Dear Recycle Lady,
Why were there no recycle bins at the State Fair? It seems there would be a huge amount of plastic water bottles and aluminum soda cans to be recycled.
Fair Going Recycler
Dear Fair Going Recycler,
You are absolutely correct! When the State Fair is going on there should be a huge amount of recyclable items of all kinds available. Several years ago, well-marked recycle containers were placed around in the food and drink area of the Fairgrounds. When the full containers were picked up, we discovered that the mountains of dirty trash that was put in the containers totally ruined all recyclable items that were in the container. There wasn’t a single container that had any usable items for recycling. In order to successfully collect recyclables at the State Fair we would need to have someone at each container to monitor what was put in them from the time they were put out until they were picked up. Perhaps there are some volunteers who would be willing to help out in the future. Please contact me if you are interested.
Dear Recycle Lady,
I am cleaning out old math stuff and am wondering if I can recycle transparencies with paper. Can I recycle transparencies at all? They are mostly mixed in with plain paper, and I can go through and remove all of transparencies.
Decluttering
Dear Decluttering,
Unfortunately, transparencies are sheets of plastic which are not recyclable. Since they are mixed in with plain paper you will need to separate out the paper to be recycled. Unfortunately, the transparencies will go into the trash.
Dear Recycle Lady,
What is an ecological footprint? Is it the same as a carbon footprint?
Another New Term
Dear Another New Term,
Good question. An ecological footprint, according to treehugger.com, is a method of gauging humans’ dependence on natural resources by calculating how much of the environment is needed to sustain a particular lifestyle. It’s one way of measuring sustainability or the ability of a population to support itself in the present without compromising that ability for the future. It computes when the demand for ecological resources (fish and forests, for instance) and services in a given year exceeds what Earth can regenerate in that year. If a population can support/continue a particular lifestyle indefinitely and still meet the demands placed on the environment, then environmental sustainability has occurred.
Ecological footprints and carbon footprints are not the same thing. They are two different ways of measuring something’s impact on the environment. A carbon footprint simply measures carbon dioxide units (CO2) and how the amount of greenhouse gases impacts global warming. For example, the carbon footprint tells what the impact of your consumption of electricity or your burning of fossil fuels has on the environment and the ecological footprint measures how well a population is able to support itself in the present and not use more of the Earth’s resources than are produced in one year. I highly recommend using www.footprintcalculator.org/home/en, or one of the many websites available, to calculate your own ecological footprint. It will tell you when you have used up all the resources the earth produces in a year. You will be surprised at the outcome!
Good News: Wildlife, plants and animals have begun returning to parts of Los Angeles after the California fires that burned for three weeks last January.
Have questions about recycling, or interesting information about recycling? Send questions or requests Recyclelady7@gmail.com. Dear Recycle Lady is sponsored jointly by the Greenbrier Recycling Center and Greenworks Recycling.
