Dear Recycle Lady,
I have an aerosol can with a large, non-removable plastic top that contains the nozzle. Will this aerosol can recycle?
Hope It Recycles
Dear Hope It Recycles,
Yes, it can be recycled with steel cans. Before recycling your can, spray until nothing more comes out or you do not hear any product inside when you shake it. According to earth911.com, aerosol cans used to contain chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) that were thought to deplete the ozone layer, but those chemicals were phased out in 1978.
Dear Recycle Lady,
Are there companies that are making products out of recycled ocean plastic? If so, what are some of these products?
Hard to Believe
Dear Hard to Believe,
Every minute a dump truck of plastic waste enters our oceans, says Erin Simon, head of Plastic Waste and Business at World Wildlife Fund (WWF). “From sea turtles to whales, plastic pollution is wreaking havoc on ocean life through ingestion, entanglement, and habitat loss due to pollution.” Thankfully, there are companies today that are committed to using these recycled ocean materials to make new products. A few of those dedicated companies are Adidas’s Parley running shoes, Solgaard’s Shore-Tex backpacks and fanny packs, Sea Bags’ toiletry bags made from sailboat sailcloth, Leonisa Love’s swimsuits, Norton Poing unisex sunglasses, Humanscale’s high-performance smart chairs, Hanover’s 2 laptop backpacks, Ocean Sole & Sea Star’s beachwear, Kevin Murphy’s Ocean Plastic Packaging and the Marine Debris Bakelite Project,a collection of 11 Bakelite look-alike products. Also, there is evening wear, yarn, green toys, and surf boards that are being made from recycled ocean plastics. These are great products, but they can be made of other materials, if no plastic was available. Best of all, properly recycle or dispose of used products and never dump in the waterways.
Dear Readers,
When researching the above question, I found the website, https://earthbuddies.net/5-plastics. It lists the top five plastic wastes that litter our ocean. Not surprisingly, single-use plastic bags top the list. They look so much like a jelly fish that marine life mistakenly think they are food and many die from eating them. Other marine life gets entangled in the handles. Plastic bottles are second and account for approximately 11% of global plastic waste.
One word of caution – avoid reusing plastic bottles as some types of plastic becomes toxic. Food containers and cutlery are third, particularly takeaway and delivery food containers whose use increased exponentially during the coronavirus pandemic. Use of the fourth plastic waste product, plastic wrapping, has also increased during the pandemic. Plastic wrappings account for approximately 9% of global plastic waste. The fifth product is fishing equipment, particularly the synthetic rope from which fishing nets are made.
Additionally, two dishonorable mentions were listed. First dishonorable mention is cigarette butts because they can break down into microplastics. Plus, they contain chemicals that are harmful to every single organism swallowing them. There is then a chance that the fish that ate these toxic chemicals are caught by fishermen and sold to markets to be consumed by humans.
“Throwing cigarette butts into our waterways is like poisoning ourselves,” says the article. Diapers and wet wipes were the second dishonorable mention since they contain human waste and other rubbish. Diapers and wet wipes should all be put in the trash, never in the waterways. We must protect our oceans, rivers, lakes and streams for the benefit of all living creatures.
Good News: Kudos to Evian that has announced that they plan to make all their plastic bottles from 100 percent recycled plastic by 2025.
Have questions about recycling, or interesting information about recycling? Send questions or requests to recyclelady@greenbrier-swa.com. Dear Recycle Lady is sponsored jointly by the Greenbrier Recycling Center and Greenworks Recycling.
