2) 11 Facts About Recycling
1. The average person
generates over 4 pounds of trash every day and about 1.5 tons of solid waste
per year.
2. In 2009, Americans
produced enough trash to circle the Earth 24 times.
3. Over 75% of waste is
recyclable, but we only recycle about 30% of it.
4. We generate 21.5 million
tons of food waste each year. If we composted that food, it would reduce the
same amount of greenhouse gas as taking 2 million cars off the road.
5. Recycling one aluminum can
saves enough energy to listen to a full album on your iPod.
6. Recycling 100 cans could
light your bedroom for two whole weeks.
7. Recycling aluminum cans
saves 95% of the energy used to make alum cans from new material.
8.Americans throw away
25,000,000 plastic bottles every hour.
9..Over 87% of Americans have
access to curbside or drop-off paper recycling programs.
10. In 2009, Americans threw
away almost 9 million tons of glass. That could fill enough tractor trailers to
stretch from NYC to LA (and back!).
11. In 2010, paper recycling
had increased over 89% since 1990.If every American recycled just one-tenth of
their newspapers, we could save about 25 million trees each year.
3) How Do Japanese Dump Trash? Let Us Count the Myriad Ways
By NORIMITSU ONISHI
Published: May 12, 2005
YOKOHAMA, Japan - When this city recently doubled
the number of garbage categories to 10, it handed residents a 27-page booklet
on how to sort their trash. Highlights included detailed instructions on 518
items.
Ko Sasaki for The New York
Times
In Yokohama,
trash that escapes recycling is put in transparent bags and loaded into trucks
for incineration.
Everything
in Its Place
Ko Sasaki for The New York
Times
Kamikatsu,
Japan, has 44
categories of trash, and Masaharu Tokimoto, 76, is sometimes baffled by them.
But he is still a diligent recycler.
Lipstick goes into burnables; lipstick tubes,
"after the contents have been used up," into "small metals"
or plastics. Take out your tape measure before tossing a kettle: under 12
inches, it goes into small metals, but over that it goes into bulky refuse.
Socks? If only one, it is burnable; a pair goes into used cloth, though only
if the socks "are not torn, and the left and right sock match." Throw
neckties into used cloth, but only after they have been "washed and
dried."
"It was so hard at first," said Sumie Uchiki, 65, whose ward began
wrestling with the 10 categories last October as part of an early trial.
"We were just not used to it. I even needed to wear my reading glasses to
sort out things correctly."
To Americans struggling with sorting trash into a few categories,
Japan may
provide a foretaste of daily life to come. In a national drive to reduce waste
and increase recycling, neighborhoods, office buildings, towns and megalopolises
are raising the number of trash categories - sometimes to dizzying heights.
Indeed,
Yokohama, with 3.5 million people,
appears slack compared with Kamikatsu, a town of 2,200 in the mountains of
Shikoku, the smallest of
Japan's
four main islands. Not content with the 34 trash categories it defined four
years ago as part of a major push to reduce waste, Kamikatsu has gradually
raised the number to 44.
In
Japan,
the long-term push to sort and recycle aims to reduce the amount of garbage
that ends up in incinerators. In land-scarce
Japan,
up to 80 percent of garbage is incinerated, while a similar percentage ends up
in landfills in the
United
States.
The environmentally friendlier process of sorting and recycling may be more
expensive than dumping, experts say, but it is comparable in cost to
incineration.
"Sorting trash is not necessarily more expensive than
incineration," said Hideki Kidohshi, a garbage researcher at the Center
for the Strategy of Emergence at the Japan Research Institute. "In
Japan, sorting
and recycling will make further progress."
For
Yokohama,
the goal is to reduce incinerated garbage by 30 percent over the next five
years. But Kamikatsu's goal is even more ambitious: eliminating garbage by
2020.
In the last four years, Kamikatsu has halved the amount of incinerator-bound
garbage and raised its recycled waste to 80 percent, town officials said. Each
household now has a subsidized garbage disposal unit that recycles raw garbage
into compost.
At the single Garbage Station where residents must take their trash, 44 bins
collect everything from tofu containers to egg cartons, plastic bottle caps to
disposable chopsticks, fluorescent tubes to futons.
On a recent morning, Masaharu Tokimoto, 76, drove his pick-up truck to the
station and expertly put brown bottles in their proper bin, clear bottles in
theirs. He looked at the labels on cans to determine whether they were aluminum
or steel. Flummoxed about one item, he stood paralyzed for a minute before
mumbling to himself, "This must be inside."
Some 15 minutes later, Mr. Tokimoto was done. The town had gotten much
cleaner with the new garbage policy, he said, though he added: "It's a
bother, but I can't throw away the trash in the mountains. It would be a
violation."
In towns and villages where everybody knows one another, not sorting may be
unthinkable. In cities, though, not everybody complies, and perhaps more than
any other act, sorting out the trash properly is regarded as proof that one is
a grown-up, responsible citizen. The young, especially bachelors, are notorious
for not sorting. And landlords reluctant to rent to non-Japanese will often
explain that foreigners just cannot - or will not - sort their trash.
In
Yokohama,
after a few neighborhoods started sorting last year, some residents stopped
throwing away their trash at home. Garbage bins at parks and convenience stores
began filling up mysteriously with unsorted trash.
"So we stopped putting garbage bins in the parks," said Masaki
Fujihira, who oversees the promotion of trash sorting at
Yokohama City's
family garbage division.
Enter the garbage guardians, the army of hawk-eyed volunteers across
Japan who comb
offending bags for, say, a telltale gas bill, then nudge the owner onto the
right path.
One of the most tenacious around here is Mitsuharu Taniyama, 60, the owner
of a small insurance business who drives around his ward every morning and
evening, looking for missorted trash. He leaves notices at collection sites:
"Mr. So-and-so, your practice of sorting out garbage is wrong. Please
correct it."
"I checked inside bags and took especially lousy ones back to the
owners' front doors," Mr. Taniyama said.
He stopped in front of one messy location where five bags were scattered
about, and crows had picked out orange peels from one.
"This is a typical example of bad garbage," Mr. Taniyama said,
with disgust. "The problem at this location is that there is no community
leader. If there is no strong leader, there is chaos."
He touched base with his lieutenants in the field. On the corner of a street
with large houses, where the new policy went into effect last October, Yumiko
Miyano, 56, was waiting with some neighbors.
Ms. Miyano said she now had 90 percent compliance, adding that, to her
surprise, those resisting tended to be "intellectuals," like a
certain university professor or an official at Japan Airlines up the block.
"But the husband is the problem - the wife sorts her trash
properly," one neighbor said of the airlines family.
Getting used to the new system was not without its embarrassing moments.
Shizuka Gu, 53, said that early on, a community leader sent her a letter
reprimanding her for not writing her identification number on the bag with a
"thick felt-tip pen." She was chided for using a pen that was
"too thin."
"It was a big shock to be told that I had done something wrong,"
Ms. Gu said. "So I couldn't bring myself to take out the trash here and
asked my husband to take it to his office. We did that for one month."
At a 100-family apartment complex not too far away, Sumishi Kawai was
keeping his eyes trained on the trash site before pickup. Missorting was easy
to spot, given the required use of clear garbage bags with identification
numbers. Compliance was perfect - almost.
One young couple consistently failed to properly sort their trash.
"Sorry! We'll be careful!" they would say each time Mr. Kawai knocked
on their door holding evidence of their transgressions.
At last, even Mr. Kawai - a small 77-year-old man with wispy white hair, an
easy smile and a demeanor that can only be described as grandfatherly - could
take no more.
"They were renting the apartment, so I asked the owner, 'Well, would it
be possible to have them move?' " Mr. Kawai said, recalling, with
undisguised satisfaction, that the couple was evicted two months ago.
4) The world's 10 craziest recycling programs
Tuesday, April 22, 2008 - 2:36pm
The fact that “going green” has become this decade’s
de facto cool
global issue to support is a good thing. Whether it’s Al Gore winning prizes
for his activism or nations around the world being forced to do their part to
improve the environment, going green helps us all. But in the rush to hop on
the green bandwagon, some cities and programs around the world might be
sometimes taking things a bit too far. What follows is our semi-exhaustive
breakdown of some of the odder well-intentioned recycling efforts and
unfortunate foibles currently plaguing the global green movement.
1. Green Gums: Fake Chompers
Equal Real Pay Day
The Japan Society for the Recycling of Dentures has embarked
on a plan to make your fake chompers pay off after you’ve discarded them.
Inspired by the efforts of 63-year-old Isao Miyoshi, the program is designed to
collect old dentures and extract the embedded silver, gold and palladium
housings, yielding an average of 3,000 yen (about $30) per set. According to
the JSRD, 80% of the proceeds go to the Japan branch of UNICEF. In the first
two months of the program, Miyoshi earned enough to donate over $10,000 to
UNICEF, ultimately proving that mining the old gums of the elderly isn’t just
environmentally green, but could end up putting a heap of green in your pocket
as well.
Via
Inventor
Spot
2. Concealed Weapon: Japanese To
Start Packing Chopsticks
A new initiative has emerged from the halls of
Japan’s government that aims to have
Japanese citizens carry their own set of chopsticks rather than using the
disposable ones found at most restaurants. While the plan also includes
encouraging citizens to use public transportation and ride bicycles — two
activities Japanese citizens already indulge in to a greater extent than most
of the planet — expecting fashion-conscious Japanese to suddenly start packing
chopsticks as a part of their meticulous ensembles is perhaps a bit too
ambitious. Nevertheless, in the land of
cosplay, robotic secretaries
and real-life “soylent green” (i.e. natto), don’t be surprised if the newest
fashion trend to hit
Japan
turns out to be something involving chopstick holsters.
Via
International
Herald Tribune
3. Asahi Beer: Good For Ails Ya
Believe it or not, the next sip of Japanese beer you take could, in a
roundabout way, save a life. Asahi beer isn’t just the most internationally
recognizable of Japan’s
brews, but it turns out to be the most environmentally friendly. According to a
recent report in the U.K.
Telegraph, Asahi makes good use of every bit of waste produced by the
brewing process. While it probably wouldn’t surprise most to learn that Asahi
recycles its own paper, bottles, cans, and even plastic hop sacks, it would
floor most to find out that the company turns its waste yeast into
pharmaceutical products for the mass market. We’re unclear on the exact details
of the process, but if the next Japan cold remedy you ingest has that extra
kick, you can let your imagine wander and consider the frothy possibilities.
Via
The
Telegraph
4. Möbius Trash Strip: Faux
Recycling For Show
The U.K.
may pay a lot of lip service to the sport of going green, but according to
recent reports, the efforts of the environmentally conscientious are often
thrown away as rubbish. The Telegraph reports that after being gingerly
placed into local recycling bins, about 240,000 tons of plastic, paper, and
glass ends up being burned or simply sent to garbage landfills. In short, tons
of recyclable trash in Britain
gets the common heave-ho into the waste dump, ultimately making the efforts of
thousands of well-meaning Brits, well, meaningless.
Via
The
Telegraph
5. Save The Gorilla, Save The
World
A little-known fact about cellphones is that their construction often relies on
a metal known as
coltan.
According to numerous reports, the mining of coltan ore is responsible for the
70% decrease in
Africa’s lowland gorilla
population. Organizations like
Eco-Cell
hope to make a dent in this phenomenon by making it easier for cellphone users
to put their flashy communicator to better use once they move on to a new
model. Who knew that properly disposing of your souped-up phone could actually
save an innocent primate somewhere?
Via
eHow
6. Sweat And Urine Cocktails
Coming To A Space Station Near You
Anyone dreaming of one day becoming an astronaut should be aware that space
flight is not for the squeamish. The
Marshall Space
Flight Center in Alabama has been researching and testing a method that
would allow astronauts to obtain their water needs via the recycling of sweat
and urine waste (think: the
Stillsuits
worn by the Fremen in
Dune).
Yum! But the system isn’t just focused on outer space; the charity organization
Concern 4 Kids also hopes to bring
the water-recycling technology to impoverished regions of the world. The
technology, pushed forward by
Hamilton
Sundstrand, could turn out to be the most important recycling innovation
ever, assuming we can pretend we don’t know where our water has been.
Via
Fox News
7. Is That A Condom In Your
Hair, Or Are You Just Happy To See Me?
Filed under “recycled items you should never put on your head” comes news that
condoms are being recycled in China
as hairbands. According to reports, recycled condoms used as hairbands are
showing up in the Chinese cities of Dongguan and Guangzhou, threatening to spread sexually
transmitted diseases via fashion accessory. Chinese law prohibits such reuse,
but the practice is apparently widespread. Aside from the incredibly disgusting
imagery connected with wrapping your hair in an old condom, we’re still
compelled to offer nominal kudos for such an innovative (albeit dangerous)
recycling trick. Ick.
Via
AsiaOne
8. California Vintage: Toilet Water On Tap
Orange County, California is known for many things, from
the hedonistic (as the setting for Richard Linklater’s film
A Scanner Darkly)
to the mindlessly harmless (the television show
The O.C.), but a new
water-recycling plan will likely put it on the map in an entirely different
way. The
program, called
“indirect potable water reuse” or “toilet to tap” by some naysayers, purifies
the local sewer water. Although this practice has been used for years to grow
crops, sending the water directly to your tap is a new turn that might just
inspire the gag reflex in even the most passionate recycling activists.
Via
The
New York Times
9. Crushed Glass Beach
Broward County, Florida officials are raising eyebrows with
a new plan to reclaim some of its lost beach area succumbing to erosion —
spreading recycled crushed glass. The plan would spread 15,600 tons of the
glass material, or fake sand, over the county’s beach areas each year. Although
controversial to some, the technique has been successfully employed for the
beaches of on the Dutch Caribbean island
of Curacao and in Lake Hood in
New Zealand.
Nevertheless, the idea of frolicking in a pile of sand that might have the
errant shard of uncrushed glass waiting to nick you is unpleasant, to say the
least.
Via
Breitbart
News
10. Scientist Hopes To Use Poop
To Grow Your Space Food
Masamichi Yamashita, a researcher at
Japan’s
Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, recently held a lecture
directed to his peers on the merits of recycling human waste to feed
spacefarers. At the 36th Assembly of the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR)
in
Beijing,
Yamashita laid out a plan that argues for the healthy recycling of human waste
to grow food in situations where humanity attempts to colonize new planets
without an Earth-like ecosystem. Yamashita refers to the process as
hyper-thermophilic aerobic compost, but most Earth-bound food lovers will
probably refer to the idea as Poop A La Carte. As in, no seconds for me, thank
you.
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