The Ultimates in recycling.

[SeaCat]

Several months ago I received a package from the In-Laws. This package consisted of a plastic barrel on a pivot. It's use is for composting. The barrel is roughly the size of a 55 gallon drum, which means it holds a lot.

At first I started by adding grass clippings and other lawn refuse as well as Garbage from the kitchen. (Table scraps etc.) Then my wife hit upon an idea. We changed the filler for the litter boxes, (we have two of them,) to wood chips. Now the refuse from the cats is dumped into the barrel as well. (Along with the wood chips.) Every now and then we toss in such things as old Yogurt.

Slowly the barrel is filling. Every day or so I turn it over a few times to keep everything mixed well.

My wife wants me to replant the flowers out front. When I get the old flowers out I'll empty the barrel into the flower garden and till it under. It should make for some good soil.

Another bit of recycling we do is our newspapers. We received as a gift an outdoor firepit. It came with a paper log roller for creating logs out of newspapers. A weeks worth of newspapers rolled tightly burns for a couple of evenings. The ashes go into the Mulch Barrel. (The different inks used in the advertisements make for some interesting colors in the flames.)

So how do you recycle?

Cat

 

[rgraham666]

Here in Toronto we have four bins given to us by the city. One for recycling metal and plastic containers, one for recycling paper, a composter, and a garbage can for everything else.

The composting is picked up every week, the recycling and garbage on alternate weeks.

Biggest problem is getting people to do it. Of recent roommates, one's too drug addled to comprehend such complicated procedures, one "doesn't have the time" and the other didn't do such things back home so why should he have to do it here?

 

[glynndah]

Aluminum cans go to the recyclers. Scrap lumber and salvagable building materials are scrounged and stored to be used later. Paper and plastic bottles are collected at school for the shelter care workshop which recycles them. Any food scraps are fed to the chickens and turned into eggs. The hardwood floors in our house are the ends and pieces trimmed from red oak used as bowling alleys.

 

[SeaCat]

Here in Toronto we have four bins given to us by the city. One for recycling metal and plastic containers, one for recycling paper, a composter, and a garbage can for everything else.

The composting is picked up every week, the recycling and garbage on alternate weeks.

Biggest problem is getting people to do it. Of recent roommates, one's too drug addled to comprehend such complicated procedures, one "doesn't have the time" and the other didn't do such things back home so why should he have to do it here?

Here in Florida we have two bins. One for cans and bottles, and one for paper. (Newspapers, magazines and corrugated cardboard.) The rest goes to the landfill.

My trash guys love me. I no longer give them the Newspapers, which saves their backs. The Aluminum cans are melted down and formed into ten pound blocks. (The smelter is something my father saw advertised years ago and he bought me one when he bought himself one. It runs off of Propane and melts a weeks worth of beer cans in about twenty minutes. The County loves it.) Now all they have to pick up is the weekly trash. Once a month or so they get a container filled with plastic bottles, and every now and then a block or two of metal. (Do you know how many Beer and Soda cans it takes to make a ten pound block?)

I just wish they recycled Glass here.

In Massachussetts they recycle Glass bottles. At the landfill near where I used to live they had a great system. They had several bins, one for clear glass, one for green glass and one for other. You sorted your bottles acording to color and tossed them in the bins. At the end of the day, or when the bin was full they would close the door to the bin and hit a switch. This would cause a hydraulic ram to move forward crushing all of the glass in the bin. This was then dumped through a grinder which made it into a powder. This powder was shiped off to glass plant where it was metled and used to create more bottles and other glass objects.

Then again at that landfill they also had a place where metal was dumped. It didn't matter what it was. Old Bycicles, bed frames, refridgerators etc. They employed two guys whose sole job was to sort this metal, melt it down and send it off to be re-used.

They also had a spot to drop off old electronics, which was also sent off to be recycled.

My father and I were well known in this landfill. Not only for dropping off blocks of Aluminum, but because we would collect old Bike Frames so we could rebuild the bikes. (My father would give them away when he was finished with them.)

I also remember this landfill well because this was where I found a box filled with ten pounds of older Silver Coins. (I almost broke my toe trying to kick the box out of my way, which is why I threw the box in the back of my fathers truck.) I still have the coins.

Cat

 

[SeaCat]

Aluminum cans go to the recyclers. Scrap lumber and salvagable building materials are scrounged and stored to be used later. Paper and plastic bottles are collected at school for the shelter care workshop which recycles them. Any food scraps are fed to the chickens and turned into eggs. The hardwood floors in our house are the ends and pieces trimmed from red oak used as bowling alleys.

I like the idea of using the wood scraps. That works for me.

I'm watching the developments being built around us for wood scraps so I can build new shed to replace the metal one that was here when we moved in. Unfortunately most of the building done around here is done with Concrete. (I may just have to buy the wood to build my shed.)

Cat

 

[TE999]

We recycle:

glass, aluminum, plastic, cardboard, foam packaging, plastic bags, newspapers, magazines, tin cans, paint, lumber, electronics, batteries and telephone books.

Have to take them to the transfer station, though.

It's a hassle, but worth it.

Save the planet and all that.

Peace.

 

[glynndah]

I like the idea of using the wood scraps. That works for me.

I'm watching the developments being built around us for wood scraps so I can build new shed to replace the metal one that was here when we moved in. Unfortunately most of the building done around here is done with Concrete. (I may just have to buy the wood to build my shed.)

Cat

Yep, me, too. The strips for the floor are all solid red oak and 3/4 inch thick. The pieces are all three inches wide and vary in length from about 8 inches to 18 inches long. We bought a pickup truck load from a guy who was going to burn them in his wood stove. I think the price was about $200.

 

[SeaCat]

We recycle:

glass, aluminum, plastic, cardboard, foam packaging, plastic bags, newspapers, magazines, tin cans, paint, lumber, electronics, batteries and telephone books.

Have to take them to the transfer station, though.

It's a hassle, but worth it.

Save the planet and all that.

Peace.

It's strange,

I can recycle the plastic bags from the stores, if I bring them back to the stores. (I use them as trash bags.)

I can recycle the Egg Cartons, if I bring them to the Grocery Store.

Batteries for the saws and drills can be dropped off at the Hardware Store.

Paints and Oils can be dropped off at the twice yearly Hazardous Waste Stint at the Fire Station, but you have to store them until them.

Foam, they don't even want to think about around here. Just toss it along with your batteries in the trash.

Hell they pick up everything around here, as long as it's in bags. Rugs, Lumber, you name it. As long as it's in bags they'll pick it up and haul it away, all in the same truck. (If it's not bagged they won't touch it.)

One of the guys down the street used to dump the oil from the cars he worked on into buckets of Kitty Litter and they would pick it up with no problem. (He got shut down not because of the oil in the Kitty Litter but because he was running a car repair place without the proper bribes to the city.)

Cat

 

[SeaCat]

Yep, me, too. The strips for the floor are all solid red oak and 3/4 inch thick. The pieces are all three inches wide and vary in length from about 8 inches to 18 inches long. We bought a pickup truck load from a guy who was going to burn them in his wood stove. I think the price was about $200.

Damn I wish I could find a deal like that.

Next week I'm going to be driving up to visit my parents in Melbourne Florida. While I'm up there I'll pick up the Wood Laminate I need to redo the floors in my place. (They want $.59 a square foot there as opposed to $1.20 a square foot down here.) I'll save something like $300.00.

I would much prefer to find wood like yours. What I'll be buying is all of 6mm thick.

Cat

 

[glynndah]

Damn I wish I could find a deal like that.

Next week I'm going to be driving up to visit my parents in Melbourne Florida. While I'm up there I'll pick up the Wood Laminate I need to redo the floors in my place. (They want $.59 a square foot there as opposed to $1.20 a square foot down here.) I'll save something like $300.00.

I would much prefer to find wood like yours. What I'll be buying is all of 6mm thick.

Cat

This was from a guy who had a wood supply shop with exotic woods from across the globe. Rosewood, mahogany, etc. He had some fantastic purple lumber that I was just fascinated with. I'm not sure who his "real" clients were. I live in a rural area, not known for "artsy" types.

 

[SeaCat]

This was from a guy who had a wood supply shop with exotic woods from across the globe. Rosewood, mahogany, etc. He had some fantastic purple lumber that I was just fascinated with. I'm not sure who his "real" clients were. I live in a rural area, not known for "artsy" types.

Where I live is a little place called West Palm Beach. Our normal building stye is concrete covered with stucco. Interiors are mainly Tile. Wood, surprisingly, is seemingly frowned upon. It just doesn't seem to cut it with the upscale clientel around here.

When I mentioned to one of my co-workers that I was planning on doing my floors in wood she turned her nose up at the very idea. She is redoing her place in tile, and can't understand why anyone would go with wood of any kind.

To each their own. I like wood.

Cat

 

[SensualCealy]

One thought Cat, Watch how much ash you put into your flower beds. Too much is NOT a good thing!

We have two composters, one for yard waste and one for kitchen waste. The kitchen waste brakes down faster and every couple weeks we put a shovel full of the kitchen waste in with the yard waste to help it along.
We are given ONE box up here for recycling, I bought my son 4 cool lift lid boxes to sort the recycling into clear bags to make things easier for him. Well I made it too easy one day. He took the binds to the curb, never to be seen again!
Now we are back to clear bags, no bins, the box they provide holds a grocery bag half full of the weekend papers and junk mail, one bag of squashed cans, and maybe if Im lucky a bag of flattened plastic bottles. We do one other thing that we arent supose to but we do anyway, we take glass bottles and smash them in a box, to reduce their size, when the box is ful its bagged and marked GLASS. Less worry for the guys that pick it up, when it is clearly marked and no worries of smashing the bottles if the bag comes untied.

One thing I wish they would recycle her is foam egg cartons. Our supplier of fresh eggs has gone out of business so we no longer get flats that we re use. I buy 18 packs from the grocery store that only come in foam cartons- Any ideas what they can be used for?

C

 

[StormRising]

One thought Cat, Watch how much ash you put into your flower beds. Too much is NOT a good thing!

We have two composters, one for yard waste and one for kitchen waste. The kitchen waste brakes down faster and every couple weeks we put a shovel full of the kitchen waste in with the yard waste to help it along.
We are given ONE box up here for recycling, I bought my son 4 cool lift lid boxes to sort the recycling into clear bags to make things easier for him. Well I made it too easy one day. He took the binds to the curb, never to be seen again!
Now we are back to clear bags, no bins, the box they provide holds a grocery bag half full of the weekend papers and junk mail, one bag of squashed cans, and maybe if Im lucky a bag of flattened plastic bottles. We do one other thing that we arent supose to but we do anyway, we take glass bottles and smash them in a box, to reduce their size, when the box is ful its bagged and marked GLASS. Less worry for the guys that pick it up, when it is clearly marked and no worries of smashing the bottles if the bag comes untied.

One thing I wish they would recycle her is foam egg cartons. Our supplier of fresh eggs has gone out of business so we no longer get flats that we re use. I buy 18 packs from the grocery store that only come in foam cartons- Any ideas what they can be used for?

C

Use them to start seeds during the winter.

Also, call around adn ask the local farmer's markets if they know anyone who does fresh eggs- or get yourself a handful of chickens. You can usually get them pretty cheaply.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

... Then my wife hit upon an idea. We changed the filler for the litter boxes, (we have two of them,) to wood chips. Now the refuse from the cats is dumped into the barrel as well. (Along with the wood chips.) Every now and then we toss in such things as old Yogurt.
..

Cat,

Composting Cat Waste is not a healthy option as thier feces has some rather nasty little bugs in it which will not be broken down in the compost process. If you are only growing flowers it might be ok, but do not use that compost for vegi's or other edible produce.

Zeb.

 

[kendo1]

We have a paper/can/ bottle and garden waste uplift one week, cardboard the next.
Plastic bags are reused in the local supermarket, you get money off if you do.
Most other things go to the local recycling dump: batteries, metal, packaging, wood, electrical items.
Other things that are still useful go into the re-use cage.

We also have a website, freecycle. Anything you don't want that is useful to someone else can be advertised. They come and collect. Got a free greenhouse that way.


We have wooden floors throughout our house, apart from tiles in the bathrooms and kitchen. It's warmer underfoot in a cold climate.

 

[SeaCat]

Cat,

Composting Cat Waste is not a healthy option as thier feces has some rather nasty little bugs in it which will not be broken down in the compost process. If you are only growing flowers it might be ok, but do not use that compost for vegi's or other edible produce.

Zeb.

Zeb,

I know about the nasty little beasties in the Feline Feces. (Although I'm sure many others don't so thanks for the tip.)

All of our compost will be going to things like flower beds.

My wife wants me to set up a little Herb Garden in the back, but we haven't decided where we'll be setting that up. When we do set it up though I will be using only composted Kitchen Waste. (I will also go inland and get myself a bucket filled with Worms to help things along.)

At one time my father had what he called his Worm Ranch. This was a concrete box roughly three feet deep by five foot to a side. He half filled it with dirt then started adding Kitchen Waste. After six months he bought himself a bucket or two filled with worms from a Bait Store and added them. By the end of the year he had some of the best compost I have ever seen. As far as I know this Worm Ranch is still going, and he gets some of the best veggies out of his garden. (He tills in the compost every fall.)

Cat

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Zeb,

I know about the nasty little beasties in the Feline Feces. (Although I'm sure many others don't so thanks for the tip.)

All of our compost will be going to things like flower beds.

My wife wants me to set up a little Herb Garden in the back, but we haven't decided where we'll be setting that up. When we do set it up though I will be using only composted Kitchen Waste. (I will also go inland and get myself a bucket filled with Worms to help things along.)

At one time my father had what he called his Worm Ranch. This was a concrete box roughly three feet deep by five foot to a side. He half filled it with dirt then started adding Kitchen Waste. After six months he bought himself a bucket or two filled with worms from a Bait Store and added them. By the end of the year he had some of the best compost I have ever seen. As far as I know this Worm Ranch is still going, and he gets some of the best veggies out of his garden. (He tills in the compost every fall.)

Cat

Good to hear.

Worms, my backyard is a worm ranch. Where ever I dig a hole for something or other I can pull out about 50 to 60 worms.