Trying to be a good recycling citizen...

[sparr0.livejournal.com]

If I've determined that removing a certain food residue (peanut butter from the walls of a jar, dried cheese from a paper to-go container, etc) is not something I am invested enough in being a good person to do... should I put it in the trash or recycling?

Comments

[xuth.livejournal.com]

The energy saved by recycling aluminum vs manufacturing from raw materials is relatively huge. Aluminum production is one of the largest uses of electricity in the world and recycling aluminum requires about 5% of the energy of producing new. Back when aluminum cans were heavier and thicker walled you could say that not recycling a 12 oz beer/soda can was equivalent to filling it half full of gasoline and burning it. Now, manufacturing enough aluminum for the current lighter beverage cans from recycling vs new materials saves the equivalent of about 2.5 oz of petroleum (this assumes 34 cans per pound and 32 barrels of oil saved per ton of recycled aluminum but the numbers seem to be relatively consistent from varied sources) so in almost any case this is worth the time and water.

Steel, paper and plastics provide less but still significant energy savings (look at http://www.epa.gov/osw/education/pdfs/toolkit/tools-m.pdf for an idea of how much) and in general this is worth it as well.

Note that all of this is on top of the environmental savings of not having the waste go to landfills.

For what it's worth, recycling in Somerville is still only optional, but in many communities (and possibly Somerville in the future) recycling is mandatory and actually punishable for failure to do so.

[ratatosk.livejournal.com]

That's a nice link -- thank you!