Books & Music...
All Green Books May 27, 2008
Recycling Your Garbage: Where Does All that Trash Go?
How You Can Keep Garbage from Going to the Wrong Place
My dad and I talk about recycling more than two people probably should. There's the "Hey, dad. How are you?" part of the conversation. Then at least once a week, we talk about recycling. I'm quite certain my dad thinks recycling in his city is a vast cover-up plot to make people feel good about doing something for the environment.
Regardless of his suspicions, my dad religiously recycles, just like any good preacher should. But he's seen one too many episodes of Alias and has suggested on more than one occasion that he would like to stakeout the recycling bins near his house and trail the truck to see if all the trash is actually recycled.
Fortunately, my dad doesn't have to waste hours of his life on such an expedition, although any kind of stakeout appeals to the investigative journalist in me, even if it is just trash. Elizabeth Royte has already done the dirty work for us, giving us not only the scoop but good ideas in her book, Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash. Apparently, where garbage ends up is a secret -- and Royte unravels the mystery for conspiracy theorists like my dad.
She also gives us some great practical tips from her journey of discovery, In this green nugget from her book, Royte expresses the importance of composting and why using your garbage disposal is not the best tact to take if you're desiring an eco-friendly lifestyle:
The ReSource Institute for Low Entropy Systems, which promotes the use of composting toilets and offers a multipoint plan for protecting clean water (it includes unhooking toilets from municipal sewers in favor of composting models), has campaigned to abolish garbage grinders. "It is as irrational to use water to transport food wastes as it is to use water to transport human excreta or industrial wastes," the foundation believes. "Water should be used only for drinking and for washing." ...
Mulling over the waste streams that left my house, I saw that sometimes they intersected—as food and sewage did at the wastewater treatment plant—and sometimes they came apart—at a recycling facility, for example. The line between compost and the majority of material at a landfill is all too thin.
Want to find out more about recycling?
Recycling Tips: Did You Know You Cannot Recycle Messy Pizza Boxes?
The Benefits of Recycling: Let’s Talk Trash
Recycling the Looking Glass: When Garbage and Art Collide
The Benefits of Recycling Cardboard
Picking Up Garbage TVs and Recycling as Art
Students Recycle and Reduce Garbage: Take It Or Leave It
Knight Rider Recycled—Reborn With Green Twist!
