How do you do it? I know that our family goes through a lot of alkaline batteries every year. I have started trying to collect them before they go in the trash, but old battery habits die hard (OK, bad pun)! I know some still get tossed when they go dead. In addition, with the increased popularity of compact fluorescent bulbs, another small item that really should be recycled is destined for our landfills. I do save old paint, theoretically for our once yearly collection day. The reality is that this day often falls when I have another commitment, or when I am just too busy to drive the 10 miles to the collection place, wait in line, and drop off the paint. Consequently I have several years worth of old paint waiting to be recycled.
I know many of the workshops, garages, and barns in our area, probably like in most of the developed world, have fluorescent light tubes in them. I wonder what happens to these when they go bad? I bet many are just broken and put out with the trash. Talk about a bad problem, both for the people doing it and being exposed to the mercury and for the environment by having this mercury end up in the landfills.
So what can be done? I really don’t know. I would like to see our garbage company add a once a month pickup for all these odd, recyclable items. However, that may be impractical because of the varied shapes, sizes, and requirements of these items. How is the garbage company going to handle car batteries, paint, household and garden chemicals, fluorescent bulbs, and other items I am probably not thinking about, all in the same truck? Maybe more local collection centers can be opened? Or can the existing once a year special collection days be made monthly or even weekly?
Tell us what happens in your area. What do you do with all the odd recyclable items?
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This kind of problem could lead to a way to really connect with neighbors in the local community. If one were so inclined, it would be fairly easy to contact people on your block and see if you can interest people in teaming up to dispose of one or two kinds of items each month.
Maybe try for for CFL/long bulbs one month, and batteries the next, and paint the next. Make arrangements for people to share the work of collecting and transporting these things so nobody is driving to the recycling center with just one household’s worth of batteries or bulbs.
It could even be possible to get a local business, a market, drug store, hardware store, etc… to act as a collection point. If you pick a place where people go anyway it might be easy to get people to participate.
That’s a great idea. Especially if you live in an area where you actually have blocks of homes, it would be fairly easy to do. Even where we live in the country, it might work. Collecting from others might make people feel more committed also.
One aspect of that idea I had gets into social engineering in a beneficial way. If someone knows that you may be calling them in three months to see if they have any batteries to collect they would probably be more inclined to saving them for disposal instead of simply tossing them,.
JD, you always seem to have an interesting take on things. Your use of the term ’social engineering” prompted me to use Google to refresh myself on what it means. I had only thought recently about the term in the way it relates to scammers, hackers etc. But here it really could be used in a beneficial way!
-Will
Like many tools, social engineering can be used for good or bad purposes.
Here’s a bit of interesting trivia for you. Most Burger Kings now have a posted policy near the cash registers saying that if you do not receive a receipt, your meal is free. That little sign is one of largest nationwide social engineering projects ever conceived and it saves Burger King stores tens of millions of dollars annually by co-opting customers as ’security guards’ for their cash registers. Prior to those signs going up, Burger King had a big problem with employees selling products and just pocketing the cash by not ringing some or all of the order on a register. They had plenty of employees who were slick enough to fake it and it was costing them money. By placing that sign there, the customer is acting as security for Burger King to ensure that the order is actually processed on the register and the money is therefore entered into the system.
That IS interesting and a smart move by Burger King. Of course, I would not have known about that as I never eat at BK! :-O
I don’t have a magic answer for you, but I do agree that it’s all the little things that can add up to a major problem in the end. Thanks for reminding us.
I don’t even know where my local recycling points are but blog action day has made me determined to find out. As others have said, take one thing at a time and remember that every step helps. You’ll free up a lot of storage space too. You’re making an effort, that counts
another thing to do is buy an efficient battery recharger. rechargeable batteries can be used as much as 1000 times.
Bobbie – Yes, doing the little things, and starting even with small steps can make a positive difference, just like as you say, a lot of little bad things add up to a problem in the end.
Claire – Sometimes even large communities don’t have actual collection sites for this stuff. In our county, which has over 150,000 people, they collect things like used paint once a year. On other days, even if you take it to the official recycling center, they won’t accept it.
Fosfor- I have rechargeable batteries for some things. But, I have discovered that some electronic items do not like them. They do not last as long as regular batteries and don’t seem to have quite as much power. They are getting better with the built in rechargeable batteries, so maybe the AA’s etc. will improve with time. Batteries are something I think we are going to see huge changes in over the next several years. Not just big ones like for cars and storing solar generated power, but also the little ones we use in our electronics.
Thank you all for your comments and also for taking the time to link to your sites which are all well done and sites I would not have seen otherwise.
-Will
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