Want to know the life history of a plastic bag? Do you know how to recycle an old sneaker? Looking for a buyer of crushed glass, or old refrigerators? What¹s a good industry magazine that deals with solid waste? Want to learn how to recycle your ink jet cartridges?
If you have an interest in recycling and reusing materials, the Web can be a good source for information. Several organizations have put up Web sites that deal with recycling issues. This month we will look at six sites that deal with issues that range from local home recycling to global buying of recyclable material.
Environmental Recycling Hotline
http://www.primenet.com/erh.html
If you live in Arizona, Nevada, Hawaii, Colorado, or Texas, you can find out if your area has a recycling program. Simply type in your area code, or area code of an area that interests you, and ERH will give you the nearest drop-off center in that area code.
Other information you can obtain from this site deals with household hazardous wastes, buying recycled products, or getting important phone numbers such as the 24-hour hazardous spills hotline, household hazardous material disposal line, Arizona illegal dumping hotline, and a few others. You can leave a message and tell them about your recycling program if it is not listed. This Web site apparently complements a phone version of the service (1-800-94-REUSE) and is centered in Arizona. There is a Spanish language version on the site as well.
Global Recycling Network
http://grn.com/grn/homepage.htm
GRN, from Brookhaven, NY, has a set of directories that contain recycling equipment manufacturers in the US and Canada, dealers, recycling consultants in the US (by state) and Canada, as well as other countries, and a list of companies that make or provide recycled products in glass, metal, paper, plastic, rubber, and other recyclables. If you are a recycler you can be listed for a fee. A business page contains some advertisements from a few companies.
The GRN NewsStand gives an extensive list of worldwide publication titles and their addresses that cover categories in business, chemical composing, energy, environment, garbage, glass, industrial, law, metals, nuclear, paper, plastics, pollution, waste, water, and other.
Want to track recycling stocks? Just find the company from the list, click on the button, and you¹re presented with the day¹s trading along with highs and lows.
The GRN reference library contains lists of recycling organizations throughout the world, a glossary of recycling terms, and a resource hot list that contains links to other environmental sites on the Web that deal with recycling issues. There is also a link to the Construction Materials Recyclers Association, a new non-profit association being formed for North American recyclers of construction materials,including concrete and asphalt, wood, and gypsum.
Recycling Talk is GRN¹s feedback where you can post, read, and reply to discussions about recycling.
Finally GRN has a monthly newsletter that you can subscribe to ($180 a year) or read a few selected pieces of news online. You don¹t get much for free.
Printer Cartridge Recycling
http://www.usa.net/ca/casual.html
Ribbon/JET TEK USA created this site for the purpose of supplying people with information on how to recycle printer ribbons, ink jet cartridges, and some Laser Jet toner cartridges. They also offer the supplies needed to do the job.
For Ink Jet cartridges, instructions are given for the HP Tricolor Deskjet, 51606 Jet series, 51640 & 51650 cartridges, the HP Hi-Capacity 51626A, the Canon BJI-642, 643, 201, and BC-01 & BC-02 cartridges, and the Epson Stylus 800/1000 cartridge, along with an ink jet cartridge recycling basics primer.
Still have a dot matrix printer? You can read 20 questions and answers about ribbon recycling, and learn about two ribbon reinkers called the PC Inker II and The Big Boy Inker that they sell.
For Laser printer cartridges, you can read a primer on laser printers, how they work, and a laser printer trouble-shooting guide. Top it off with how to recycle the SX series laser cartridges that work in the EP-S/SX Engine, as used in the HP series II and II and some Canon printers.
Finally, you can order all the necessary supplies to recycle these cartridges directly from Ribbon-Jet TEK.
Recycler¹s World
http://www.motive.com/recycle/
This is a global trading site for information relating to secondary or recyclable commodities, by-products, used, and surplus items.
The recycler¹s exchange lets you buy/sell/trade for free or for a fee.
You can search through several categories from auto wrecking, iron and steel, minerals, glass, plastic, rubber, wood, organic waste, liquids, used equipment, collectible items and more.
There is an alphabetical listing of recycling associations that lists their address, contact info, and other info. Also, an alphabetical listing of trade magazine and journals that cater to the recycling industry.
There is a listing of material exchanges including the new Chicago Board of Trade.
The Trader¹s and Recycler¹s Index is an alphabetical listing of companies and their products or services that pay $45 a month to be listed. Likewise a Waste/Recycling Equipment Index works much the same way.
Much of the site is still under construction, but still there is plenty of information available for browsing now.
The Consumer Recycling Resources Guide
http://www.best.com:80/~dillon/recycle/
This Web site provides a launching pad for consumers wanting information on recycling. The information is geared for individuals who have regular household quantities of materials to recycle. Here¹s what you can find:
Guide to commonly recycled materials
An excellent primer on what you should know about recyclables, including explaining what those weird symbols you see on plastic containers mean, as well as info on paper, plastic, glass, aluminum, steel, batteries, motor oil, toxics, refrigerators, and printers.
Guide to hard-to-recycle materials
Don¹t now what to do with those small cell batteries from your watch? What about old sneakers, single use cameras, smoke detectors, computer floppy disks? This section explains what do with them all.
Index of local recycling pages
A listing of states that have local recycling along with policy and procedures. Twenty states are listed so far.
There¹s more.
The Plastic Bag Association Clearinghouse
http://corp.tig.com/stellar/green/index.html
The Plastic Bag Information Clearinghouse is a Web site for consumers, media, and others to obtain up-to-date environmental information about plastic bags. That¹s right, a whole Web page devoted to plastic bags (The Plastic Bag Association is a consortium of 60 of the industry's leading manufacturers and suppliers.)
You can read ²The Life of a Plastic Bag,² a summary of how plastic bags fit into the US Environmental Protection Agency's 3R's: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Also on the site is do¹s and don¹ts for recycling, a glossary of recycling terms, and some other not-so-deep material.
They say they have a Database of Recycling Collection Sites - a list
of more than 14,000 plastic bag recycling collection sites nationwide. But you have to call them to get the info (1-800-438-5856). The database and this site would be more useful if it was online.
©1995, Don Rittner. This article was written using recycled electrons.