Green Recycling Products Blog

Ahhh, the beach:  sand, surf, sun, & seagulls. There's something about the calming sound of the waves and the relaxing feel of the sand between your toes.

However, coastal development, erosion, and water pollution are issues that go hand in hand with shoreline development. Increasing numbers of tourists visiting beaches every year take an environmental toll, putting coastal areas and the wildlife that inhabit them at risk. Careless visitors and an insufficient amount of trash and recycling containers are a danger to our beaches and boardwalks.

The City of Miami Beach, Florida understands both the importance of keeping their city clean and their tourists happy, as well as the environmental implications of bad trash collecting and recycling habits. The City is utilizing the Envirodesign Recycled Plastic Lumber Recycling Centers for their beachfront areas. These recycling centers are made from 95% post consumer content recycled plastic (milk jugs) and are available in 25, 32, or 55 gallon options. They are made in many sizes and colors and are designed especially for the collection of both waste and recyclables at non-residential locations.

The Envirodesign Recycling Receptacles best serves the needs of the Miami Beach community because their modular configuration offers the perfect option for public area recycling and waste collection centers.

When visiting your local beach this summer, make a difference. Recycling is one of the easiest ways to reduce your carbon footprint. Leave those footprints on the sand only!

If you recycle just two gallons of used oil it can generate enough electricity to run the average household for almost 24 hours!

Cars are an indispensable fact of life for most of us. So, too, are abundant and clean supplies of drinking water. What we do with the used oil from our cars plays an important role in balancing our desire for convenient transportation with our desire for a clean and healthy environment today and for future generations.

We are all familiar with recycling newspapers, aluminum cans, glass and plastic bottles, but you may not be aware of the efforts to promote used motor oil recycling: providing convenient collection sites for the purpose of keeping used motor oil out of our waterways and ground water supplies and getting used oil into the recycling system.

Motor oil has value even after it has been drained from an engine. The oil you take to a collection center to be recycled saves energy. It can be reprocessed and used in furnaces for heat or in power plants to generate electricity for homes, schools, and businesses. It can also be sent to a refinery that specializes in processing used oil and re-refined into lubricating base oils that can be used to formulate engine oils.

Used motor oil that is collected by "do-it-yourselfers" is critical to the used oil recycling system. Collecting used oil from the Do-It-Yourself oil changers is easy with the Profile Oil Containers. Conveniently located used oil drop-off sites equipped with attractive and user-friendly tanks are an essential element for any successful used oil program. The Profile Oil Container is specially designed to accept used oil from the public. This attractive unit is very user friendly which improves program participation and aids in keeping the collection site clean.   

The Profile Oil Container combines the unique feature of a steel inner tank surrounded by a rust resistant fiberglass secondary containment. Other features include a large disposal funnel, rain resistant lockable lid, level gauge, instruction decals and a 2” service coupling for pumping out the used oil.

This blog post centers upon the little known fact that partially filled plastic containers can ruin the recycling process.  We discussed this subject with our kids the other day.  Our youngest suggested we “put it in our new blog”.  How can we argue with that?
   
We have a curbside recycle bin and recently discovered a three-quarters-full plastic soda bottle.  You might be surprised how this seemingly benign circumstance can have a dramatic effect on the recycling process.

Consider these facts:

• Machines that handle the sorting of the materials can become damaged, which means that precious time, energy and money will be needed to repair the machines.

• Liquids and solids left in recyclable materials makes the job far more difficult and inefficient for workers sorting the material by hand.

• Certain biodegradable materials actually inhibit the materials in the bin from turning into the highest quality materials possible

• In extreme cases, foreign matter in the recycling containers can result in the entire bin content being sent directly to the landfill.

Now back to those kids.  I know that they are much more concerned about “Mother Earth” than they are about wasting Mom and Dad’s hard-earned money.  While I don’t expect to see any more half-full soda bottles in our recycle bin,  I am a realist and know their concern for Mother Earth will not  resolve their natural calling to open 12-ounce drinks to satisfy their two-ounce thirst. I suppose they will devise some creative (and comical) covert product disposal methods all in the name of protecting the environment.