Recycling materials is good for the environment. But doesn’t it seem that every 10 or so years we find out that how we’ve been recycling isn’t the best way, or isn’t “the way” at all? Turning trash plastic into trash cans is not the answer. We are getting better at it though.
Some People Love Garbage
Ah, Oscar the Grouch. Now there’s a fella that loves garbage. I wonder how he feels about recycling. I don’t mean re-purposing. Using a wine bottle as a candle-holder is ‘re-purposed.’ -To me, that is not “recycling.” I say that recycling is melting aluminum soda and beer cans and making more of the same or something else, -something different. Recycling to me means grinding plastic milk bottles etc. into chips, melting them and many magic steps later, turning the result into useful new things like plastic sheet roofing, automobile parts, plastic lawn furniture or those fake boardwalk boards. Saves a forest of old trees right there. Benefit here too being plastic, they do not expand, warp, rot or harbor molds and fungus. I wonder if ‘plastic boards’ would be suitable for home construction? I suppose that there would be health & safety issues with toxic outgassing over the long-term though. Certainly vinyl siding is recycled plastic and, it is on the outside of the house so any issues with outgassing is moot.
Plastics recycle with difficulty, more so than glass or metal. They must be separated by their ‘resin identification code’ and reused that way. Merely remelting them all together is not sufficient; there are processes that must be followed to prevent a condition called phase-separate whereby dissimilar plastics melted together fail to bond together in an alloy, they separate like water and oil.
Recycling is not the same world as when I was a kid. Back then, putting trash in its place was all you had to do. “Every Litter Bit Hurts”, “Give a Hoot: Don’t Pollute” and all that. -Just throwing the trash into a trash receptacle was depicted as being the end of it. Turns out, it is only the beginning.
Glass Bricks
The author of this image cites a company that is making these; they are 97% recycled glass. Mixed with cement, this aggregate glass material can be used to make building blocks. Another postee cites that roads are (or can be) built using glass particles and that rain water will filter through the porous material thus eliminating pooling/standing water on the road surface. This would make the wet pavement less slippery. I recall ground-up glass being tried as an additive to asphalt for highway construction many years ago… it was a fail as it made the road exceedingly slippery when wet. Like, well …like wet glass!
Moai Recycled
These were recycled stone blocks. If a structure such as this tumbled over and broke, the stone was re-used as a wall or other structure. There are several reused items in this image (the author’s image link provides the details.) They were early recyclers.
Do It Right Or Else…
I don’t know about there, but every other place on the planet separates their recyclables not just curbside, but at the place where the hauler deliver to. They have machines to lift out ferrous metals, separate glass, papers, plastic, etc. Actually refusing to pick-up the curbside garbage would make me livid if it were a service that I had to pay for independently of, say, rent. A private contractor whom does not pick up the trash but wants me to pay for him to not do so? I wonder if this tag, found on the ground, is recyclable?
Hobbyhorse Made from Car Tires
I have seen some really clever uses of recycled/discarded automobile tires. While this is another case of not “recycled” so much as “re-purposed,” it is incredibly clever. My cousin has one of these in his yard. This is for show as there are no children to actually use this which, according to the manufacturer, can hold up to 200-lbs. Yeah folks, here is a recyclers ‘show horse.’
I wonder what size tire this is? And, it must be a nylon-belted radial for the steel-belted radial would have many sharp steel wires which would protrude, rust and be rather dangerous to little legs and arms.
I recall a project from the 1970s that used old car tires wired together to make an enormous ‘blanket’ for erosion-prone areas on the banks of flood-prone streams. They would bury these ‘tire blankets’ under several feet of soil and plant sapling trees in each opening. They idea being that as the tree grew, it would force the tire deeper I guess. Whew… I bet they regret that process today! I can just see what these fields must look like today, tree roots tangled with old tire shreds. –Not pretty. -Not recycling. This was merely land-filling of these tires. The process was only made palatable by the planting of trees in each one. Not a fair trade-off.
Some Things Cannot Recycle…
I am a big fan of M$-FAIL images like this! It is Funny. It does make we wonder though, -how long was the filename anyway? I know that there is a logical limit to the length of a URL. At least, the record-keeping ceased to recognize this as a valid ‘record’ anymore.
The web site ‘longest list*.com (not the full name) cites some old data that they acquired. They had claimed that the longest URL that they could find was 253 characters long. They rescinded that, having found longer URLs and they claim that the longest one yet is some 1700 characters long!
Recycled…What?
Take a guess what I’m thinking when viewing these. C’mon, take a real guess! Yeah. A pair of ‘em! Okay, What the hell?!
