Recycling Habits

Old habits die hard.  I grew up without a recycling service and except for aluminum cans, which we could take to a recycling center for cash, we didn't do any recycling at home when I was young.  College was a different story and there were recycling bins in each room, as well as around campus.  However, college isn't quite the same as the 'real world' so I would count my first true experience with a recycling program as my years in Chicago - from summer 2006 through summer 2009.

The Chicago city recycling program when I lived there was known as the 'Blue Bag' program.  At grocery stores you could purchase a roll of blue plastic bags, and recyclable items were placed into these special bags and deposited in the same garbage cans as trash, which was put in the standard white or black plastic bags.  The blue bags were supposed to be separated from the trash and then sent to a recycling center for further sorting and processing.  Eventually the blue bags were replaced with blue plastic trash cans and the blue bag program was retired.  It was widely known as a failure and the city stopped even separating the recyclable blue bags from the regular trash sometime in 2008, a couple of years before the program was formally scrapped.

If you've lived in Chicago or are familiar with Illinois politics you probably wouldn't be surprised to find a poorly managed public service in waste management, or other areas of government.

Although the items I attempted to recycle in Chicago likely never reached a recycling center and are probably in a landfill tomb somewhere today, it was still a good learning experience in getting used to sorting the waste types and becoming more cognizant of which types of items can be recycled and which can not.  The obvious items like plastic bottles or aluminum cans were easy to remember to put in the blue bags and I was used to doing so from childhood and college.

Other items, however, were equally recyclable and I never thought to separate them.  Many items I continued to throw into the garbage because I was still in a worldview where that was the standard and I relied on the habits I had developed in earlier years.  For example, a toilet paper roll is just as recyclable as a newspaper or other cardboard product but I never thought of recycling them until I attended an Earth Day presentation at work and they noted that item specifically is often overlooked.

I continue to learn and adjust my habits to be more Earth-friendly and over the past couple of years have found many items that I wouldn't have put into recycling until I thought more about what they were made of and thought more thoroughly about what we were throwing away.

If you have a recycling program (or don't but want to get into the habit of recycling for the day that you do) here are some common items that you may not be currently recycling.

1. Toilet paper rolls
2. CD and DVD cases
3. Batteries
1. This is especially important because many types of batteries contain hazardous materials like mercury, lead, cadmium, and nickel. Many post offices and other stores will recycle batteries for you.
4. Junk mail and other paper waste
1. Almost any type of paper waste can be recycled and junk mail is a commonly encountered item for nearly every American.

There are many other items that can be recycled, and as recycling programs continue to evolve and new technologies are developed the list of items that can be recycled continues to grow.  

Contact your local recycling program for details in your area, and if you don't have a program already talk to your local politicians and environmental groups to express your support for one.

The best option is to reduce consumption.  The second best option is to reuse.  The third best option is to recycle.

Fighting the Junk Mail Monster - Part 2 of 2

Part 2 of 2 on stopping the flow of junk mail to your residence.  Part 1 (Yesterday, 2/16/2012) addressed reactive measures to stop the junk mail you currently receive and Part 2 covers proactive measures to prevent future junk mail deliveries.
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The following are suggested action steps you can take to reduce the amount of junk mail you receive.  If you have additional suggestions please share them in the comments section.

Suggested action steps:

1) Use the major mail opt-out services.  Similar to the Do Not Call Registry to stop telemarketers and others from harassing you by phone there are similar services available to handle junk mail, although none are as comprehensive as the Do Not Call Registry is for phone calls.  The following are the sites for some of these opt-outs and only take a minute or so to complete.  And, it's Friday afternoon and you could probably use a couple minutes of diversion.

• Direct Marketing Association (Mass Mailing Industry Group)
• Opt-Out Prescreen (Credit Card Offers and Credit Rating Agencies)
• Yellow Pages - Highly recommend signing up for this one since phone books are so massive.
• Catalog Choice - Manages catalog subscriptions and mailings

2) If you prefer to outsource your junk mail management consider 41pounds.org.  This service costs $41 and they will remove you from a host of mass marketers, and manage your junk mail for 5 years.  Additionally, a third of your payment goes to environmental non-profits and public works.  I haven't used this service but have heard good things.

3) Avoid credit card offers and other marketing sign-ups in disguise.  When you sign up for a promotional card at a store, or for a free shirt at a sporting event you are most likely also signing up for promotional materials from that company and other companies they will sell this data to or share your information with. 

Now, time to get ready for the weekend with a classic from Kool and the Gang.

Have a great Friday night and get excited for tomorrow's post including a contest. :)

Fighting the Junk Mail Monster - Part 1 of 2

Part 1 of 2 on stopping the flow of junk mail to your residence.  Part 1 addresses reactive measures to stop the junk mail you currently receive and Part 2 will cover proactive measures to prevent future junk mail deliveries.
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Tell me if the following sounds familiar.  Arrive home in the evening, check the mailbox and walk inside.  Flip through the pieces of mail with a faint hope of receiving a letter from a friend or relative but typically have that hope dashed by a steady stream of credit card and cable offers crashing upon the breakwater of your soul like the endless waves of the ocean.

If this scenario describes the current state of your mailing affairs this post may be for you.

Commentary:

Junk mail has been around for many years and is often just another slight annoyance during the day.  The amount of junk mail Americans receive each year is pretty large.  According to the EPA and cited by a mail advertisement industry group, The Direct Marketing Association, 2.4% of all municipal solid waste is from direct mail / junk mail.  This association implies that 2.4% of solid waste is a small percentage but it seems large to me given the usefulness that I find these sort of mailings to have.

The previously noted The Zero Waste Home addressed this issue and how they had gone about stopping the seemingly endless flow of junk mail they received.  Their basic approach was to take any junk mail received and call the sender immediately to request removal from all of their mailing lists.  This is the approach we have followed and although we still receive the occasional advertisement nearly all of the mail we receive now is worth getting excited about - letters from grandma, Valentine's Day cards, photos for the refrigerator.  Checking the mail has been re-transformed from a daily disappointment to a source of anticipation and one of life's small daily pleasures.

Suggested action steps:

1) Pick up your daily mail and place any junk mail on the kitchen table or somewhere else you can't ignore it.
2) Call the company that sent each piece of junk mail the following day (since business hours are likely done for the current day).

3) Keep a list of the numbers, companies, and date contacted so you can refer to it if the mailings do not stop.  Here's an example of the list we created to do this which has been handy for the few companies that repeatedly ignored our requests.  We made it on Google Docs so we could have it handy and both access it easily.

Maybe with less junk mail we can avoid a world that only has fake plastic trees.




Question for attorneys or those with class action suit knowledge: 

Is there any basis for a class action suit against companies that repeatedly ignore requests to stop mailing materials to a residence?  I thought that perhaps from a privacy standpoint (exposing personal information including name, address, and potentially additional information depending on the contents of the mailing) or a harrassment standpoint (ignoring the explicit and repeated requests of a person to stop solicitations) might be grounds for a suit.  Given the quantity of junk mail and people affected by it I thought there might be potential here but am not familiar with the relevant laws.