Reuse and re-purpose – better than recycle

by Michael Smith

Reuse and re-purposing must always be the first step. Recycling should only be the final option.

While the slogan may indeed be “reduce, reuse, recycle” the thought in everyone's mind is only the third “R”, in the majority of cases. They all think first and foremost about “recycle” and not about reducing and reusing. Why? Because they just cannot think any other way, it would seem. They do not, as yet, have the proper developed “green mindset”. Reusing and re-purposing are much more important than recycling as they can reduce the produced waste to a great degree and also the amount that have to go to recycling.

The best case in point here would be that of glass bottles and glass jars. Instead of going off to be broken and ground down and then to be reprocessed into new glass bottles and jars – or even stuff of much less usable value – bottles and jars should be returnable again for reuse, like it used to be with bottles not so long ago when they had a deposit on them. The same could be done with all glass containers as glass can be reused ad infinitum. Collecting bottles and jars and then sterilizing them and refilling them must be a lot more energy efficient than destroying them and reprocessing them into new glass articles, mainly again bottles and jars. To me this is the wrong way round.

Only when the bottle or jar, in the end, actually suffers and accident and breaks should the glass then, finally, go the “recycle” route to be reprocessed and not before. We waste the already made product and resource by breaking them up to be reprocessed when we could use them as they are. It is not rocket science and it has been done before. Mind you, I guess that the British government would have to commission a study on this matter first which would cost millions before we could even as much as think about doing it again. Unless, of course, industry will take the lead.

Glass bottles and jars can be cleaned and then reused ad infinitum, as said already, without any effect on the produce inside the bottle or jar. Although I have not conducted a scientific study on the costing I am sure that it would be cheaper to reuse the bottles and jars – even if one would pay the consumer to return them by having a deposit of 20p on them or such, or even just 10p – than to collect the bottles for breaking up and reprocessing into new. The energy cost compared with the other cost, plus the environmental footprint must be a lot higher than that of the old way, that of deposit and return.

Years ago we had, in most countries, deposit on lemonade, soda and beer bottles. Why not introduce this system again and also do the same for glass jars. Most jars are universal ones anyway and they could be all reused. This is neither, as previously said, rocket science nor will it require a multi-million Pound feasibility study. It is feasible for it has been done before. All it needs is the will, political and commercial, to set it up.

I know that with regards to most of my readers here I am preaching to the choir in this matter but... there is always the chance, however, small, that someone who can do something reads this.

Aside from the afore deposit and reuse of glass jars there is the old way of using them ourselves.

Many readers, I am sure, remember their granddad or dad have a collection of glass jars in the workshop or garage with nuts, bolts, nails and all the other things that “might come in handy some day”. I still use jars for the same kind of purpose or, when they are about, plastic containers for this.

In reality though I would rather see those jars go back to be refilled and that too could be rather simply done if stores would be set up who would sell goods loose again and where the consumer would go with his jars and containers to be filled up.

Neal's Yard in Covent Garden, London, was set up like that many years back when one could go there with one's own jars and such to have them filled with peanut butter and other goods.

The only things that, as far as bottles and jars are concerned, that cannot be reused by the companies, are the lids.

After reuse comes re-purpose, as I said, and that we have covered also already as far as using them as containers for other things. Jars too make good storage containers for in the refrigerator for leftover foods and sauces. Do not attempt to freeze them though.

With the help of some or the other bottle cutting device bottles and jars, until such as time that they can be returned for reuse, can be re-purposed by making them into usable and saleable items, from drinking glasses to vases and more.

The lids from beer bottles and such, with the addition of a little magnet, make great little fridge magnets and there are many other ideas, I am sure, that readers can come up with. Anyone wishing to do so is welcome to share them here with the readers too.

Aside from glass jars and bottles there are many other items too that could and should be looked at first and foremost with the view of how can they be reused or re-purposed before they are tossed into the appropriate recycling bin.

Whether this be certain cardboard boxes – and let's face it, we used to make great use of shoe boxes in years gone by and I still do to this very day – or plastic containers of various types and sizes. In everything our first thoughts should be “what can I use it for or how can I re-purpose it” rather than simply “can it be recycled commercially and how and where”. First reuse and re-purpose at home or by means of being a little crafty for sale. Only when there is really no other option then the recycling bin.

I hope I have given everyone some food for thought on a number of levels. Now let's reappraise the way we do things.

© M Smith (Veshengro), September 2008
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American way of life put at risk through climate change

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which has come under fire for, apparently, discounting the impact of climate change, has now come out and said global warming poses real risk to human health and the American way of life.

Risks include, according to the EPA in a new report, more heat-related deaths, more heart and lung diseases due to increased ozone and health problems related to hurricanes, extreme precipitation and wildfires.

"Climate change poses real risk to human health and the human systems that support our way of life in the United States," the agency's Joel Scheraga said in a telephone briefing.

The report does not specify, however, how many people in the United States could die due to climate change, because that number can be changed by taking action, Scheraga said.

There is one problem with that equation, as I have said in other articles already, and that is that we will have a problem with that theory if, as I, and many others, believe that Climate Change is not so much cause by the action of Man but more a cyclic event of the Earth itself. If it is the latter than we must take other actions as well so as to minimize the impact and to learn and live with the changes in our climate on a local as well as worldwide level.

Climate change is expected to affect water supplies across the United States, as well as other countries, with reduced water flow in rivers, lower groundwater levels and more salt creeping into coastal rivers and groundwater.

People who live along the coasts will face the consequences of rising sea levels and severe weather events while city dwellers can expect higher energy demand to cool buildings -- though the demand for heat will probably decline – if we are lucky.

We must do two things... and that is to (1) look at reducing anything that could be a contributing factor to climate change and (2) prepare for the possibility climate change is not man-made and that there is nothing or little that we can to stop it. That is to say that this, more than likely, a cycle that the Earth goes through every so many centuries and if that is the case, as I believe it is, we must prepare for this at the same time.

I am not saying that we should not reduce any pollution and emissions and should not work on renewable energy and such. We must do so indeed and the same as regards to recycling, waste reduction, reusing, upcycling, and all those steps.

Let's go and do it...

© M Smith (Veshengro), July 2008

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The fourth “R” of waste management

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Most people, if not indeed all, by now will be familiar with the commonly quoted three “Rs” of waste management, that is to say “reduce, reuse and recycle”.

However, I think that somewhere there must be added a fourth “R”, namely the “R” of “Rethink”.

We must urgently rethink the waste, amount and type that we produce and we also must rethink our approach to and the way that we use, reuse and recycle it.

Reducing the waste we produce is probably the most important step in waste reduction and -management and this applies, basically, to all waste.

The biggest proportion of all of out waste that we generate, from households and elsewhere, is packaging that has no other use and either has to be recycled – if possible and often it is not – or needs to be deposited in landfill or burned in incineration.

The field of packaging is where Rethink must be applied to start with, and this will have to be on at least two levels.

Level one is to actually rethink packaging (and the need for it) all together and to consider how much packaging is actually needed.

I cannot, for the life of me, see the reason for electric toothbrush replacement heads for a Braun electric toothbrush that are already each individually “wrapped” in their own little blister to then having to be encapsulated in yet another big solid blister pack. I also know that this example given here for Braun toothbrushes is but one example of such bad practice and over packaging.

Then there are the supermarkets with their pre-packed vegetables on those dreaded Styrofoam trays and similar packs and wraps.

No one seems to have died, not to my knowledge at least, from ever purchasing goods loose from grocers, as used to be the case with grocers only a few decades ago. You brought your own packaging, that is to say, your own bags, your own jars and your own small milk churn and such along, where your purchases were decanted into or you bought loose dry goods and those were put loose, like sugar, pulses, rice, etc., into strong Kraft paper bags and those bags were often used again at least once after taking the dry produce home in them and that was more often than not as lunch bags for kids going to school and such.

The jars that you took to the store to be filled and the other containers you washed after you emptied the contents or finished the contents and then you took them back for refilling.

Nowadays to buy loose goods, such as rice, beans, peas and such, and even ordinary vegetables in a store is nigh on to completely impossible and do not even try to buy loose sugar, loose salt, loose flour; no chance in that department whatsoever.

If I go and buy a freshly made sandwich – not that that happens often – at a sandwich bar why, pray, do they insist on sticking it into one of those triangular plastic boxes? Why not put it into a good ol' kraft paper bag with a napkin, as it used to be? Rethink time, methinks.

Where, for hygienic reasons or reasons of protection from knocks, tamper, etc. packaging is unavoidable we must apply the Rethink process here to designing, and I have said this before more than once, I am sure, packaging in such a way that it, immediately, has a second and even third life after the first – already designed in.

Packaging could be designed in such a way that it has instructions printed on it (on the indiside) that would show people what second use is intended for the box or such.

Such kind of re-purposing has been designed into packages before, such as the box of a media center that becomes, with a few moves, a shelf unit upon which the center sits, with room beneath for all the paraphernalia, such as CDs, Videos, etc.

Cardboard, though the above mentioned was not just simple cardboard, can, in fact, be very strong indeed, as long as it does not get exposed to rain and such like.

The next biggest item of waste is paper and especially here from factories, offices and educational establishments. The offices of the governments probably churn out the greatest amount of waste paper, but other organizations and companies are not far behind.

Much of the waste generated here should not need to have all that much thinking applied during the Rethink process, as the solutions are often very simple. Paper often is used – that is to say, printed or written upon – on one side only and is then tossed straightaway into the waste that goes to landfill or, if lucky, the paper recycling plant. Why? If the back is clean then use it for scrap paper, turn it through in-house printing, and with computers there is no excuse in not doing it, into notepads, telephone message pads, and other such things. No excuse not to do. Just Rethink required.

As far as food waste is concerned, with the fact that not only it being expensive but there being many, even in our developed world, that go hungry, there should not be any and we should and must Rethink our use of food and how we purchase and also and especially as to reusing leftover food the next day. For many this may mean actually to learn to cook rather than to rely on ping meals.

In order to reuse food leftovers one must have a little – more than a little at times – ideas of how to create meals from scratch. It can be done, believe me. All those of a slightly older generation will be able to agree with me there, I am sure, that their parents did exactly that; use leftovers from the Sunday roast, for instance, with which to create the dinner for the Monday after. Now, with refrigeration and even freezers this is even easier. The problem today only is that a great majority of people are unable to cook meals from scratch. They cannot even use tinned foods to make things with, let alone working with “raw” foods.

When I was growing up, being of a Romany family, we often did not know where the next meal would come from and it often depended on what could be garnered, hunted or found it other ways. We also knew what was edible and good to eat from the hedgerows and other wild and semi-wild places.

The latter may also stay some people in good stead should food get more expensive than it is already.

Already because of the fact that food prices are rising we should make every bit of food go as far as possible.

While we want to no waste food, I do, like all of us, that there will always be some waste, and not just peelings and tops and tails cut off from vegetables. There will always be something that goes off without us wishing this to happen. Any such waste, peelings and gone off food, should then, however, not be thrown into landfill but should be recycled by composting.

Reuse and Recycling

When we now finally come to reuse and recycling the Rethink process also must be applied here.

Reuse
Too many people don't seem to know what to do with the glass jars, plastic boxes and other packaging materials that come their way.

Having seen the lack of ingenuity in people and the only thing that they can think of is to put it into the recycle bin of the appropriate grade, e.g. glass to glass and plastics to plastics, I think that some could not only do with a period of thinking the Rethink but with some ideas and such being sent their way. This may happen at some state in this here magazine and/or as a PDF publication.

Reuse is not only possible without or with some little adaptations here and there with the glass jar and the plastic container but even including some packaging materials, such as cardboard boxes of various types. The use of the old shoebox for the storing of photos and such is an old one, I know. However, there are many other ways of making use of various size boxes that come one's way, in the home and in the office.

Recycling
On recycling there also needs a Rethink process to be employed so as to get some community involvement in small scale recycling – practical recycling – projects where this or that type of waste, or a number of different kinds, are being recycled by hand and such into new items for sale. Example could be the likes of Trashe Bolsas in the Philippines that make tote bags and others from old advertising tarps.

With the right approach and the right Rethink I am sure that there will be many projects that can be created that could bring money to poor people and to those that would like an independent life, away from factory floor or cube farm.

Such recycling could and should be done by small crafts people and crafts co-operatives, the latter that specifically specialize in recycling.

While there is a place for the large-scale commercial recycling there is a much greater place for community livelihood projects based on recycling things and materials into items for sale on markets and elsewhere. Direct practical recycling should be promoted and given priority over the other kind, as the former uses much less resources than the latter and as, generally, done locally also has a much smaller environmental footprint as far as mileage is concerned.

Now, let's start this Rethink process and add this as a fourth “R” to the already existing “Three Rs” of waste management.

© M Smith (Veshengro), July 2008

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Before Recycle Must Come Reuse

Think Reuse First!

Before we even think of taking stuff to the recycling stations, and I am talking here primarily the likes of packaging, whether cardboard, plastic, glass, or what-have-you, we must consider if and how each and every item could be reused, either by ourselves or someone else.

It still takes a considerable about of energy, aside from the CO2 emissions from transporting the stuff from the recycling stations to the processing plants, to recycle paper and cardboard into new, or plastic (PET) bottles into, say, fiber for the making of polar fleeces, for example. Therefore we must think “reuse” before we think “recycle”.

So, therefore, to begin with before going to the recycle bin always think reuse and practical rework, and I am sure that, with a little bit of thought, many items need not end up even in the recycling bin.

Reuse and rework beats recycling any day in regards to environmental friendliness.

I am also certain that manufacturers could design packaging – for it is mostly packaging material that we are, as I said already, talking about here in this context of reusing before recycling – already with a reuse in mind and we, as customers and consumers, should and indeed must challenge them to do just that. It should be possible, of that I am sure, to design a second life into an article pf packaging from the very beginning. Pasta sauce, for instance, could come in properly reusable Mason Jars, as an example and other packaging too could be second life designed. It has worked in the past with, say Avon toiletries, where the containers were later reusable as mugs and tankards, and other items and also become highly collectable. Even boxes made from strong cardboard could have a second life design on them, even if this might mean that people have to do a little work to them even.

© Michael Smith (Veshengro), February 2008

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Packaging Waste – What to do with it?

Reduce, reuse, recycle have to be the three watchwords here...

First off would be trying to actually reduce the waste to start with, so that we do not have to take it home with us. As consumers there is little that we can do here. While I have heard of this being possible to do in Germany, for instance, I do not think that stores elsewhere would appreciate any of us taking the whatever we have just bought out of the, often excessive, packaging and leaving said excess in the stores. However, a way must be found to reduce the excessive packaging, especially the hard polycarbonate kind of “bubble pack”. I do not think that those kinds of packages help anyone. What is wrong with a recyclable cardboard box made from recycled cardboard? It is up to producers to reduce this kind of packaging but we, as the consumers, I am sure, could vote with our feet and pocketbooks and if we did so the producers would soon get the message.

Food packaging is, to a degree, a different story and issue. While it is very good advice to buy the basic ingredients for meals from markets and then cook the meals oneself, a notion that I totally agree with, this is not always an option and packaged food, whether tin, pack, jar or bottle, may have to be, especially for anyone wishing to have a stock of supplies for in case of an emergency, than are then rotated as well.

A new store has opened recently, however, in the south of London that encourages the purchase of loose goods, be that sugar, tea, coffee, pulses, and much more, buy having folks bring their own containers and bags. Here, I am sure, folks could make good use of the glass jar, plastic containers, and such, where supermarket bought goods came in, as long as the plastic is “food grade” (see also reusing packaging).

Should there be absolutely no way of avoiding packaging then ensure that you take home, as far as possible, only recyclable packaging, such as glass jars, glass bottles, and tin cans. Glass jars and bottles and tin cans can be recycled via a variety of recycling schemes.

If plastic packaging is the only option and there is absolutely no other choice then plastic it has to be. This is often the case (always, is more precise here) the case with washing-up liquid (dish soap) and even the supposedly environmentally friendly “Ecover” is in plastic bottles and even though Ecover bottles all have great removable screw top caps there are no refills available for them, especially not in a “loose” format.

Where there is packaging (waste), whether glass or tin that can go into recycling schemes or plastic that may or may now, even before going down that route think as to whether the packaging (waste) that you are left with can be reused by you or others. If it cannot be reused as it is then thing whether there is a way of reworking it into something you or someone else could use. This will save you money and it will also save further energy for recycling too uses energy.

Often, if you buy prepackaged fish in supermarkets it comes on those plastic “trays”. Those can be used, once washed, as spoon rests in the kitchen, as trays for small items in drawers, or as trays on which to put fish to go into the freezer, like when packages are too big and you want to split them into individual meal portions. Just a few ideas here. More to follow.

One extra word of advice: AVOID THE PLASTIC WATER BOTTLE, that is to say, AVOID BOTTLED WATER. You cannot safely, according to scientific findings, reuse the bottle more than maybe once after you have emptied the original contents. Tap water is perfectly safe to drink and if you do not like the take then use a filter. Then fill with that water stainless steel or aluminium water bottles such as SIGG or Klean Kanteen.

Reusing Waste Packaging

Before consigning any item to the trash can or the recycling bin think of how you may be able to reuse or rework and thereby recycle directly this or that item.

Tin Cans

Tin cans can be turned into a variety of things, and to a variety of uses. On the old farmstead tin cans were used as scoops, as pots for string, as pots for utensils, as ports for pencils and pens on the desk, etc. and that often without even doing anything to them bar cleaning the can after opening and using contents. I have reused and reworked tin cans for and into a variety of uses.

Glass Jars

Glass jars have always been used to store thing in, from nails and screws to buttons and what-have-you. They also make good food savers where to put leftovers for use the next day.

Glass Bottles

Again they can be used to storage of this or that liquid and our forebears always did just that. There is, however, the danger that someone thinks that the poison in the Coke bottle is actually Coke and this could cause rather some problems. It is therefore that the advice is always against this. However, how about using smallish bottles with screw tops for the making of scented cooking oils or herbal vinegars?

Plastic containers with lids

The kind of containers they are and whether they are food grade plastic or not very much dictates their use and reuse. If food grade plastic and suitable in size then those kind of containers, especially with tight fitting lids, make great food savers.

Those that are the wrong size and shape and those that are non-food grade plastic still make great storage boxes and containers. My shelves are full of sweet shop boxes that I “harvest” from a local candy store, which are used for storing small items of stationery such as pens, pencils, etc, that, especially come from trade fairs, as well as other things. With labels added to the boxes I can, theoretically, find most things rather quickly.

Little plastic “pods” (for lack of a better word, such as those from certain mints and chewing gums, make nice pots for paper clips, for rubber bands, for string, etc. on the desk, for instance. They can, obviously, also be “reworked” as those by decorating them up a little and then selling them as paper clip pots, or whatever.

Plastic containers without lids

Those I use for “dividers” in drawers and this is especially handy to keep small items from rattling around and from moving around, making them then difficult to find, in the drawers of desk or wherever.

If no direct reuse is immediately obvious or evident then how about rework. Get crafty and seeing the prices that recycled goods fetch on the markets you may even find yourself some additional income. Always handy that. It is absolutely amazing and mind-blowing the amount in terms of money for which some reworked-recycled goods are being sold for.

With the aid of a “bottle cutter” glass jars and -bottles can be transformed into recycled crafts for sale, such as tumblers, shot glasses, beer glasses, vases, etc. Other materials also can be recycled via crafts and there are ideas around on the Net and elsewhere, I am sure, on this subject. I know, I personally could drone on and on about ideas but you'd all probably fall asleep if I would start listing them all.

Cardboard can be, if it is not too printed up, be recycled into compost, and the same is true for toilet roll inners, the inners from rolls of tin foil, and such like. Cardboard boxes, depending on size and kind, can be used as storage boxes, such as shoe boxes of the “proper” kind, and also other cardboard containers can make useful bits and pieces.

Where reuse is not possible, and/or they have too much print on them, making them therefore unsuitable for composting, but you have a solid fuel stove then use them that way. At least they can then give a little heat and help get the stove running.

The more we can reuse and rework of such packaging waste and make the items saleable the less will have to go into holes in the ground, a.k.a. landfill sites, or having to be burned.

All this above is meant to give you, the reader, some food for thought and those of you that have made their own thoughts about this might like to also share them with the rest of us.

© Michael Smith (Veshengro), December 2007

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Recycling alone will not do

Even if we would recycle everything that can be recycled in the UK – and the same is probably true also for elsewhere – there would still simply too much waste. Something must be done with that.

There is only one answer to this problem; we simply MUST reduce our waste; the waste that we produce in households, in industry and especially the packaging waste and I am not only referring here to the plastic carrier bags.

The problem is that, probably even then, after the step above, there will still be some stuff left that needs to be disposed off. In an ideal world, maybe, that would not be the case but...

...we do not live in an ideal world and won't be, I am sure, for some time to come.

Therefore the non-recyclable waste must be used to produce energy, whether this is by means of incineration in waste-fuelled electricity power plants – no NIMBYS please – or by anaerobic digestion and the use of the resultant methane gas for the generation of electricity, or as gas for heating and cooking, does not matter. What matters is that holes in the ground are no longer an option.

Other countries can do it and are doing it rather well. However, when this even gets as much as suggested in Britain firstly everyone – especially the likes of those that claim that they are all for the environment – gets up in arms against such incinerating electricity generators and we are also being told that it cannot be in Britain as, apparently, Britain is different to Germany, Holland or Sweden. Then again we are also told that Britain is different when it comes to, say, micro-generation of electricity and selling of possible surplus from such activities back to the national electricity grid, but then, that is rather another story.

Regarding waste we have only one major option and that, aside from recycling, is reducing the waste that we produce. We must look at recycling maybe also in a different light, e.g. Not so much to the large commercial operation but in fact looking at the craftsman or -woman who has ideas of how to turn waste into reusable items. This, however, also requires a different approach by banks and grant-giving bodies. I guess this is, however, again something that could not possibly be done in the UK.

Food for thought, I hope...

...now let's go and make a change.

© M V Smith, November 2007

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Recycling is not enough

Recycling on its own is not enough to tackle the UK's ever growing waste problem. people must change their habits and consume less in the first place, but even more important is the reduction of packaging waste and we must reuse and repair more. We have become, in the UK and the USA especially, it seems, a throw-away society where it is also cheaper, unfortunately, to buy new rather than to repair. As an example we should see the fact that an Epson computer printer of the low range costs UK£29.99 but when the ink reservoir was full up six month into its use and the warranty did not cover that a quote of £72 for a new ink reservoir was given and another £70 for fitting the said ink reservoir. How come that the unit itself, with the ink reservoir, can be sold for £30 while a repair would cost £110 more than a new one? This just is the wrong way round. We must change this, again.

In its report, “Consumption: reducing, reusing and recycling”, the Economic and Social Research Council argues that the process being made by increasing recycling rates is undermined by the sheer volume of waste that is being generated by all of us. Therefore the ESRC advocates 'social marketing' as part of the solution.

It estimates that, if household waste output continues to rise by 3% a year, the cost to the economy will be £3.2 billion and the amount of harmful methane emissions will double by 2020.

The report highlights the many ways that social science can contribute to waste policy development, either by devising initiatives, by providing tools to evaluate their relative effectiveness or by helping to understand why they did or did not work.

Commercial marketing tools could be used, said the ESRC's Professor Ken Peattie, to influence public behavior for the benefit of society as a whole.

This social marketing, he said, can be successful because if focuses on the target audience's point of view, taking account of any emotional or physical barriers that may prevent people from changing their behavior.

We must return to the old ways of glass bottles that have a deposit on them which is refunded when the bottle is returned, as well as take on board tried and tested methods from other countries, such as the reverse vending machines for aluminum soda and beer cans. In the USA many families – especially those forced to live on the street, but also others – make a living from collecting, including removing them from litter bins, such cans and feeding them into the reverse vending machines where they are paid a couple of cents each per can. We will not be getting far by punishing households for not recycling “properly” but will get a lot further if we give people incentives to recycle.

Guilt messages are ineffective, as are punishments, in this instance. A better way is to focus on the benefits of a greener lifestyle as encouragement to people to reduce their consumption. If people can see no benefit it it for them – the greater good may appeal to some but not all – then many will not do it. But do we have the political will to see this through as a country? Do we also have the will as individuals to make this work by firstly reducing our consumption and secondly by ensuring that everything can be recycled in one way or the other?

© M V Smith, July 2007

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