Recycling Facts about Aluminum

January 28, 2009 By Leave a Comment

aluminum pull tabs

    I have a friend from college whom I noticed was always keeping the aluminum pull tabs of the softdrink cans she’s drinking. I asked her once why she was doing that and she answered that the pull-tabs are made into wheel chairs. I asked her if the wheel chairs can support the weight of a person if they are made of Coke pull-tabs. I forgot her answer.
    I remember that incident with my friend today because of the recycling facts about aluminum that I was researching. I didn’t know that the Coke pull-tabs are not actually glued together to make wheel chairs. They are instead melted and recycled. I really didn’t know that all things that are made from aluminum can be recycled.
    This information is amazing. How come I didn’t know that? I didn’t know that softdrink cans can be recycled for indefinite number of times and the quality will not decrease. But even so, why do companies of softdrinks still manufacture new beverage cans? Why don’t they just recycle them all?
    It’s very easy to say but here in the Philippines where college graduates like me who don’t know that aluminum cans are recyclable, it can be difficult to put into action. How can we act if we didn’t know we had to act on it? We really need more people to educate us on greening. But I think there are a lot of Filipinos who have already initiated aluminum recycling programs in the country. One is the program being supported by my friend that makes wheel chairs out of the aluminum pull tabs of softdrink cans.
    I didn’t know that we can make not only wheel chairs but also cookware, bicycles, cars and even airplanes (whattt!!!) from recycled aluminums. Recycling just ONE aluminum can can save energy which can power a television for 3 hours (what!!!). If we recycle all the aluminum cans of the softdrinks that we consume, the energy saved can power the fluorescent bulbs of millions of homes every year. These recycling facts are just astounding.
    I wonder if there are other initiatives in the Philippines that promote the recycling of aluminum cans and other aluminum products. If I had known this, I would’ve collected all the aluminum cans that I, my family and friends have been drinking. If I had started collecting aluminum cans since college, I would’ve already made hundreds of elders and disabled people in my country happy.
    It’s just so amazing how one little thing (collecting aluminum cans and recycling) can make a big difference. It’s just amazing. But amazement is just the start. What can I do about it? What can we do about it? Where do we go if we have collected all those aluminum cans? Where are the recycling centers of aluminum cans in the Philippines?
    Questions can start a revolution. Green revolution I mean.
Filed Under: Energy Saving, Everyday Green, Recycling Tagged With: , , , ,

Why is Recycling Important?

January 26, 2009 By Leave a Comment

why is recycling important

    Even if going green is the path most people are going to today, there are still others who ask, “Why is recycling important?” They say that the earth is very big and it can take care of all our wastes, so why do we have to recycle? They say that it’s a waste of time to separate wastes. The only thing that is important is that the garbage gets out of their homes and then the government can deal with the garbage problem.
    Recycling is important because sooner or later the garbage that you threw away will return back to you in the form of contaminated underground water, floods, high cost of fuel and risks to your health.
    Recycling is done to reduce the amount of waste in our landfills. These landfills emit chemicals that leak into our water systems underground. Recycling will help us prevent having toxic water coming out of our shower or our faucets.
    Lands that used to be forests are converted into landfills because we throw out a lot of garbage. The trees that prevent flash floods are being cut down to accommodate our garbage. Every year hundreds of thousands of people are affected by flash floods all over the world. We can reduce that number by reducing our waste by recycling.
    If we don’t recycle and put recyclable garbage to the landfills, the factories will use up fuel to manufacture new stuff. We know the law of supply and demand—as demand increases, the supply and price increases. If we recycle, we will reduce our national demand for fuel and this will help keep the fuel costs down.
    The garbage may be out of our house but they can still pose serious bad effects to our health. The garbage in the landfills increases the release of toxic gases into the air that we breathe. If we recycle and reduce our waste, we will have less harmful chemicals in our air.
    One of the simples and most important in our effort to go green is recycling. Recycling is important because it reduce the wastes that go to our landfills. Reduced waste means less floods and less pollution. If we recycle stuff, we conserve energy by not having to manufacture new stuff and we help reduce the cost of our fuels. Why is recycling important? Recycling is important because it can help ensure our survival in this planet.
Filed Under: Recycling Tagged With:

Ingredients of Compost

January 23, 2009 By Leave a Comment

ingredients of compost

    In my previous posts, I have been discussing about compost—its importance and how it is made. There are actually 2 kinds of materials or ingredients that we can make as compost. Generally, they are grouped as browns and greens:
    Browns
    Browns are eaten by the microbes and they give them energy. They are dry and mostly from dead parts of plants. They need to be moistened first or mixed with moist ingredients.
    1. Autumn leaves
    2. Hay straw
    3. Dry leaves
    4. Dead plants
    5. Saw dust
    6. Wood chips
    7. Brown weeds
    Greens
    Greens are moist ingredients and they usually come in the color green but not all. They are mostly from kitchen wastes. If you leave in a community, don’t use meat scraps and bones because they tend to attract pests. Alternatively, use compost pile.
    1. Green plants
    2. Green leaves
    3. Fresh leaves
    4. Vegetable peels and scraps
    5. Fruit peels and scraps
    6. Tea bags
    7. Scrap of Ground coffee
    Your compost should have a good mix of browns and greens. The mix will bring air and moisture which the microbes need in order to digest the browns and the greens.
Filed Under: Organic Gardening Tagged With: , , ,

How to Make Compost

January 21, 2009 By Leave a Comment

how to make compost

    It is very easy to make a compost pile. My nephew who is in the 5th grade learns about this in school and even has a project for one of his classes. I actually got this information directly from his notes.
    It is not actually you who will make the compost. It is the microbes—the bacteria, fungi and other living organisms that break down organic matter to compost. The only thing that you need to do is to make sure that you provide these living organisms the things that they need so that they can make the compost. Just like most living things, 3 things that microbes need are food, water and air.
    The foods that the microbes eat are the organic wastes from the kitchen or from the yard. You can put left-over food or part of meat that you didn’t eat like chicken bones. You can also put the peelings of fruits and vegetables. From your yard, you can put the trimmings from your lawn or fallen leaves.
    The microbes need moisture. Normally, the wastes from the kitchen are good sources of water for them. But if you don’t put kitchen wastes and only used dry leaves, the microbes may not be able to work and make the compost. You can water the compost pile if you don’t use wet kitchen wastes there.
    It is also very important to give enough air to the microbes. You can do this simply by thoroughly mixing all the ingredients and organic matter that you put in the pile. The microbes that make the compost are aerobic which means that they need air for them to continue with their work.
    Making compost is only a matter of taking care of the needs of the microbes that will turn the organic waste into compost. They need food, water and air. You provide them with these and they will work to give you the compost that you can use as natural fertilizer to you vegetable or fruit garden.
Filed Under: Organic Gardening Tagged With:

Composting for a Green Earth

January 19, 2009 By Leave a Comment

compost

    Compost is a natural soil fertilizer that is made from materials that were once living or parts of living things. The most common materials used for compost are the wastes from our kitchen and yard such as dead leaves. Compost used as fertilizer is not harmful to the environment and it reduces the waste that goes to our landfills. Composting is one simple way to contribute to the green revolution.
    Much of the work in composting is done by the environment. All you have to do is to separate the organic wastes and put them either in a compost bin or directly onto your garden soil. When you put the leaves and fruit peelings into the soil, the wastes will rot while the nutrients are being absorbed into the soil. This is a very basic explanation and I will elaborate on this on my next posts.
    We should encourage our communities and individuals to make compost in their homes. There are many mothers in the Philippines stay at home who can do this. It is aid that the wastes in our landfills are made up of 30% wastes from the kitchen. We can reduce our wastes by 30% and help make our country green if we make compost at home.
    If we don’t have any gardens, we can earn selling compost. Big companies who make chemical fertilizers can also gradually turn to organic fertilizers such as compost. Farmers and vegetable growers always need good soil for their produce and so there is always a demand for fertilizer. Composting is simple, green and can even be a good green business idea
      .
Filed Under: Everyday Green, Green Homes, Organic Gardening Tagged With:
« Older Posts