Recycling plastic bottles

Recycling plastic bottles.
Many people reuse plastic bottles with drinking water. Yo should, in fact, buy a good plastic bottle for your drinking water. These plastics are designed to degrade and may be harmful to you.

How to recycle plastic bottles.
The best way is to throw it out with your recyclables. These one-use only bottles can often be melted down and reused to make more bottles.

An innovative way of recycling paper

An innovative way of recycling paper.
When you make a mistake in printing something, usually yu only print on one side. Don’t throw it away. As you write notes and scribble bits of info, you can use the back of the printed paper for this purpose. You save paper, and a little bit of the environment this way.

recycling paper part 1

What is recycled paper?
Recycled paper is paper which is repulped and made into new paper.

Can I recycle paper in my own home?
Yes. There are kits you can buy, but these are for single sheets. They are usually used for making special one-off paper. You can make these yourself – they are mesh wires in a wooden frame to allow to paper to dry. You can use old paper and old newspaper, a bucket and the mesh frame to do this.

recycling water

Recycled water.
Why recycle water?
In the old days, fresh water was considered an expendable resource. There was more supply than demand.
We now know water is not infinite. As population grows, the demand on a finite amount of fresh water increases. New ways of procuring ‘new’ fresh water is becoming increasingly expensive. There simply is no other viable alternative to get the supply we need to meet demand in our increasingly thirsty cities.

Is recycled water safe?
At some stage of a waters’ cycle, water get reused. Although we have billions of litres of water in the oceans and seas, this is not drinkable. The fresh water we drink is, to an extent, recycled. It is also safe
Recycled water (or treated sewerage) is just a sped-up version of this process. Most of the toxic substances are removed through treatment and pumped either back into the dams or straight back onto the drinking water supply. If it is pumped directly into the drinking water supply, extra treatment is needed to bring it up to safe levels.

I heard that a town in Victoria, Australia rejected recycling water. Why?
Although recycled sewerage is safe if treated properly, and the government supported the plan, the instant you say it is recycled sewerage, you start losing support for the idea.
People have a way of conjuring up good or bad images, and recycled sewerage sounds bad. Campaigners against the idea used this to sway people who were undecided to their side. Note that sounding bad doesn’t necessarily mean it is bad.
That particular town wasn’t the first to float the idea. Indeed, if you have visited Singapore or Saudi Arabia, you have used recycled water. There, they have no other choice if they want their cities to survive.

recycling

Recycling – a community way of helping save the environment
What is recycling??
Recycling is the reuse of waste materials. Most people think only of recycling metals, paper, wood, and the like. In fact, you can recycle just about anything in the house.
Where is recycling done?
If you have recycling collection bins, then you should already be recycling. If you are not using these bins, then start using them now. If your council does not have a recycling program, then you can lobby them to get one started.
You cannot place everything into the recycle bin. Normal refuse (organic waste), for example, cannot be put into a recycling bin. You can, however, use it for compost (see previous article on composting). Toxic chemicals are not usually allowed. You should receive a calendar showing collection dates. This will have what you can and cannot put into the bin.
Can I recycle other items?
Yes you can, but not into the recycling bin. There are special collection services that will take these and dispose of them safely for you.
Benefits of recycling:
• Less energy used in recycled products
• Less waste produced
• Some materials can be recycled indefinitely

dumpster diving - one way of reusing what the earth gave

Dumpster diving.

What is dumpster diving?
Dumpster diving is the practise of diving into dumpsters to find usable items the original owner has found unusable.
The word ‘dumpster diving’ means, literally, to dive in a dumpster. The common image derived from this is a person leaping into a large trash bin, the best-known being produced under the brand “dumpster” in reality, it is more like fishing.
You can obtain produce and other goods this way, but take caution – make sure it’s been decontaminated first. You will never be able to obtain ‘new’ items this way as what most people throw are almost gone, or the food is near its use-by date.

Take precautions when dumpster diving – in some locations it is illegal.

organic fertiliser - living off the earth naturally

Organic fertiliser – what is it?

Simply put, it is fertiliser that comes naturally. There is no manufacturing process involved, except for the decomposition process required to make the fertiliser. The fertiliser itself comes from waste products.

Making your own fertiliser – composting and compost

You can make your own organic fertiliser in your backyard. This is called composting. To compost, you simply put waste material into a compost bin. Put in organic microbes to help the process. Get two bins so that when one is in use for in the garden, you can use the other one to continue composting.

There are certain materials that you should not compost in the backyard, as they require sophisticated, environmentally sound, and cost-effective technology. These include:

• Pet droppings
• Non-vegetarian animal manure
• Meat scraps
• Dairy products

These should be left to commercial operators with proper equipment (high-rate, thermophylic composting systems.)

You can compost:

• Dry, straw-type material, such as cereal straws
• Autumn leaves
• Sawdust and wood chips
• Some paper and cardboard (such as corrugated cardboard or newsprint with soy-based inks)
• Green plant material (fresh or wilted) such as crop residues, hay, grass clippings, weeds
• Animal manures (choose vegetarian horse manure, cow manure, llama manure, etc.)
• Fruit and vegetable trimmings
• Seaweeds
• Used Coffee grounds

You can compost eggshell, although it take a year or more to fully decompose.

Talk to your local nursery for more composting advice. They will generally have more specific information on you local area.