19 Dec
2011
19 Dec
'11
4:13 p.m.
On Dec 17, 2011, at 11:23 PM, John Foust wrote:
sounds like baltimore has the correct attitude, which matches the one
here in Orange County, Ca. If you make up arbitrary rules about how to
treat things and make it difficult to follow people will take the waste
out in the countryside and just pitch it.
That is what happens in Kansas City where they banned not only all the
usual disposal, but have outragous fees on it, and if you can believe it
in a fairly fertile region, the ban lawn clippings. It is a total mess.
Here we can take our junk to two places in the county and they operate
reasonable hours 7 days a week. All waste, paint, displays, mystery
chemical, just bring it in and it goes away. There is a limit on the
daily amounts, but it is fairly large, and usually waived.
I also recycle all CFLs and old style fluorescent tubes as well, though
the original reason, mercury is no longer a problem, there are things in
those that don't need to go in the landfill.
I'd be interested if anyone has any pointers to how to break open and
recycle CFL electronics. I see a lot of articles on how useful the
switching bits are in those, but I'm not up to speed enough to make use
of them, and just toss them.
At 03:10 PM 12/17/2011, Toby Thain wrote:
Every time I've
bought tires here, I've paid a per-tire recycling fee.
We're supposed to deliver our e-waste to special collection facilities that are open
at various locations about once a month; you can specially request a pamphlet from the
garbage authority in Philadelphia that tells you when and where the e-waste events are.
It's hardly a surprise that no one deals with their electronic waste properly; I have
a whole bucket full of alkaline batteries that I haven't disposed of properly because
I can never remember when the damned events are.
At least when I lived in Baltimore, I could take it to the county dump any day I pleased
and drop it in the appropriate bin. They also had bins for car batteries, air
conditioners, refrigerators fluorescent lamps, motor oil and other things that are better
dealt with out of the waste stream, and they were all out in the main recycling dump area.
I don't see why Philadelphia can't do the same; perhaps I should check to see if
there's an alternate solution involving the county instead of the city.
But how do we direct e-waste (for example) into
the hands of people who are picking it apart for non-renewables, rather than it ending up
in landfill by default? That's the unsolved part.
Some countries and states
have enacted laws to require it. In Japan, for
example, you pre-pay a recycling fee when you buy an appliance, and retailers
and manufacturers are required to accept used appliances. In my state,
Wisconsin, you can't put e-waste in the trash any longer. It has to go to
a special e-waste collection site. My waste management company doesn't
seem to care if I put a bare metal PC case in the trash. If it showed any
wires or circuit boards, I don't think they'd take it. - Dave