Recycling

Common Recycling Gaffes That Do More Harm Than Good

Even when you want to an think you’re doing the right thing by tossing something into the recycling bin, you may actually be doing more harm than good. Recyclers are quick to point out that they appreciate that people want to recycle, but there are several common materials that are not usually taken at [...]

Complimenting Recycling With Reusing

Recycling isn’t the most environmentally friendly game in town, but it’s a good start. If you really want to make your contribution to the environment go a lot further, you can simply get in the habit of reusing items instead of throwing them in the bins after a single use.
There are many ways to [...]

Supporting Recycling With Your Purchases

Since recycling is a market-based solution to a public problem, improvements to it are similarly market-based whenever possible. That’s why recycling programs are most likely to be profitable and have the capital to improve when demand for recycled products is high.
This can be legislated to a certain extent. For instance, there are many [...]

Future Improvements in Recycling Technology

So, what does the future hold for recycling? In the sort term, increased investment in recycling infrastructure and over all improvements in recycling rates should continue to increase. More and more cities are going to semi-automated sorting and co-mingled collection, even when self-sorting had been a long-established norm.
However, over the long term, the [...]

The Connection Between Recycling and Alternative Energy

One of the most exciting things about recycling as a social phenomena, is the ability of waste reduction schemes to help foster other green technologies and programs. Given the serious social, climatological and political ramifications of reliance upon fossil fuels in North America, anything that helps encourage the use of alternative energy sources such [...]

Federal Regulation of Landfills

One of the reasons that the construction of new landfill facilities as slowed down considerably is due to legislation at the state, provincial and federal level. These laws have not only mandate more restrictive rules on the owners of landfills, but are often conflicting with state and provincial laws and regulations.
Many of the regulations [...]

Migration of Toxins from Landfill Sites

There’s more than a bunch of rubbish to be concerned about at landfill sites, and a whole lot more than methane to be contained. Consider what trash, some of it dating back decades, is made of. In many cases, the breakdown components of the furniture polish, hair spray and pesticides that people threw [...]

The Life Cycle of the North American Tire

There are nearly half a billion cars on the road in North America. This staggering figure has one thing in common with rare exception, they all have four tires, each. Given that they are consumable materials, it is estimated that about 350 million tires are disposed of each year. As such, [...]