Week 11
It’s been a hectic, non-stop busy week for Adam and I, and the fact that I haven’t hardly thought about our garbage project indicates that our garbage-free lifestyle seems to have hit its stride.
That’s not to say, unfortunately, that we produced zero garbage for the week. A few small pieces of packaging have been added to the garbage box, this week from a package of gauze we opened up for medical reasons and more tape from a desk fountain I bought for my new office. In a moment of self-indulgence, we purchased a few things to make our new place feel more like home, and since this is the first time we’ve each had our own office, we wanted to add a few personal touches to our individual rooms. I picked out a fountain that was packaged in Styrofoam (I have now found a place in Salem that recycles Styrofoam, thanks to the Master Recycler class) but couldn’t see that inside the box, the fountain was taped down. I still haven’t found a solution for packing tape, and the stuff keeps adding up in our shoebox – Styrofoam can’t be recycled with the tape on it, and once torn off, the stuff is useless to me, as it’s no longer sticky.
I attended the second week of my Master Recycler class and enjoyed the instruction immensely. We discussed at length why recycling is good but not great, an issue that has been brought to my attention since we started this project. In the world of environmentalism, recycling is like playing catch-up – energy has already been expended to make, ship, sell, and use a given product. Recycling said product is a good idea because it uses less energy to recycle it than make a whole new product, but the recycling process is by no means pristine. It still expends energy and uses finite resources. This is why the “solid waste hierarchy” suggests we reduce, then reuse, then recycle. Reusing a product generally uses no energy, and cutting back on what we buy (reducing) might just save energy from ever being expended.
This class session also raised a question I have been wondering about, which is ironic given our current project: is recycling really worth all the effort? The recycle process is seriously time and energy intensive – as consumers, we spend time sorting our trash from our recycling, making sure the recyclables are clean and in the right container, then heavy trucks drive on the roads and use gas, drivers must be paid, and then the recyclables go to sorting facilities to be sorted several times before they are finally broken down and remade into a new material. Phew.
According to an Oregon Department of Environmental Quality study, recycling is indeed worth the effort by a long shot. If you first consider the energy used to mine, process, make, ship, and sell a product like an aluminum can, you can then compare this energy use to the energy expended during the sorting, transporting, melting, and reforming of the same can. The DEQ study found that a person would have to truck aluminum 121,000 miles across country before the energy used in the recycling process equaled the energy used to make the can from scratch. Metal, as the most valuable recyclable, of course has the highest figure here, but even glass would have to be truck 1,300 additional miles before it broke even on the virgin mining versus recycling comparison scale. That’s a seriously encouraging figure.
Oh, and I did start using a fountain pen at home and at work. I have a bunch of fancy office supplies I’ve bought and then used as decoration. Now, I’m actually trying to use my quill pen from Ireland and my glass fountain pens, which I have to dip into ink to use. My hands are often stained blue at the end of a writing session, but this just makes me feel like a more authentic writer. Cheers for another week!
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I have been following your blog from what I’m going to call the popularity boom. I love what you are doing! It is very inspiring.
I have also struggled with the question is recycling really worth it. You cite aluminum cans as a yes answer to that question. But I pose that aluminum is really the only thing that you can say recycling is worth while. That is why you can get money back for recycling it… the process is efficient enough. What other products do you make money recycling? none… right?
Just something to think about. I first thought about when watching Penn and Teller’s show “Bullsh*t”. It was interesting because even Penn said he wasn’t sure he even believed what he was debunking. Take a look: http://www.videosift.com/video/Penn-Teller-Bullshit-Recycling
Thanks for all that you are doing!
Hello -
I admire your commitment! Inspired by you and other bloggers we are trying our best to cut back on trash as well. We’ve invested in reusable baggies, lunch pails, and bamboo utensils to carry with us.
With personal products I purchased the preserve razor, and we’re choosing bar soap with no packaging. I made a new discovery though – shampoo bars. Lush makes them, as well as a local resource here in Pennsylvania. I’m sure you’ll be able to find them if you look. Haven’t tried them yet, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
My next challenge is to find milk in glass bottles, or – even better – delivered to our home.
Good luck!
Good one on the fountain pen – can’t avoid using one of them yet. I will try that one. How about using pencils instead ?
Hello
It’s really good to hear you say that recycling is not the answer to all garbage problems. Most people tend to forget that the hierarchy is ‘reduce, reuse and then recycle’.
I think the reason people focus so much on recycling is that it doesn’t actually take much of an effort to do, just through the can in separate bin. It’s the not consuming so much and reusing our stuff that most people are too lazy to do!
Most people tend to forget that recycling a material does actually use energy. It’s not a magical green fairy…
Anyway, great effort guys. Really inspiring stuff.