Everybody loves crayons, including the parents who join their kids in scribbling on paper place mats at family restaurants. Astoundingly, the Crayola company alone manufactures in excess of 12 million of the colored wax sticks daily....[More]
BACK IN BLACK ... AND GREEN ... AND FUCHSIA:
Everybody loves crayons, including the parents who join their kids in scribbling on paper place mats at family restaurants. Astoundingly, the Crayola company alone manufactures in excess of 12 million of the colored wax sticks daily. On a whim, for a craft's project with her children, LuAnn Foty started melting down old crayons to make new ones. The idea took off, and Foty founded Crazy Crayons, LLC, in 1993. Today, she still works in a barn behind her home near Steamboat Springs, Colo. Volunteers help sort mailed-in crayons. Foty then creates two- or three-tone crayons by hand in custom, candylike molds in shapes such as stars and dinosaurs. Soon, she will introduce new "Earthling" crayons in the familiar stick shape. So far, the company has gathered more than 35,000 kilograms of crayons—a "drop in the bucket," Foty admits, but every little bit helps. "My main focus is educating kids about recycling," she says. "If you teach the kids, they teach the parents."
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Crazy Crayons
RETURN OF SERVE:
Any tennis player will tell you that the game's bright yellow balls quickly lose their pop off the court; that's usually when the dog gets a new chew toy....[More]
RETURN OF SERVE:
Any tennis player will tell you that the game's bright yellow balls quickly lose their pop off the court; that's usually when the dog gets a new chew toy. The 300 million or so tennis balls manufactured every year add up to a lot of non-biodegradable trash—17,000 metric tons, in fact, according to reBounces, a Harrison, Ark.–based company. ReBounces started recycling tennis balls back in 2008 with its Green Tennis Machine. This barrellike device creates a high-pressure environment in its interior space that forces an environmentally friendly, proprietary blend of gases into the cores of old tennis balls that have lost their internal pressure. (That is what makes tennis balls bounce so well and why they're sold in airtight, pressurized canisters.) The firm has returned more than half a million balls to fresh-from-the-canister springiness for athletic clubs and tennis schools around the country. Cannon Fletcher, co-founder of reBounces, says balls can be "reBounced" a few times. Green Tennis Machines are also available for purchase for on-site ball rejuvenation.
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Jared Ward/Ozark Tennis Academy/reBounces
LIGHTS FANTASTIC:
With the growing popularity of energy-efficient light emitting diodes (LEDs) in all types of lighting, more and more people are ditching their incandescent holiday lights for the newer technology....[More]
LIGHTS FANTASTIC:
With the growing popularity of energy-efficient light emitting diodes (LEDs) in all types of lighting, more and more people are ditching their incandescent holiday lights for the newer technology. To entice people to make the switch, HolidayLEDS.com started a string-light recycling program in 2007. Customers who mail in their old lights get a 25 percent discount on new sets. Philip Curtis, president of HolidayLEDS.com in Jackson, Mich., says they receive about 13,500 kilograms of lights a year, which are then shredded and sorted into raw materials—PVC plastic, glass and copper wiring—at a nearby recycling facility. In the past few years many firms have begun to offer holiday light recycling. "It was amazing how fast this took off," Curtis says.
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HolidayLEDs.com
JEANS, REBORN:
The vast majority of clothes, even after stints as hand-me-downs, end up in landfills: The average American throws out nearly 32 kilograms of textiles a year, according to the U.S....[More]
JEANS, REBORN:
The vast majority of clothes, even after stints as hand-me-downs, end up in landfills: The average American throws out nearly 32 kilograms of textiles a year, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. A recycling program called "Cotton. From Blue to Green" recycles denim into home insulation by breaking it down into the original fibers and reweaving them. Cotton, Inc., which coordinates the effort for several companies, claims that the insulation, dubbed UltraTouch, offers similar thermal performance to traditional fiberglass and is 30 percent better at sound absorption. Since 2006 more than half a million articles of denim clothing have been collected and turned into 140,000 square meters of insulation. Other denim-recycling efforts use the fabric to make clothes, furniture coverings and paper stationary.
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Cotton, Inc.
SUPPORT SUPPORT:
The Bra Recyclers aim to reclaim an oft-overlooked part of the feminine wardrobe when it comes to clothes recycling. "When people ask what we're doing, I have to spell it out: B-R-A-S," says Elaine Birks-Mitchell (above), who founded the company in 2008....[More]
SUPPORT SUPPORT:
The Bra Recyclers aim to reclaim an oft-overlooked part of the feminine wardrobe when it comes to clothes recycling. "When people ask what we're doing, I have to spell it out: B-R-A-S," says Elaine Birks-Mitchell (above), who founded the company in 2008. "They're not something people think about as being needed or recyclable." Since that time, several hundred thousand used and unused bras have been mailed or dropped off at the company's offices in Gilbert, Ariz. Most of the bras go to homeless and domestic abuse shelters, whereas others go overseas. Bras too far gone find use as rags or are shredded into raw textiles for making insulation, for example. Birks-Mitchell says the feedback from bra recipients has been very rewarding. "We get letters all the time," she says. "A bra is so simple but it means so much to someone who doesn't have one."
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The Bra Recyclers
RE-WARDS:
Are those old kiddie sports trophies taking up too much space in the den? With a bit of polish and a new engraving, those mementos of glories past can be repurposed to celebrate present-day achievements....[More]
RE-WARDS:
Are those old kiddie sports trophies taking up too much space in the den? With a bit of polish and a new engraving, those mementos of glories past can be repurposed to celebrate present-day achievements. Metal, wood, glass and other materials in commemorations can also otherwise be recycled rather than pitched. A number of companies offer trophy recycling services, but Madison, Wis.–based Total Awards & Promotions, Inc., has been doing it for 23 years. It started when someone doing a bit of spring cleaning brought a bunch of trophies to the attention of President Donna Gray. She began a donation program for nonprofit organizations such as Habitat for Humanity and the Special Olympics to recognize participants' accomplishments. The effort has been wildly successful, with trophies being mailed in from all over the U.S., and even Canada and Puerto Rico. Employees and volunteers sort out, clean up, re-engrave and generally refurbish the reusable trophies and plaques. "We love that we get to do this," Gray says. Around 5,000 old awards are in stock at any given time.
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Total Awards & Promotions, Inc.
REINCARNATING CORK:
Why do people often keep old wine bottle corks in a drawer or vase? "There's an elemental connection between humans and cork," says Patrick Spencer, executive director of the Cork Forest Conservation Alliance....[More]
REINCARNATING CORK:
Why do people often keep old wine bottle corks in a drawer or vase? "There's an elemental connection between humans and cork," says Patrick Spencer, executive director of the Cork Forest Conservation Alliance. "It feels good in our hands." In an effort to educate consumers about cork as well as find fresh uses for bottle-stoppers, Spencer's organization started the Cork ReHarvest program in 2008. Whole Foods Market stores nationwide serve as drop-off sites, along with many restaurants, hotels, wineries and performing arts centers. Last year the program collected 27 metric tons–worth, or about six million corks. The reclaimed cork goes to third-party companies who convert it into floor tiles, coasters, furniture and more.
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Cork ReHarvest
BEING ADULT ABOUT RECYCLING:
Recycling of consumer electronics, or "e-waste," has caught on in recent years. But adult toys such as vibrators still often get discretely tossed into the trash....[More]
BEING ADULT ABOUT RECYCLING:
Recycling of consumer electronics, or "e-waste," has caught on in recent years. But adult toys such as vibrators still often get discretely tossed into the trash. Given the estimated several million bedroom toys sold just in the U.S. every year, Portland, Ore.–based Scarlet Girl, an adult product company, decided to give recycling a go. "Recycling an adult toy is similar to recycling a cell phone or a laptop computer," says Vicki Kriner, a founding member of Scarlet Girl who helps with its "Sexstainability" program. The toys' hard plastic, silicone, chip boards and other components can all be separated out, Kriner explains. Scarlet Girl began offering a mail-in service for customers' cleaned, disinfected toys about three years ago. These eco-conscious customers receive a $10 credit for their next online purchase.
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Scarlet Girl
SNEAKING OUT THE DUMP:
Nike has prevented more than 25 million pairs of shoes from the fate of degrading in landfills globally through its Reuse-A-Shoe take-back program, "run" since 1993....[More]
SNEAKING OUT THE DUMP:
Nike has prevented more than 25 million pairs of shoes from the fate of degrading in landfills globally through its Reuse-A-Shoe take-back program, "run" since 1993. The crummy old shoes get ground up and pulverized into three Nike Grind materials—rubber (from the outsole), foam (from the midsole) and fabric (from the upper part of the shoe). The processed materials find fresh athletic uses: The rubber Grind, for instance, is used for track and playground surfaces. The foam goes into constructing synthetic courts for basketball, tennis and soccer. The fabric contributes to equestrian surface materials and as padding for hardwood basketball floors. Shoe drop-off locations at athletic stores span the U.S. and various other countries.
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Nike Reuse-A-Shoe
RECAP:
Bottle caps, yogurt cups and other types of no. 5 plastic pose problems for many local recyclers. The resin has limited second-life options, thus making its reclamation less economically attractive....[More]
RECAP:
Bottle caps, yogurt cups and other types of no. 5 plastic pose problems for many local recyclers. The resin has limited second-life options, thus making its reclamation less economically attractive. Plus, rigid bottle caps can jam processing equipment, so they often get rerouted to a landfill. Aveda, the cosmetic products company, started a mail-in bottle cap collection program in 2008. Since then, 1,700 schools and dozens of other organizations have signed up. Aveda has forwarded about 385,500 kilograms of plastic—100 million or so caps—to an Alabama recycling company that handles no. 5 plastic. In recent years local no. 5 recycling has expanded nationwide. "We're starting to see happen in the public sector what we had hoped to inspire when we started out on this," says Chuck Bennett, Aveda's vice president of Earth and community care.
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Aveda
YES! Send me a free issue of Scientific American with no obligation to continue the subscription. If I like it, I will be billed for the one-year subscription.
Why don't they convert old jeans into new cotton yarn and re-make new jeans? And what is an old wax crayon? Why don't people use them up until they are too small to handle? The best project is the tennis ball re-bouncer. Nothing has to be re-made.I think old plastic should be ground into sand like particles and use as a soil lightening filler. It doesn't matter that it will not degrade. After all, sand doesn't.
I used to find the the recycling effort at my 7 year old's elementary school was wonderful and cute. Then one day, seeing how much the winner of the recycling effort for the month brought in from home, it dawned on me that the winner's family were not the most "earth-friendly" folk, but the biggest consumers and wasters of natural resources in the school! And as to the recycling itself, exactly how much net savings of energy and unwanted byproduct results through such processing one wonders. But even were it the most efficient of efficient -- it remains a poor joke, a pathetic little lie for kids Earth day school posters.
Here's the reality for grownups:
We live in an ever-growing consumerist economy, driven by paper, glossy, electronic, and billboard (electronic too now, actually) media for hire -- trained in the subtle art of mass psychological manipulation. We are trained to buy the "latest and greatest" of what we neither need nor actually enjoy even as a creature comfort. And if our subconscious is not programmed sufficiently for premature obsolescence, self-destruct gets purposely designed in. This beyond needless duplication in competition where its the marketing and packaging, not product quality, that counts. And the cost of armies of marketing, legal, etc., to make this all happen.
The forgetting what this is doing to the planet, we must understand what this is doing to us all. The 7 billion of us could be well-fed, housed, clothed, and fairly comfortable (and not just by third world standards), were all the pure waste and exploitation entropy taken out of the system.
Don't get me wrong, I certainly support recycling efforts, even if it takes a year's worth to buy our civilization one extra day. That is, as long as we realize that it is all a side show. But if it distracts us from the real issues, then I would prefer substituting Earth Day will "Get-Serious-Before-Its-Too-Late" Day in which we purposely toss our aluminum cans and plastics into the regular trash to wake us up.
There's an excellent book which challenges us to rethink the way we make our stuff, where it comes from, and what it becomes. Its authors make the case that we need to use materials in a genuinely circular way, truly recycling them for ever, like the materials used by living organisms. It's by Micaheal Braungart and William McDonough and is called 'Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the way we make things', 2002. http://www.mcdonough.com/cradle_to_cradle.htm
Sorry kiteman (#1), I know that adding ground-up plastic to soil might sound helpful, but this is really not a good idea. Plastic is not biodegradable, so adding plastic to soil would not be recycling - it would be littering. And not just ordinary littering but irreversible and irresponsible littering. The smaller a piece of litter is the harder it is to pick it up. Picking up the dust of something is impossible. Poisoning soil organisms with plastic dust would be pollution, not recycling. Plastic is not chemically the same as sand.
I recycled a trophy once. Got a new plaque for it and in the dark of night slipped it in the trophy case at school. It was an old trophy so I slipped it in with the older trophies. Still there commemorating the best senior prank. ^_^
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7 Comments
Add CommentWhy don't they convert old jeans into new cotton yarn and re-make new jeans? And what is an old wax crayon? Why don't people use them up until they are too small to handle? The best project is the tennis ball re-bouncer. Nothing has to be re-made.I think old plastic should be ground into sand like particles and use as a soil lightening filler. It doesn't matter that it will not degrade. After all, sand doesn't.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI used to find the the recycling effort at my 7 year old's elementary school was wonderful and cute. Then one day, seeing how much the winner of the recycling effort for the month brought in from home, it dawned on me that the winner's family were not the most "earth-friendly" folk, but the biggest consumers and wasters of natural resources in the school! And as to the recycling itself, exactly how much net savings of energy and unwanted byproduct results through such processing one wonders. But even were it the most efficient of efficient -- it remains a poor joke, a pathetic little lie for kids Earth day school posters.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere's the reality for grownups:
We live in an ever-growing consumerist economy, driven by paper, glossy, electronic, and billboard (electronic too now, actually) media for hire -- trained in the subtle art of mass psychological manipulation. We are trained to buy the "latest and greatest" of what we neither need nor actually enjoy even as a creature comfort. And if our subconscious is not programmed sufficiently for premature obsolescence, self-destruct gets purposely designed in. This beyond needless duplication in competition where its the marketing and packaging, not product quality, that counts. And the cost of armies of marketing, legal, etc., to make this all happen.
The forgetting what this is doing to the planet, we must understand what this is doing to us all. The 7 billion of us could be well-fed, housed, clothed, and fairly comfortable (and not just by third world standards), were all the pure waste and exploitation entropy taken out of the system.
Don't get me wrong, I certainly support recycling efforts, even if it takes a year's worth to buy our civilization one extra day. That is, as long as we realize that it is all a side show. But if it distracts us from the real issues, then I would prefer substituting Earth Day will "Get-Serious-Before-Its-Too-Late" Day in which we purposely toss our aluminum cans and plastics into the regular trash to wake us up.
Yes, REDUCE, REUSE, then Recycle. Those first two are the most important but hardest for people to grasp.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere's an excellent book which challenges us to rethink the way we make our stuff, where it comes from, and what it becomes. Its authors make the case that we need to use materials in a genuinely circular way, truly recycling them for ever, like the materials used by living organisms.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's by Micaheal Braungart and William McDonough and is called 'Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the way we make things', 2002.
http://www.mcdonough.com/cradle_to_cradle.htm
Sorry kiteman (#1), I know that adding ground-up plastic to soil might sound helpful, but this is really not a good idea. Plastic is not biodegradable, so adding plastic to soil would not be recycling - it would be littering. And not just ordinary littering but irreversible and irresponsible littering. The smaller a piece of litter is the harder it is to pick it up. Picking up the dust of something is impossible.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPoisoning soil organisms with plastic dust would be pollution, not recycling.
Plastic is not chemically the same as sand.
Oops, Michael (not Micaheal!) Braungart and William McDonough are the authors of 'Cradle to Cradle'.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI recycled a trophy once. Got a new plaque for it and in the dark of night slipped it in the trophy case at school. It was an old trophy so I slipped it in with the older trophies. Still there commemorating the best senior prank. ^_^
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this