Batteries

Even if you have never thrown batteries in the trash, most of us can relate to the amount of batteries that we toss into our garbages every year. When I was a kid, you played outside without electronics. As a matter of fact, if you wanted to play with your friends across the street everyone got together and went around the block rather than calling them on the phone or using texting. The funny thing is that when I think back to when I was growing up, I realize that it was just as easy to play outside as it was to turn on the TV. Nowadays, kids would much rather sit inside in front of the computer or on a smartphone all day , so it’s no wonder that we are accumulating so many. What? What’s so hard about recycling batteries? I bet if you were rich enough, you could hire a battery butler to do it for you. How would that even work, anyway? I suppose he would just reach behind the couch cushions for some loose change and buy new batteries at the store. That’s how it works in my dreams. But since we’re not all 1%ers, recycling batteries is as simple as finding a location that recycles them for free (Is it really?!), bringing them there, and then screwing them into your flashlight until they burn out and you need new ones again.

Lids Of Plastic Water Bottles

Plastic water bottles are everywhere and so are the lids. They pile up in our homes and businesses.  Let’s hope that recycling companies can figure out a way to recycle these lids, otherwise they might be stuck in a landfill for thousands of years.

Plastic Bags

So, it’s no surprise that in an effort to make recycling individual items easier for companies, a number of countries are looking at taxes and bans for thin plastic bags. In 2005, Ireland became the first country in the world to ban plastic grocery bags with a charge approaching 20 cents per bag. France also implemented a similar tax per bag in January of this year. Most recently, China announced on June 1st it too was implementing a complete ban on single use plastic bags , beginning in 2019.Because they are thin, they do not have a high recycling capacity. If you compare the weight of a plastic bag in terms of recyclability to a piece of paper, the paper bag will have about eight times more conservation capacity than the plastic bag. That means, for one ton of paper you can recycle 2,000 tons but, if you take 1 ton of plastic bags, it would be equivalent to 10 tons of paper.When plastic bags get to the recycling plant, they usually end up being turned into pellets called “nurdles.” Nurdles are then used to create plastic products. So, in a sense, all plastic bags are recyclable; however, the thin nature of them makes it difficult to do so.In the United States, machinery in recycling centers usually take empty plastic bags and feeds them into a Cascading System that consists of several devices. However, thin plastic bags pose a very big problem for recycling companies because they often get clogged.Another problem with plastic bags is that they often do not get recycled. Plastic bags, though frequently cleaned and presented for recycling, usually get thrown out because of their thin nature. This is also a huge problem for the environment.

Single Use Nappies

Single use nappies are meant to hold up, which is great for parents but not so great for the environment. Single use nappies clog our landfills and create mountains of trash. While many say that these diapers are biodegradable, they actually end up in landfills for decades on end or get shipped off to third world countries where they’re just discarded into water systems. This does not make things better and is decidedly not bio degradable at all.I first heard about the whole cloth nappy thing when I was in a lecture at uni for my environmental technology management degree. The lecturer was talking about how disposable nappies were such a problem. It was the first time I had ever heard anyone really talk about it, and to be honest I didn’t know much about them before I started University.Although the environmental cost of traditional disposable nappies may be easier to deal with than cloth for some, it is still quite a detrimental process which ends up in landfill. If you’re not convinced that your poor, innocent baby should be made to suffer through this process then you can consider purchasing a more sustainable nappy.Single use nappies have been a huge help for busy parents. The need to collect dirty nappies from your baby and change them frequently during the night has been somewhat alleviated. This has helped out our environment a lot as it has cut down on the amount of dirty nappies ending up in landfills.I could go on and on about why using cloth nappies is great for the planet, we all know why, right? We are going to focus on the single use option though and give you an in-depth look at how they impact our environment so you can make an informed decision when choosing nappies.