people feel good?
    • Andareed, on 12/09/2007, -0/+1The point of recycling paper-products (including cardboard) is to prevent cutting more trees down. More trees means less CO2 in the air. As well, recycling paper and making new paper requires the same sorts of chemicals, dyes, and process, so the energy costs are probably similar. Wikipedia has some additional rationale: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_recycling
    • pileofstraw, on 12/09/2007, -0/+1i wish someone could recycle all those words you just said and rephrase them into something worth reading.
  • scubanator87, on 12/09/2007, -0/+1Most of the ideas listed on the site are even recycling any way, they are actually reusing. Get your terms right and use a dictionary.
  • spamfiltertest, on 12/10/2007, -0/+1You know, these "you didn't know" articles aren't really big secrets.... I'm always the fool who clicks on them thinking I'll find something new, but really never do.... not that I know it all, but most of this stuff is common knowledge.

    Since we are on recycling: Pen and Teller - *****!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYrE6vnXP5Q
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASKJ5f5ptg8
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjIQNWUUBvM
  • davidford, on 12/14/2007, -0/+0Hey! Women visit my new site and enjoy ur sex life: http://www.laserlighthairremoval.com.
  • happysong, on 03/17/2008, -0/+0Recycling is totally bogus - it doesn't address the root cause of the problem: mountains of disposable crap. If things were made to last and we stopped consuming rubbish (plastic happy meal toy anyone?) then we might have a better time of it. Don't get rid of it after it's made, just don't make the ***** in the first place.
    http://www.paramegsoft.com/sitemap/
    http://game.paramegsoft.com/
  •  

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