Happy Earth Day – Some Recycling Thoughts
Posted on: April 22, 2009 by Matt
I am a fan of recycling and have tried in the past to do my best to try to reduce my waste. While living in Denver I was able to get a bin from the city to put all my recyclable materials in that they would pick up for free. I filled it pretty much every pickup cycle.
The service was great. The city would drop off a giant trash can for your address and then pick it up once every two weeks all free of charge. I would have preferred to find a way to turn a profit for recycling but a free and easy service is the next best thing.
However living in the North East Kingdom of Vermont has proven a bit challenging on the recycling front. Redemption centers exist for returning cans and bottles (that all have a $0.05 deposit) but from what I have seen you will need to pay in order to recycle all other materials.
From what I have seen there are a plethora of people recycling cans and even scouring the roads for all the nickels they can find but very few households seem to keep recycling bins. I may be missing something along the way but it seems that nobody I know recycles aside from businesses.
The limited availability of recycling has got me wondering what it would take to open up a free recycling service in a rural area. Again – I am not sure what the local transfer station here offers but think I may cruise over and get their rates at lunch time. Even a small step in the right direction would be good for the planet and benefit the community. Also – once again if I could turn a small profit at gathering materials and dropping them off for recycling I will probably have a new hobby.
Anyway – I will post an update with the information I gather from the transfer station today but wanted to ask and see if anyone has experience with starting a recycling center. If you do I would love to hear a bit about how it works. Until then I will continue to work on getting our household items together and dropped off at my office for recycling (the company pays the bill at least).
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TagsExpenses, Extra Income, Goals, Planning Filed Under: Expenses, Extra Income, Goals
Not everyone believes recycling is helpful for the environment, actually. There’s some debate on whether or not it helps or hurts the environment. For example, the pollution from the separate trucks that come to pick up the recycling, the chemicals used to recycle paper, etc… It’s said that the only thing truly worth recycling is aluminum cans.
Personally, I prefer the reuse and reduce methods, but that’s just me.
Jennifer –
Good points. I try to reduce and reuse as much as possible but sometimes there is just overflow. These are the items I am hoping to try and get recycled.
I don’t know much about the industry, but I believe there are no shortage of subsidies available to aid recycling organizations.
You could also check into electronic recycling. It seems like that could be a big future business.
Blake – Funny you should mention that. I work in the IT field and have always been interested in finding good ways to dispose of computers.