MORE ON RECYCLING

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             Down-cycling and Up-cycling-
When a recycled good i­s cheaper or weaker than the original product, it's known as down-cycling (or downstream recycling). Eventually, goods move so far down the recycling stream it isn't feasible to recycle them any further. After being recycled a few times, paper is no longer usable. In some cases, goods can be up-cycled -- made into something more valuable than the original product.

Here are two more reasons to recycle-

è   Our “trash”, including scrap paper, metal and plastics, is one of the US’s largest current exports to China.  They purchase our recyclable trash because they don’t have enough raw materials to meet their demand.  In 2002, the US exported $1.2 billion worth of recyclables.  In 2006, the export grew to $6.1 billion. (Excellent!)

è   Recycling requires 90% less energy than making aluminum cans from ore or plastics from oil, plus it creates less waste and pollution.

è        Trade in recyclates ( Wikipedia)

->  Computers being collected for recycling at a pick up event in Olympia, Washington, United States.

Certain countries trade in unprocessed recyclates. Some have complained that the ultimate fate of recyclates sold to another country is unknown and they may end up in landfills instead of reprocessed. According to one report, in America, 50-80% of computers destined for recycling are actually not recycled. There are reports of illegal-waste imports to China being dismantled and recycled solely for monetary gain, without consideration for workers' health or environmental damage. Though the Chinese government has banned these practices, it has not been able to eradicate them. In 2008, the prices of recyclable waste plummeted before rebounding in 2009. Cardboard averaged about £53/tonne from 2004–2008, dropped to £19/tonne, and then went up to £59/tonne in May 2009. PET plastic averaged about £156/tonne, dropped to £75/tonne and then moved up to £195/tonne in May 2009. Certain regions have difficulty using or exporting as much of a material as they recycle. This problem is most prevalent with glass: both Britain and the U.S. import large quantities of wine bottled in green glass. Though much of this glass is sent to be recycled, outside the American Midwest there is not enough wine production to use all of the reprocessed material. The extra must be downcycled into building materials or re-inserted into the regular waste stream.

Similarly, the northwestern United States has difficulty finding markets for recycled newspaper, given the large number of pulp mills in the region as well as the proximity to Asian markets. In other areas of the U.S., however, demand for used newsprint has seen wide fluctuation.

In some U.S. states, a program called Recycle Bank pays people with coupons to recycle, receiving money from local municipalities for the reduction in landfill space which must be purchased. It uses a single stream process in which all material is automatically sorted.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE RECYCLE

Products that are recycled in large quantities include paper and paperboard, ferrous metals, aluminum and other nonferrous metals, glass, plastics, and yard wastes. Because the quality of recycled items is often inferior (often due to the mixture or age of the materials in the items being recycled) and not suitable for their original purpose, the price for many recycled materials remains low and makes recycling economically nonviable in some instances. In an attempt to solve this problem, new uses have been created for recovered waste material. Crushed glass, for instance, can be substituted for gravel or sand in road surfacing and other construction applications; the resulting product is called "glassphalt." Scientists and entrepreneurs are also working on ways to turn the world's growing piles of discarded automobile tires into new products or to use them to generate safe energy.  Contamination of the recylates with other materials must be prevented to increase the recyclates' value and facilitate easier reprocessing for the ultimate recycling facility. This sorting can be performed either by the producer of the waste or within semi- or fully-automated materials recovery facilities.

Basically recycling consists of the following steps :-

Step 1. Collection and Processing 
Collecting recyclables varies from community to community, but there are four primary methods: curbside, drop-off centers, buy-back centers, and deposit/refund programs. Regardless of the method used to collect the recyclables, the next leg of the journey is usually the same. Recyclables are sent to a materials recovery facility to be sorted and prepared into marketable commodities for manufacturing. Recyclables are bought and sold just like any other commodity, and prices for the materials change and fluctuate with the market.

Step 2. Manufacturing 
Once cleaned and separated, the recyclables are ready to undergo the second part of the recycling loop. More and more of today's products are being manufactured with total or partial recycled content. Common household items that contain recycled materials include newspapers and paper towels; aluminum, plastic, and glass soft drink containers; steel cans; and plastic laundry detergent bottles. Recycled materials also are used in innovative applications such as recovered glass in roadway asphalt (glassphalt) or recovered plastic in carpeting, park benches, and pedestrian bridges.

Step 3. Purchasing Recycled Products
Purchasing recycled products completes the recycling loop. By "buying recycled goods," governments, as well as businesses and individual consumers, each play an important role in making the recycling process a success. As consumers demand more environmentally sound products, manufacturers will continue to meet that demand by producing high-quality recycled products.

Recycling at the U of M, Twin Cities

I am seriously impressed by the magnitude of efforts being under taken by my University to recycle, reduce and reuse non-biodegradable waste throughout the campus and even outside it to some extent. Every campus building has separate bins for plastics, paper, glass and other trash. Even the dorm rooms have separate bins for each type of waste. Everywhere recycled tissue papers are used and various volunteering projects involving cleaning parks, rivers etc. are taken up. There are a number of student groups that focus on sustaining the environment and how can we as students contribute to the cause.  

There is a re-use program, which relieves 250 university buildings of unwanted materials, fixtures and supplies. They redistribute furniture and equipment valued at over $200,000 to U of M departments each year. They recycle unwanted steel, aluminum, wood, cardboard and paper.  The U of M recycling program collects wastes separately using the color coded QUAD system.

An event called, Beautiful U Day brings together students, faculty and staff for beautification and sustainability events on all University of Minnesota campuses. Last year’s Twin Cities campus event introduced the It All Adds Up program’s energy conservation initiative, setting the goal of reducing energy consumption by five percent by the end of 2010. This goal was surpassed in March. The It All Adds Up message is very popular on campus, seen on bright green bands and T-shirts. During our welcome week we were taken to Saint Paul campus where we signed up for their mailing list and sign a pledge in which we were asked about the different ways in which I will be contributing towards sustaining the environment. We were also given used folders that are really very useful to me. I said that I will be taking the stairs instead of elevators whenever possible (the fact that I live on the second floor helps in maintaining it). Also that I’d be using the dorm room bins and throw the garbage accordingly. I’d try and save as much electricity as I can. I make sure to switch off lights and other electric appliances when not needed. I know that this isn’t much but I’ve seen that people here keep the lights on even when they are not in the room, because they don’t care and they don’t have to pay their electric bills separately. But then coming from a place like India where lots of places still do not have access to electricity, and power cuts are really common, I am aware of the need to use it judiciously.

What is the need for recycling?

Any non-biodegradable i.e. non-organic material that cannot be broken down by micro-organisms if accumulated in excess amounts is going to be harmful to the environment.  About millions of tones of plastics are produced annually though most of it goes into landfills, substantial amounts end up in the sea. This affects almost every living organism either directly or indirectly. Some trash like glass is biodegradable but it will take about a million years to degrade. Producing these use up a lot of our most non- renewable resources and thus the need for this production to be controlled. Also their feasibility and easy accessibility make them really useful and convenient. Therefore completely eliminating their usage is impossible.And the most eco-friendly solution to do so is recycling.

 I always thought that plastics float around on water. Well it’s not that what I thought was wrong, but when we see video footages of huge amounts of plastics and other non-biodegradable wastes floating in the sea, and start feeling concerned for the dolphins and other sea creatures, we need to know that this waste is a fraction of what actually exists in the sea. As plastics stay in the sea, they become fouled by marine organisms and this alters their overall density, due to which they sink to the seabed.  And obviously a lot of sea creatures eat this waste or suffer by getting entangled in them. Eating these wastes lead to suffocation or blockage of digestive tract. Also Japanese research shows that the plastics floating on the surface are attractive to hydrophobic chemicals or contaminants such as pesticides. These stick to the plastics and enter the food chain when marine animals eat them. A recent US report stated that about 100,000 sea animals die every year just because of plastics which account for 60-80% of the waste.

Although a lot of activities are being taken up by people from around the world because of the increasing awareness of ill-effects of plastics.  In comparison to the accumulated amount, the efforts are not sufficient to control the damage. Most people despite knowing about the situation do not implement recycling into their lives and as a result in many countries, non-biodegradable waste accumulate on the streets and are eaten by stray cattle, they become breeding grounds of mosquitoes and play a major role in spreading diseases like malaria, typhoid, diarrhea, cholera etc.

Personally even I fell into the same category before I saw my neighbor’s dog die because of choking due to some plastic that he ate from the streets. I know that this was pretty lame, that I started caring for the environment after I was affected personally, but then I hope others are not like me.

My First Blog!

OMG! I had no-idea how tough it could be to decide on a topic for blogging. I changed my profile picture atleast 10 times before settling on the recycle-reduce-reuse symbol. Initially I wanted to write a blog on what i feel about the various addictive social networking sites. But then decided against it. Next thought was to write about dogs! yes. I love dogs. But then since this blog is associated with my freshman writing class, i found it a bit inappropriate. Next i thought about Chemical engineering as it is my major. Pondering over this idea, I felt that it was a really vast topic to begin with and decided to narrow it down. Just then I saw the band on my hand that read- It All Adds Up. Well I took this as an omen (jk.) and settled on the very common but neverthless important, 'recylcle-reduce-reuse' slogan that seems omni-present these days.  

Environmental sustainability is something we come across really frequently these days. There is increasing awareness on the importance of protecting and preserving the environment. So in the blogs that will follow, I will try to share facts as well as my thoughts on how we can make a difference by applying the slogan - recycle-reduce-reuse into our lives. 

I really appreciate the efforts our University is taking inorder to recylce. Everywhere we can see seperate dustbins for recyclable and non-recyclable waste. The city from where I am, in India, recyling was a distant thought, as it is chances of finding dustbins on the streets were few. Garbage dumps on the street sides were a common sight.  However recently, some NGOs have reached out are making efforts to improve the situation.  
We all know that problems like global warming, ozone layer depletion etc are posing big threats to mankind, and a huge number of minds are working day and night to find solutions. And the most significant way, we can make our contribution is by recycling,reducing and reusing!