I'm kind of looking at it from two different perspectives. I have my own
stuff at home to deal with and then I have the photolab I'm responsible for.
Here in Raleigh, we have weekly pickup of some recyclables, garbage &
yard waste. Basically, we have curbside pick up for glass & plastic
bottles, metal cans, newspapers, pasteboard and corrugated cardboard ...
maybe a few other things I don't remember. Mine is almost always
newspaper & bottles with occasionally some cardboard. The weekly
curbside collection is billed along with water and sewer at a per
household rate.
A second truck follows that has the arm to pick up the roll-out garbage
bins.
I usually put mine out once a month, because I don't accumulate enough
recyclables or garbage in a single week to bother, so I'm probably not
getting my money's worth from the curbside pickups. :-D
We also have bi-annual pickup days where you can put out old furniture,
white goods, some construction materials, mostly wood - no sheet-rock.
In the fall and early winter, you just pile leaves at the curb & a big
ol' vacuum cleaner truck comes along and sucks them up. During the rest
of the year, you have to put it out in either clear plastic bags or
special brown paper bags.
All of my yard waste goes into my compost bin.
The first and third Saturdays of every month there's an open collection
for household hazardous materials, but you have to drive them out to the
landfill yourself. Landfill drop-offs are "free" to county residents,
although you really pay for them through property taxes.
They don't get dumped in the landfill; the collection site is just
located there.
There are several stand-alone recycling locations in town that you can
drop off metal cans, glass & plastic bottles, newspaper, magazines,
white paper, cardboard, pasteboard and corrugated cardboard.
Also, every March & April these locations will have a collection bin for
last year's telephone books. I don't understand the phone book thing.
We've got one phone company in this town, pure monopoly, but I get phone
books delivered by three different companies - I get 2 sets of White
Pages, 6 different Yellow Pages, and one combined directory.
One phone company, NINE phone books for a city of about 400,000 people.
Out at the landfill there's also one of those stand-alone recycling
centers along with collection points for garbage, metals (old lawn
chairs, shelving units, pipe ...) and construction debris (which does
include sheet-rock).
It's open 7 days a week, 364 days a year (closed Christmas day - but no
Alice's Restaurant excuses here).
Inside the gate, which is open weekdays & 1st/3rd Saturday, at the same
collection point where they take the household chemicals, is the
recycling point for electronics, computers, & white goods. They also
accept old lead acid batteries there every day they're open.
The two things I'd like to see the city add to their recycling pickup is
plastic shopping bags and Styrofoam.
For now, I have to take the shopping bags to the grocery store where
they have recycling bins for them, and Styrofoam eventually has to go
into the landfill if I can't find any alternative use for it - like
using it to pack something I'm mailing off.
On the photolab side of things, the company I work for has a contract
hauler come pick up hazardous waste to take it for disposal. This takes
the outdated, unused replenisher & chemical stocks.
The photo chemical waste goes into the silver recovery unit and then do
eventually get washed down the drain. I expect that will change as
environmental regulations get tougher, and we'll have to install a
chemical holding tank & have someone come and haul it off every week.
From: Joseph McAllister
On Mar 15, 2009, at 16:53 , John Sessoms wrote:
> From: Scott Loveless
>> On 3/13/09, [email protected] <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> > There's really no good reason people should tell someone else
>>> to be
>>> > irresponsible regarding the environment.
>> No one's being irresponsible. There is no evidence anywhere from
>> anyone that J. Random Photographer dumping a gallon of fixer down the
>> drain every few months does any more damage to the environment or
>> treatment plant than the chemicals you use to clean your bath tub.
>> Or
>> latex paint. Or mineral spirits. Or anything else that's commonly
>> dumped down the drain. It's knee-jerking, over-reacting nonsense.
>
> Except that in many places, and a growing number of places at that,
> it *IS* against the law to dump chemicals, oil, latex paint, mineral
> spirits or raw used fixer down the drain.
>
> I'm pretty sure Marnie is in California, where it's even against the
> law to dump processed, de-silvered fixer into the drains.
>
> That it may do no more damage is irrelevant. If it does as much
> damage that's a problem in itself.
>
> It may be "knee-jerking, over-reacting nonsense", but in many
> jurisdictions, when it shows up in the sewage treatment facility,
> they will attempt to trace it back to the source, and if they catch
> you, you're going to pay a whopping fine at the very least.
>
> But - do your own thing.
California has excellent recycling facilities (though not as many as
some would like). When I lived there last year I was in the boonies,
and everything had to be taken either 18 miles to the Sonoma County
dump, which would accept mixed paper, appliances, TVs, computers, oil,
car batteries, mixed metals. If I wanted to drive an extra 20 miles
(if I was going into Santa Rosa) I could get paid for my metals (soda
cans) & plastics (soda bottles) and put damn near anything in an array
of containers labeled for newspaper, paper, cardboard, glass (by
color), steel, aluminum, wire, rubber, etc..
This is very close to what I could do when I was a kid in Wellesley,
Mass. in the 50s. The town dump had receptacles for most everything
mentioned above, plus they would take my photo chemicals, paint in
sealed cans, garden and household chemicals, plastic jugs and wax
coated milk cartons.
In Seattle and Everett, where I now live again, they pick stuff up
weekly or biweekly, depending on your location, and they are very
strict about what you can put out to recycle. Aluminum cans, plastic
and glass bottles of certain types, newsprint, paper is about it. Yard
waste, of course, with clean food waste thrown mixed in. Every thing
else it trash, and gets no processing, it's hauled off in long trains
to other states remote locales. Paint, chemicals, pressurized cans,
chemicals, hazmat items, other metals, appliances, furniture, etc.,
they want nothing to do with. You have to take it to a "Transfer
station" where you pay them by the load to dispose of it. TVs and
computers and the like you have to take to these transfer stations as
well, and pay them per unit to recycle them.
There is a pretty big business in recycling electronics commercially,
much donated for free, including old crt monitors recently (used to
have to pay them $20 up to 17", $40 any size over) which they could
then turn around and sell back to the public, or sell by the ton to
"dismantlers" and hope they were in the USA and not get sold to places
where they would not be properly handled. I fleshed out many a
computer system, and built two home entertainment networks with
electronics from "Re-PC" in Seattle over the years.
By the way, in California, the cost of recycling electronics is paid
for when you purchase the items (computers, TVs, Stereos) so dumping
is free. Made my day when I got rid of many dozens of pieces of
electronic and computing gear that I brought down there with me, but
did not want to bring back up to Seattle, for free. Moving the other
way is gonna hurt you if you don't get rid of your old stuff first.
--
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