Scientists talk about something called a “life-cycle analysis” which reduces everything to its value in terms of energy and then looks at how much energy it takes from mining the raw material, to making the product, to transporting the product around, to using it, to transporting it back to a landfill or waste-to-energy facility or recycling center, and then to re-manufacturing it, if possible.  We’ve looked at this for plastic water bottles in Branford.

The sorting facility we use to separate our bottles and cans, called a Materials Recovery Facility or MRF, is in Groton Connecticut, about an hour away by truck.  There isn’t a MRF anywhere in New Haven County.  At this time, with no facilities locally, if we were to recycle plastic water bottles, than we would be utilizing more natural resources than we would be saving by recycling the bottles.  Most plastic is made from petroleum (oil).  I think of oil as being made from dinosaurs – we don’t have any more dinosaurs, which is why oil is called a “non-renewable resource”.  By recycling plastic bottles, you are conserving petroleum.  However, the trucks that carry the water bottles to be recycled are using diesel fuel (also a petroleum product), and with the distance that the truck would have to go in order for the plastic water bottles to be recycled, we would be using more oil (diesel fuel) than we would be saving by recycling the plastic water bottles.  It’s what I call burning 5 dinosaurs to save 4 dinosaurs.  It doesn’t really save the environment.  It’s actually worse for it.  And even with what gas cost in 2006, it would then cost us more to recycle the bottles and cans per ton than it does to burn the garbage.  The plastic bottles fill up the truck with a little bit of plastic and a whole lot of air.  It’s a waste of the diesel fuel oil to haul air an hour away, while cluttering up our highways with more and more trucks.  When the plastic bottles are in the garbage, we can pack the air out of them.  When they are in the recycling, we can’t or it would crush the glass so it couldn’t be sorted by color and recycled.

Sometimes we ask the wrong questions.  The best answer to the grocery store question “paper bag or plastic bag?” is “no, thank you”. 

 So if you are concerned about water bottles in the garbage and them being burned, let’s back up and ask a different question:  why do we have all these water bottles to dispose of, and is there a better answer?  My recommendation is to consider investing in a re-usable water bottle, that you can fill up from the faucet or from a water cooler, and encourage your friends to do so as well.  There are water bottles that are made from different kinds of  plastics and also of metal that are available for purchase.  They come in a variety of sizes, shapes, colors and styles too!  And if you do have a regular, plastic bottle like Poland Springs, then wash it and fill it again.  Think about that:  if every bottle was re-used just once, then there would be only half as many bottles to debate about.  Use them more than once, and the problem keeps getting smaller.

That’s under your control!  Children can be very powerful influences.  And children, like yourself, are consumers and educators.  We have to learn not to rely on others, like government, to do the right things for us, but to take the steps we each have control over to make the changes we want to see in the world.  Will you help with that?

I am glad that you took the time to write me about your concern for the environment.  If you have any other questions, please look at my web site at www.Branford-CT.gov under Town Hall Departments and then Solid Waste & Recycling, or email me at SolidWaste@Branford-CT.gov.  Remember, there are three R’s: Reduce, Re-Use, and then Recycle! 

 

"Green books" for Adults 2/08

Kim writes

 Does anyone have a suggestion for a good "green" book for a library to promote for book discussion?  I've read The Weathermakers and am now reading In Defense of Food, both which I have enjoyed.  But it takes me a while to get through books these days and am wondering what else is out there that would be a good recommendation.

Judy suggests:

How about: Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble - by Lester R. Brown http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/PB2/index.htm

Haven't read it but want to.

 

Alison suggests:

 This is coming at green issues from a somewhat different angle, but it certainly makes you think about the effects of human activity on the planet - "The World Without Us" by Alan  Weisman. I read parts of it & found it quite thoughtful.

 

From The New Yorker
Teasing out the consequences of a simple thought experiment what would happen if the human species were suddenly extinguished.  ­Weisman has written a sort of pop-science ghost story, in which the whole earth is the haunted house. Among the highlights: with pumps not working, the New York City subways would fill with water within days, while weeds and then trees would retake the buckled streets and wild predators would ravage the domesticated dogs. Texas’s unattended petrochemical complexes might ignite, scattering hydrogen cyanide to the winds ­a "mini chemical nuclear winter." After thousands of years, the Chunnel, rubber tires, and more than a billion tons of plastic might remain, but eventually a polymer-eating microbe could evolve, and, with the spectacular return of fish and bird populations, the earth might revert to Eden.

Copyright © 2007

 From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. If a virulent virus or even the Rapture depopulated Earth overnight, how long before all trace of humankind vanished? That's the provocative, and occasionally puckish, question posed by Weisman (An Echo in My Blood) in this imaginative hybrid of solid science reporting and morbid speculation. Days after our disappearance, pumps keeping Manhattan's subways dry would fail, tunnels would flood, soil under streets would sluice away and the foundations of towering skyscrapers built to last for centuries would start to crumble. At the other end of the chronological spectrum, anything made of bronze might survive in recognizable form for millions of years along with one billion pounds of degraded but almost indestructible plastics manufactured since the mid-20th century. Meanwhile, land freed from mankind's environmentally poisonous footprint would quickly reconstitute itself, as in Chernobyl, where animal life has returned after 1986's deadly radiation leak, and in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, a refuge since 1953 for the almost-extinct goral mountain goat and Amur leopard. From a patch of primeval forest in Poland to monumental underground villages in Turkey, Weisman's enthralling tour of the world of tomorrow explores what little will remain of ancient times while anticipating, often poetically, what a planet without us would be like. (July)

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

 

Kate suggests:

 

For a sort of different perspective ...

Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, is a classic, wonderfully written book on the "father of conservation"s perspective on the land.  This last chapter - a land ethic - is a cornerstone of conservation thinking.  It's historical, beautiful, and not so much about what a person "should do", as a thoughtful celebration of nature, and a consideration of humans' role.

  CJ suggests:

 Here are several thought-provoking books to consider

 Rathjie, RUBBISH! The Archaeology of Garbage

Rogers, GONE TOMORROW:   The Hidden Life of Garbage

Royte, GARBAGE LAND:   On the Secret Trail of Trash

?, The Story of Stuff (each chapter is a life cycle story of different items:   TV, hamburger, car, bike, computer etc)

Quinn: Ishmael, My Ishmael, Story of B (these three books are a mix of environment and re-thinking of how civilization might work in general...very thought-provoking and argument-provoking)

Thoreau, Walden etc

Diamond, Crash

 

 

 

Office Paper and gory details about paper gradeS 4/07

 

[I wanted to ask you more about office paper recycling, and] the reason for my thorough re-check of the office paper rules was triggered by a sign at the transfer station that may mislead others as well as [my friend].  I had handed him a batch of proxy / prospectus "books" all of which were white paper, standard weight with covers one notch heavier than the thin stuff inside, which I had been saving up for some time.  They were bound by two staples each.  When he came home he told me that they could not go in the office paper bin, he had to put them in the regular trash.  We had quite a heated discussion about it as I got the impression that it was the human that told him that, but in the end he clarified that it was a sign on the bin that said "no paper backs".

 

I argued that that referred to paperback books with news print pages, in them or perhaps white paper but with glue holding the pages in (yes it was an argument, like the one we had when coloured paper became acceptable).

 

I said I was sure  I knew what I was talking about as I remembered you saying that you cut the glue parts off the paper, which I had been doing.  But none of what I had given him had glue.   After I talked to you I realized that perhaps the sign should be clarified, e.g. "Office only, no glued backs, no newsprint", or a lot of stapled white paper books could miss being recycled.

 

 Now another question:  I have been assuming that if a post card that may or may not be shiny has a regular  paper base  e.g. such as a return receipt requested card, it is o.k., but that a heavy photo print may not be, but of that I am not sure. Also, when I am tearing my  address out of catalogs and off of magazine covers that must go in regular trash (we have two cross shredders one for general and one for recyclable) the catalogue stuff is sometimes pretty flimsy shiny stuff, other times it is heaver duty, and the Yale annual report cover and inside could be used to build a bridge. I put that in magazines,  glue backing is part of it, and I have been doing the shredding of its address in the plain trash.  However, if a catalogue cover address is as flimsy a publishers clearing house flier or a credit card insert could the address go in the recyclable shredder?  At what thickness does it get too heavy?  Same question with regard to the heavier duty paper used on some of the proxies e.g. 24 weight as opposed to 20 weight?

 

Diana

 

 

If you will go to my flyers and looked at Office Paper, you will see the sign that I use.  Unfortunately, the company who provides our office paper recycling and the green bins, does not empty the bins, but swaps empty ones for the full ones they take away.  Therefore, there is little point in my trying to put my signs on the bins, as the bins only stay 2 weeks.  "No paperbacks" is correct, though "no paperback books with glue bindings" might be clearer.  I don't think it is something I can fix.

 

 

On the rest, Whew!  I think you're overanalyzing, but I’ll give you more detail.  There are 4 basic categories into which I divide the world of paper-like things made from trees – at least this is the division for purposes of the recycling center:

 

1)  There is corrugated cardboard.  Besides the obvious 3-layer boxes, this can include the box liners –  but if you don't know what I mean, don't include similar things.  It can include brown paper bags, known as "Kraft", which are the regular paper grocery bags.  And it may include those brown/yellow big envelopes which are also technically "Kraft", although they sometimes get called "manila envelopes", which they are not.  "Manila" is like the off-white folders that go inside a green hanging folder, and they are not related.

 

2) There are newspapers, magazines, and catalogs.  These are actually 2 different grades, but we mix them.  Newspaper or newsprint is technically called a "groundwood" paper, and it's the kind that would turn yellow if left in the sun.  It's a "cheaper" sort of paper, not intended for archival quality documents, but rather for the read it and dispose of it sorts of things.  Other things that are groundwood paper and can therefore go with the newspapers are the packing paper that moving companies wrap around your dishes –  it's just unprinted newsprint –  and the kind of scratch paper we used to see for doing our math homework on in grade school.  You still see 500-page coloring books made out of it, but it seems less common these days, maybe because you wouldn't want to put it through any kind of high speed copy machine.  Magazines and catalogs are either newsprint (with maybe a glue binding, but probably staples) or a newsprint base (probably) with a clay coating, which is what makes it shiny.  We can deal with the glue on those occasional magazines.  No, I'm not sure why, but probably just a volume issue.

 

This newspaper/magazine mix is probably still marketed as something like a "number 6 news" –  as opposed to the higher quality #8 news, which is black and white only making even the Sunday paper a problem.  Last I knew, a #6 news allows for 5% by weight of "outthrows", and 1/2 a percent by weight of "prohibitives".  Our brown paper bags, that we insist on to bundle the news, actually fall into this 5% of stuff they aren't really looking for, but can deal with, because there's nothing wrong with it except it's the wrong paper grade.  Now when a mayonnaise jar from the other compartment of the truck falls in the news, that's a prohibited material.  But reality allows for even a tiny bit of that sort of thing.

 

3)  Then there is what in Branford still counts as trash.  That's used or unused Kleenex, paper towels, or tissue paper.  It's cereal boxes and the back of a pad of paper and those higher-quality white boxes that could be gray cardboard if they weren't being upscale (boxboard and paperboard, though I always forget which is which category).  It's the greasy bottom part of the pizza box, green hanging folders, construction paper, and real carbon paper.  It's butter or frozen green bean cartons or coffee cups with a polycoat (plastic) layer on them (even though the similar juice boxes and milk cartons are a polycoat that we take with bottles and cans!).  And I throw my ripped off addresses in here rather than doing any other sorting for those tiny bits, regardless of what they came from.  And it's waxed paper, Tyvek envelopes, plastic book report covers and AOL diskettes that came in the mail, but aren't paper at all.

 

4)  And lastly, there is Office Paper.  Its fancy name to contrast with "groundwood" is "sulfite paper".  That's the category we take at the transfer station, but don't take at the curb, since it has to be separate from the news, and since it's a higher-quality paper and we need to keep it dry.  Office Paper does not have to be white.  Only the white is mandatory for businesses under state law, but it's a lot more work to separate just white, and if it comes to our transfer station there has been no reason to keep it separate for many years now.  The markets aren't keen on really dark colors like goldenrod, dark red, green, or black (is there black copy paper??) but a few sheets here or there won't matter.

 

We also expanded to the shiny/glossy non-magazine papers in November 2005.  What this means is you can put in computer paper of just about any kind (unless you still have the kind made out of newsprint that, again, I don't see around much any more).  You can put in copy paper, letterhead, and most of your junk mail and good mail, too.  Prospectuses should be fine. (prospecti?)  Glossy pamphlet-like things are fine.  Postcards are fine.  I guess I wouldn't do actual photographs on real, live photography paper.  But even blueprints are OK, I'm told.  Sticky notes are OK, and so is NCR paper (carbonless "carbon" paper & multi-part forms).  Paper clips, rubber bands and staples aren't paper, but they don't need to be removed and that sure makes the sorting easier.  So if you're cleaning out a filing cabinet, we don't want the newspaper clippings, hanging folders, and plastic things.  The manila folders are fine here, though not the colored ones that are like construction paper.  If it came in the mail, it's probably fine here except for those Kraft envelopes, AOL diskettes, and magazines/catalogs or newspapers.  Window envelopes are fine, and so are those funky see-through envelopes that look almost like plastic, but are actually cellulose (wood!). 

 

If your insurance company annual report comes on something half-way between a magazine and a pamphlet, I don't know the right answer of which kind of shiny it is over which kind of base (sulfite or groundwood).  When in doubt, I'd put such things with the newspaper, because that's probably right, and because contamination doesn't matter as much there.  20 pound or 24 pound papers are both absolutely fine.  Stiffer, high-quality postcard-type paper is also fine as long as it isn't like construction paper.  I don't know how to tell you the difference except that I do it by look and feel, and for all I know I'm guessing wrong sometimes.  Again, when in doubt, throw it out. 

 

You shouldn't have that many items or that much volume left that doesn't fit in one of the categories I've mentioned.  If you have something else you're dying to know the answer to, I have a bottle of acid I can use to test sulfite vs. groundwood paper if you bring me a sample, but please, if it's just a couple things, just relegate them to the trash and save the gas of bringing them to Town Hall.

 

 

 

PLASTIC PLANT CONTAINER RECYCLING 12/06

 

With spring just around the corner and being conservation chairman of the
Branford Garden Club I was wondering if we were allowed to recycle those small usually green plastic pots that we all get at the local garden centers when we buy our plants in the spring?

Last year when I asked at one of the garden centers they said it is cheaper for them to buy new than to clean them and reuse the pots.

It just seems like there must be a way to get rid of them other than adding to the land fill because even with sharing seedlings with others and then they have to get rid of them, I alone must end the season with an extra 100 or so.  Any ideas or thoughts?

Sincerely,
Nancy

 

 

ANGIE’S LIST 10/06

 

I’m interested in your flyer about “Fix It”.  What is Angie’s List?

 

Bill

 

 

I have to admit I’ve never used it myself, but you’ll need a computer to use it.  Go to www.angieslist.com .  You’ll need to register with them, but there’s no charge.  It’s consumers telling consumers who they used for some project and giving a review of what they thought of the service, like this plumber did great work but was a little expensive, or this guy said he fixed my bathtub, but then the living room flooded.  Check it out, and if it works for you, write us and let us know!

 

Peg

 

 

PLASTIC RECYCLING, MIXED PAPER, COMPOST BINS, RECYCLING SABOTAGE 10/06

 

We think it is good to suggest that we recycle more, but it is difficult given how poor the recycling programs are here.  We just moved from Newton Massachusetts and were shocked to see how little was recycled in Branford.  We also have a house on Nantucket and they are much much better than Branford.  For example, the inability to recycle plastic, even #2 PETE here is distressing.  A lot of trash consists of containers that could be recycled.  We also recycle mixed paper but have to take it to the recycling station.  Whenever I go there is hardly anyone there so I suspect that most people just throw out their mixed paper.  In MA they picked up almost all kinds of containers and all kinds of paper, as well as bundled corrugated cardboard, every week.  That should be done here.  In MA they also sold subsidized composters.  We, and I suspect many residents, would be willing to pay to have a wider range of materials recycled.

Finally, the people who collect garbage and materials should be monitored.  I was out early two weeks ago when they came by and they took our newspapers and bottles and just threw them in the trash truck with our garbage.  That is pretty distressing after we took the time to carefully separate all the relevant materials.  They were correctly sorted and bundled so this was not a case of them deciding that we had put out things that could not be recycled.

60 pounds less trash in a year is minimal.  The goal in our town in MA was to recycle 50% of all household waste.  We could do much better but it will take a more supportive town policy to do it.

Paul

 

Lots of topics and a long answer coming.  I’ll try to go point by point. 

 

Recycling in general is dependent on markets, markets, markets.  In some ways we are a very global marketplace – for example, all of our newspaper right now goes to Mainland China (though by way of West Haven), and issues as large as the balance of trade, or availability of shipping containers due to what happens in the Middle East affects our programs in little ol’ Branford.  But in other ways, (think globally; act locally) we are very dependent on what’s available right here. 

 

Plastic Recycling: 

 

Branford does recycle the cloudy (undyed or “natural”) #2 plastics, also known as HDPE or high density polyethylene, or better known as “milk jugs”.  For a discussion of why we don’t recycle the clear #1 PETE (polyethylene terephthalate) plastics like cranberry juice containers, or the colored #2s like laundry detergent or shampoo (Click here).   The quick answer is that it is neither environmentally nor economically worth it, considering where our sorting facility is. 

 

The interesting aside here is that I am talking to a graduate student at the Yale school of Forestry and Environmental Studies who might be doing a Life Cycle Analysis of this very issue, since it seems like an unanswered question how much gasoline one has to burn to make it not worth recycling the plastics. 

 

Our curbside paper program collects the newspapers, inserts, magazines, and catalogs.  This is by far the largest fraction of the residential paper waste stream by weight.  Office paper including almost all of the junk mail folks receive can indeed be dropped off at the transfer station, and indeed, it’s underutilized.  There is a major debate going on in the world of professional recyclers right now which oversimplifying can be boiled down to quality vs. quantity.  Paper is marketed by grade, and there are hundreds of published grades, as well as more grades that are defined as something the seller and buyer can agree to.   In the time I have been doing recycling professionally (nearly 20 years) the markets have been very volatile and we are currently in the steadiest high market I have seen.  That’s great!  But I run what I consider a conservative program, though innovative in particular areas.  In good times, markets scramble for paper and the quality can diminish with no particular harm to a program.  In bad times just moving it can be difficult, regardless of price. 

 

In the early ‘90’s the paper mills couldn’t deal well with magazines mixed with the news, and some didn’t want even the funny papers and adds.  Those mills have mostly closed for not being able to keep up with the times.  Newer mills are fine with magazines, both because of different technology, and because there is a better understanding of what percentages one can expect to find in a residential mix. 

 

Keep in mind the 3 arrows of the recycling circle (what pre-dated the recycling triangle on the bottom of plastics):  The first arrow is collection of the material.  The second arrow is turning the material into a new product.  And the third arrow is buying and using that new product.  Without the 3^rd arrow, we’ve just made new and more expensive trash.

 

Different paper grades get turned into different paper or other products.  For example, the office paper is most likely to be turned into tissue – toilet paper and Kleenex.  Newspaper might be turned into new newspaper, or into insulation, mulch products to spray on with your grass seed, or cardboard.  Corrugated cardboard is different than paperboard or boxboard.  Just as you wouldn’t blow your nose on wallpaper, or write a letter to your boss on paper towels, there are only some things that can be done with the different recycling grades.  And a good rule of thumb is that what can be done with it reverts to the lowest common denominator of the products that make up any mix.  Cereal boxes are a good recycled product, but they have already been recycled so much that they are among the lowest of the low.  Mixing those grades with office paper or newspaper means that the higher uses (and better prices) of the higher grade products no longer apply.

 

Now we may be entering an era where, as with the magazines, the mills (read Canada and China for the most part right now) will take the lower-grade materials reliably enough at a steady enough price that it might be worth mixing grades for the sake of the higher volume.  But, as I said, I run a conservative program and am still watching these long-term trends, and our nearby processor who bales and markets including overseas isn’t providing long-term guarantees for some mixed materials.  So for now, I’m concentrating on improving quantity while maintaining quality.  Way too many people don’t recycle their magazines and catalogs curbside still.  Since we’ve saved well over a million dollars just on newspaper recycling (might be approaching $2 million now; I should do that calculation again), it’s good to spread the word that recycling keeps taxes down.

 

Corrugated Cardboard:

 

Branford instituted the so-called “large cardboard” day once a month so that people who just moved in and had large quantities of cardboard, people who had a refrigerator delivered and had a huge box, the elderly or people on dialysis who had tough cartons to break down would have a way to recycle.  I’m not aware of other towns who offer this service.  In addition to that, on a regular week we do try to collect one, small, flattened bundle of corrugated cardboard from the houses we collect from, but the bottle/can truck just isn’t designed to hold much cardboard.  If everyone on the route ahead of you put out one piece, the little racks on the bottle/can truck would fill up.  That’s why we ask everyone to save all corrugated cardboard – even the little pieces – for the once-a-month large cardboard collection.  Schedule here.  But yes, we do take small quantities every week.

 

Subsidized Composters

 

We ran a sale a few years ago and sold Earth Machine composters at Bishop’s for one day for the subsidized price of $15.  Bishop’s then bought the last 100 or so and sold them for $20 (I think) for a couple years, but they didn’t move quickly, and they then donated the last 50 or so to Branford.  We’ve given out about 35 of them for free to folks who ask and who promise to use them.  Because they were donated and so we don’t run afoul of tax law, we don’t charge anything, but I won’t have them sitting in a resident’s garage unused just because free sounded like too good a deal to pass up.  The price is to promise to use it. (Click Here for more compost information.)  If interested, call me or write with your name, address, and phone number and while supplies last, I’ll tell you how to make an appointment to get one.

 

Paying more for more recycling:

 

Yes, many residents would gladly pay more for more recycling, but many would not.  Taxes come from all residents and I don’t believe in feel-good recycling if the environmental benefit isn’t there.  When I look at adding a material to our program, I concentrate on weight, and on toxicity.  This is the Waste Challenge that you responded to.  Organics are a huge and heavy part of the waste stream.  One of the best things a resident can do to recycle more is to compost.  Are you composting?  (don’t forget this long answer is going on the web site, so I’m writing more than just you, my new resident.)  And as for the innovation I mentioned above, our region was the first program in the country to recycle milk cartons – we beat Seattle by a day!  OK, it hardly matters, but I love the symbolism. 

 

More importantly, we were the first permanent collection site for electronics recycling in the state.  That costs us money in the budget, since it’s hazardous waste prices to recycle the leaded glass, but getting the lead out is a place where I think we can all support the costs.  I’m also very active on state and regional solutions to expand electronics recycling and work on a permanent funding mechanism – no easy task, with lots of varied stakeholders and many different legislative approaches popping up.

 

Mixing recyclables with trash:

 

This part of your note is extremely disturbing to me.  Our hauler also recognizes that mixing separated recyclables back into trash is the worst sort of sabotage, and they are working with me to identify the crew members responsible.  Please keep in touch if this has not been resolved.  They do face penalties for this violation of law and of their contract.

 

60 pounds or 50 %:

 

Allow me to clarify the flyer.  What I’m asking for is 60 pounds more than each person is already doing.  If everyone in the state did that, our recycling rate would be at about 49%.  The debate at the state level is whether the goal should be 49% or 61% by 2024.  I’m saying let’s get Branford up there now, not just over the next 20 years.

 

How we get there is up to all of us.  As with most environmental issues, we all play a part.  I am a great advocate for doing the pieces that are under our control.  It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the magnitude of some of our local, national, or global problems.  It’s easy to point fingers at this or that level or branch of government.  It’s easy to demand other people do something.  But we are each consumers.  Some of us are parents.  Some of us choose not to have children.  Many of us work outside the home.  Many of us vote.  Some of us work for government.  All of us make garbage.  All of us interact with our environment.  All of us should work on the parts of the problem that are under our control to be a part of the solution.  There’s that bumper sticker again:  think globally; act locally.  For more ideas, follow some of the links off my web page.

 

Plastic Bag Recycling 10/06

 

BTW, I had a coupe of other thoughts.  We always recycle plastic grocery bags.  Stop and Shop and Wal Mart take them but A&P does not.  Is there any way of incenting grocery stores to recycle the bags?  Perhaps provide advertisements on the town site for those that do?  My cleaner (A&A) takes plastic bags but I don’t know if all do.  If not, that would be another thing to encourage somehow.

Thank you,

Paul

I have bad news for you.  The grocery stores collect plastic bags in barrels marked for recycling.  However I have heard rumors on many occasions, and have confirmed one or two times in the past that they then just throw them away.  I can hope this is for specific reasons of contamination in some particular load, I suspect it is because of historical contamination and they don’t even bother any more, and the cynic in me sometimes fears it is just to keep people off their backs by making us think they are recycling.  Hope springs eternal, and it may be that sometimes they do get recycled, or maybe it is suddenly all better and it always gets recycled, but it has been inconsistent enough that I am unwilling to help publicize it.  Though I have no specific data, the dry cleaners are probably a better bet.

So using this big picture principle, don’t get the idea that rechargeables are bad.  I strongly encourage their use.  I have a little battery recharger that will charge AA or AAA batteries – most of my battery usage other than the 9Vs for the smoke detectors.   I bought rechargeable batteries which I can use for my camera, my palm pilot, travel alarm and such, and now I just cycle freshly charged ones into those appliances and have many fewer alkalines to dispose of.  Some year when those batteries won’t hold a charge, they can be dropped off at any of the many places to recycle them – and that’s important because of their chemical makeup – but the net effect on the environment over the years of their life will be much less than all those disposables, and I think it’s going to be cheaper, as well.  I got my charger and AA batteries through the internet at the same place I got my camera, and I’ve bought the AAAs at Radio Shack.