Today while volunteering after work we went to the local recycling plant. It was pretty amazing actually. A bit stinky, but very interesting! Our local plant collects recycling from all over the district. They collect A LOT! I remember when I lived in Niagara area we weren't allowed to recycle certain things (yogurt containers, etc) but here we can recycle just about everything! From plastic bags, to glass, to yogurt cups, to milk containers, to styrofoam, the list is quite extensive!
We saw the workers separate the materials by hand, and we saw equipment that separated it by machine. We saw a TON of plastic come down this shoot and onto these conveyer belts into this machine that crushed it into a huge cube and wrapped it up to be shipped out.
Also in the plant we saw all the other crushed cubes that were made from plastic bags, aluminium, regular plastic, etc. Did you know that they sell the aluminium for $1700 per tonne! Talk about one man's trash being another man's treasure!
Plastic bags are worth the least amount. I also learned that they sell the plastic bag cubes to China. They apparently use the plastic and combine it with sawdust to make furniture. Interesting!
I recycle a lot and compost just about everything that can be composted. I still know I can do better. I think I'm going to try harder at doing this (I often forget things like bread bags, plastic from cheese bricks, saran wrap, etc). I highly recommend going to your local recycling plant if you get the chance. They are all different and each one accepts different things. It's very cool to see how it all works! We keep a lot out of the landfill!
They also compost however that is taken to a different plant. We learned a bit about that and it's all very interesting and very timely for Earth Day which is Thursday. It definitely makes a difference!
Do you recycle or compost?
We recycle but we don't compost. We have a small backyard so it would really stink up the place a lot if we did.
ReplyDeleteI actually love Finland because they've institutionalized compost. Like residences will save their biodegradable food and then throw it in a compost garbage for compost pick-up. And biodegradable bags are sold in stores like regular ones just for this purpose. Amazing!
We recycle and compost...I love that we now have compost pickup along with our garbage pick up. I remember living in Guelph when I was in University and they already had compost pick up then and that was in 1991!
ReplyDeleteIf you drive by our house on garbage day, you will generally see 3 to 5 huge bags of recycling, one or two bins of garbage (we still have diapers and pullups, yuck) and our green bin of compost.
I know we can do better...I too forget the odd bag or two.
We now have compost here too. We have a compost bin in our backyard but we didn't use it very often. Now we buy those compostable bags and fill a couple of them up each week, there is soo much you can put in them! Then they pick it up in the green bin each week.
ReplyDeleteAlso once a year the town offers free compost pick up. Great for gardeners!