My Mission to Learn More about Environmental Best Practice
Photo by Thomas Hawk
Current Mission: Find out what it is about magazines that makes them unrecyclable.
Update October 7, 08
Chatted with my mum about unrecyclable magazines. She lives in rural BC and raises organic beef.
Me: Hi mum.
Mum: Howzz my baby-guuurl (emphasis on the urrrll)
Me: *cringes* Good. On a mission to find out why I can’t recycle magazines and similar print-like materials, like brochures, shop catalogs, etc.
Mum: Yes you can. We drop ours into a blue bag and they pick all that stuff up every Tuesday.
Me: You have recycling Pick Up all the way out there?? What the hell? (Editors note: I live in an area that is lightly populated, but generally by serious environmentalists, conscience livers and artists of all sorts. Like a mini, Canadian San Francisco. We are fully responsible for separating our own recycling and dropping it off.)
Mum: Of course we do. Here, let me just look at the recycling guide. Wait. Just let me find it. Ah, here it is. Now, Where’s my glasses. (I brace for the usual guttural noise (think Marge Simpson) that follows this rhetorical question about her glasses.. here it comes *bracing*). Urrrggghh.. Oh, here they are.
Me: Right where you left ‘em?
*sound of crickets chirping*
Me: *shifting uncomfortably* heheh… um.. er… echem. Can you read me just the part about mixed papers?
Mum: Sure. We can’t recycle glass.
Me: mmhmm.
Mum: skimming through the guide. Hum-in-uh-hum-in-uh-hum-in-uh..blah blah yum-in-ah.. (she makes this noise to let the listener know she is skimming *shrug*) Oh. It says here that all mixed paper is shipped overseas.
Me: What!? What else does it say?
Mum: hmu-in-ah-hum-in-ah. Nope, that’s it.
So it looks like my queries as to what it is about magazines and mixed papers that makes them non-recyclable is taking me overseas. What technology are they using that we are not using? Sounds like sticking mixed papers in a blue bin or box is in fact not at all recycling.
Why are we passing on outdated material overseas to be recycled.
The search continues.
Bonnie
Great post! I’m going to find out what’s happening to the stuff I sort and put in the recycling bins. I’m heading off to the recycling room in the building to find out the name of the company that does the pickup.