Recycling Healthy habit (wildlife creatures)
No commentsBy alexanderhampp
We know that our earths environment needs immediate attention, but only few are taking steps to save our planet. Our clean, colorful and bright cities also have ugly landfills and dump yards polluting our environment and living. Research shows that about sixty percent of our landfill can be recycled and it saves time, money and energy. Recycling is one of the best ways in which we can have complete usage of the products we use and act sensibly towards environment. Just throwing away trash in garbage bags or landfills does not end our waste problems.
Recycling is not a complex process; we can follow some simple steps at home or office, and be more responsible towards our environment. It is a good idea to start your recycling exercise from your home. Find some ways to reuse the resources available in your home, for example water. Check the recycling mark on each product we use and segregate the waste according to it. The main aim of your recycling program has to find beneficial ways in which you can completely utilize the product and not converting from one form of waste to another.
Natural trash items such as woods, plants and living organisms decompose in a shorter span of time weeks or months, helping in healthy eco friendly life cycle. But, the man made items like glass, plastics, and coke-cans, takes hundreds of years to decompose causing potential danger to environment and life cycle. Thus, recycling these non-decomposable products is one of the important methods to save our environment. Governments and eco friendly agencies are taking steps to mange waste in cities and other areas to address this growing issue. However, in spite of these aggressive campaigns to promote recycling, in practice, people are less aware about it. This is because; people do not have any proper resource or ideas to help them in recycling products. Some online green communities offer various tips and practical advice on recycling, which is useful for your recycling initiatives.
To be a better recycler, think about recycling before you throw a product in to the trash. Sort and segregate recyclable products in a separate trash or call recycling centers. Find some effective ways to reuse the product or some alternative use of the product. Sort the plastics according to their number codes for better recycling. Check the internet or some green community forums where you can find handful of information on recycling various products. These small steps and practices help us in reducing the landfill and environmental pollution and help sustainability.
For more information regarding Recycling News, related Articles and Careers please click on TheGreenO Greenest Place on Earth.
TheGreeno.com was founded with a mission to collect, organize and present world’s green or Eco-Friendly Information and contribute to green economy’s growth.
Make your home office green
By Annie Deakin
Electronic equipment
Maximise natural lighting by using the sun’s energy to brighten your office. You don’t need any building permissions to install this Solar Mate panel (239.99) from Nigel’s Eco Store. Even in dreary old Blighty, it will store between 8-11 hours of light for its bulb. Screensavers save the screen, not energy, so switch off your monitor (which uses twice the energy of your PC) altogether when you go for lunch, as well as the PC itself. British Eco make it easy with these Bye bye standby plugs (19.99 for intrdouctory pack), which allow you to control your equipment wirelessly from up to 30 metres away. Handy for those forgetful days.
Make business calls on this Siemens Gigaset digital cordless phone (49.95) from John Lewis, which claims to use up to 60% less energy than regular cordless phones. For more ideas, read the Eco-design handbook for homes and offices (16.95) from the Design Museum shop and get up to speed with what else you can do.
Junk Mail
Almost 50% of all catalogues sent by post are never opened, yet nearly 62 million trees and 28 billion gallons of water are used every year to produce them. Get yourself removed from junk-mailing lists by registering with the Mailing Preference Service.
Printing and paper
Print only the information you really need from a document, and also print double-sided, using the smallest font you can and switching your printer to draft output to save ink. Make sure you recycle your print cartridges using one of the many post-it-back schemes, and use chlorine-free recycled paper. For every tonne of paper that is recycled, we save 17 trees, 42,000 kilowatts of electricity, 26,000 litres of water and 27 kilograms of air pollutants. Do your filing and store documents in these award-winning recycled lever arch files (2.45 each) from the Natural Collection.
Meetings and communication
Install video-conferencing facilities (easily achieved via the use of a webcam), so you can keep in touch with clients and the office without having to travel.
Electrical efficiency
Use energy-efficient, compact fluorescent bulbs, which use 75 per cent less energy and last 10 times longer than traditional bulbs. For desk lamps, choose miniature compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs) or light-emitting diodes (LEDs). This Ocean energy saving lamp (95) from Hidden Art not only looks stylish enough to impress clients. Choosing electrical equipment with an energy-star label could cut your electricity bill by up to 80 per cent. The Energy Star logo means that the energy consumption of an appliance is below an agreed level in stand-by mode.
Don’t leave chargers running
Switch off the charger for your mobile phone, batteries, camera and other equipment when you’ve finished charging. If you don’t it will draw almost as much energy as when it is charging, and you will generate 35-70 kilograms of avoidable carbon dioxide each year. It’s estimated that 95% of the energy used by mobile-phone chargers in the UK is energy wasted in this way. Charge mobile phones instead with this Trevor Bayliss eco-pro charger (21.95) from Ethical Superstore. Environmentally-friendly laptop chargers are currently in development watch this space for Samsung’s fuel-cell dock, which promises to power a laptop running eight hours a day for an entire month without recharging.
Cut heating costs
Working from home might seem like a good, green idea, but extra carbon emissions created by heating and powering your home office may outweigh the savings you make by not commuting. Research suggests that a full-time home-worker emits 2.3 tonnes of CO2 annually, compared to 1.7 tonnes for the average office worker, partly due to the additional use of electricity and heating. So in those months where you can’t enjoy working in the garden, make sure you only have lights switched on in the room you are using, and use a portable heater rather than keeping radiators on all over the house.
Love gadgets? Don’t let them spoil the environment. Read our guide to buying the latest tech toys that happen to be green too. Get a stylish office with classic Florence Knoll furniture she revolutionised the post-war coporate look in the US.
Annie Deakin is a fashion expert and editor at mydeco.com and is currently very impressed by the great range of cutlery, bedding and diy.
Is There A Need For Mobile Phone Recycling?
By Clayton Fisher
Do we need to recycle cell phones? Absolutely!
For the longest time, I was one of those who never had a clue that cellular phones can be even be recycled. A lot of people these days have one or several cell phones hidden in a closet somewhere. After a while, when we rediscover these cell phones, these will probably end up in the garbage bin, and eventually, in our town’s dump site.
Could there be a better, more environmentally-friendly solution? Let’s recycle our cell phones.
The Great Cell Phone Deluge
Here are the facts about the sorry state of cell phone recycling in the US today. Every year, 37 million more old cell phones are hidden in our drawers, and 10 million more units end up in our landfills. Out of the 125 million used phones discarded every year, only 9.4% are recycled. There are now close to a billion total discarded cell phones in America, today.
Like most electronic waste, cellular phones contain metals and chemicals that are extremely lethal to humans. Toxic heavy metals like lead, mercury, and cadmium are found in the circuit boards and batteries of cell phones. Carcinogenic chemicals like brominated flame retardants (BFRs) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) are also found in the casing of many cell phones. Lead, one of the most dangerous metals known, has been associated with brain development problems in children and diminished brain functions in adults. Cadmium mixtures are carcinogenic and exposure to this element can cause liver, kidney (irreversible, and often fatal), respiratory and bone density complications.
In regards to solid waste disposal and landfills in this country, can we guarantee that the electronic wastes we deposit in our landfills wont be able to leach harmful chemicals to our underground water systems? I dont know about you, but Im not prepared to take chances on the health of my family or yours, in such uncertain conditions. The probability of contamination is always there. Putting e-waste in our landfills is tantamount to poisoning ourselves.
How Do People Make Money From Cell Phone Recycling?
If you need fast cash, recycling your old phones can be quite a good source of money. You can arrange for the transaction in the internet, and the phone trading or refurbishing companies will pay as much as $50 for each phone you sell them. So, how do these businesses get paid. Simple. They market these phones, for a good mark-up, to wholesale (usually in lots of 100) buyers in Africa or Asia. You made some money from the sale of a used item, while helping bring communications capability to the developing countries. Think about it.
Umicore, a European recycling firm, harvests precious metals like gold, silver, platinum, copper, and coltan, as well as manufacturing recyclables like glass and plastic from tons of old cell phones. They call this recycling of precious metals surface mining. Theres actually more gold to be harvested in a ton of used phones than from 17 tons of gold ores! Less than half of 1% of the electronic waste that go through the recycling process can not be returned to the production cycle and is then burned for energy generation.
Its not advisable to try and extract valuable metals from your old wireless on your own, because of the toxic industrial chemicals involved plus the fact that theres just barely a trace of these metals found in each cell phone. The largerecycling plants make money by processing millions of old cellular phones.
How do you recycle cell phones?
Donate your cell phone to your favorite charity.
Im sure that, in the past, youve given assistance to a charitable organization like The Salvation Army or a health-advocacy and support organization like the Smile Train. Well, did you know that you can also help them through cell phone donations? Its certainly a good opportunity to help your trusted non-profit collect funds for their altruistic activities, by giving an item thats otherwise, useless. In the hands of these organizations, your cell phones could be instrumental to make a difference in other peoples situations.
Give your old or used phones to family or friends.
How frequently do Americans change their cell phones? A study by EPA shows that a sizable majority of people replace their cell phones every 18 months, on average. Obviously, after 1 and years of use, these old phones are still quite functional. You can extend the utility of these phones by giving them to a relative or a friend. Dont forget to ask your friend or relative to recycle the phones properly, when the time comes for them to discard it, later.
Recycle cell phones through recycling and refurbishing companies.
Another method thats fast and convenient is to sell your outdated mobile phone in the internet. Cellular phone trading and refurbishing sites, like Pacebutler Corporation in Edmond, Oklahoma will pay as much as $50 for each cell phone you sell to them. Just go to their website, find out how much theyre buying your phone, request for a pre-paid shipping label, and send them your phones. How fast is this process? Usually, youll have your check within 4-5 business days after they received your phones.
Recycle cell phones through the manufacturer or service provider.
Cell phone producers are always focused about their supply of production resources. Companies like Nokia, Alcatel, Motorola, as well as service networks like AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint, all have cell phone trade-in or repurchase programs to make sure that they have a constant supply of recyclables for their production cycle. Mailing your old phones back to them ensures that these units are recycled properly. Many companies will cover shipping, and most have their own drop boxes in phone stores nationwide
Ive shared with you here just some methods to recycle that old cell phone in your locker, right now. Dont forget to share these tips with friends and ask them to recycle, as well. Together, we can create so much good helping preserve the environment and safeguarding our own health, through cell phone recycling.
Lets recycle old our cell phones, today. Its an easy call to make.
Clayton Fisher contributes articles to the Pacebutler Recycling and Environmental blog. Pacebutler Corporation of Edmond, Oklahoma is one of the phone trading companies that buy used phones directly from US phone users. If you would like to donate cell phones to your favorite non-profit , please visit the cell donations page.
Learn About Outdoor Creatures In Wildlife
Sunday, August 30th, 2009 at 1:10 am and is filed under environmental. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
