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: , , , ,

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:

Going Green with Organic Vegetable Gardening

January 14, 2009 By Leave a Comment

organic vegetables makati

    I have just found out that organic vegetables are sold in a bazaar near our office in Makati. The bazaar in Salcedo village is organized by residents of the subdivision. I’ll try and see what kinds of organic vegetables are sold there and if there’s a difference between organic vegetables and the mass produced vegetables I usually buy in supermarkets.
    Even here in the metro, I hear a lot of mothers who turn their backyards into a vegetable garden. There are even some exclusive subdivisions that offer large tracts of land. The idea is to provide a farm for the homeowners without leaving the city.
    Organic vegetable gardening is one good way of going green. If you have a backyard that is lying there, why not turn it into a garden? It is a lot of work but many people say that it is very rewarding to take care of a garden.
    My grandmother used to have a vegetable garden in her backyard. It has tomatoes, squash, eggplants, cucumber, calamansi, pechay, and many other vegetables. She didn’t have to go to the market for her vegetables. She saves a lot and she also receives extra income because her neighbors buy vegetables from her.
    When I grow old, I want to go into organic vegetable gardening too like my grandmother. I like to grow my own vegetables. I can be sure that there are no pesticides and not synthetic pest controls in my garden. I will be 100% sure that the vegetables that my family is eating are safe.
    Right now, the only thing that I can handle is few pots of herbs in my apartment: basil, rosemary and I always have a pot of aloe vera. I think it’s a good start.
Filed Under: Everyday Green, Organic Gardening Tagged With:

More Tips for Green Kitchens

January 12, 2009 By Leave a Comment

biodegradable waste

    There are a lot of little things that we can do to make our kitchens green. Almost everything that we do in the kitchen can be more eco-friendly not to mention budget-friendly and safer for our health.
    First, take a look at your cleansers—your soap dish and the liquid that you use for cleaning your sink. You can use natural cleansers such as baking soda or you can choose cleansers that do not have harmful chemicals such as lye and phosphates. Lye was studied to be carcinogenic while phosphates (the chemical that makes our dish soap sudsy kills water and all water living organisms including fish).
    How about our table napkins and paper towels in the kitchen? We can buy recycled ones. Every time we buy napkins and paper towels that are not recycled, we are contributing to the denudation of our forests. Large logging companies supply a bulk of their logs to the makers of table napkins.
    If all of us will do this, imagine how many trees we will save. If there are 1 million households who stop using new table napkins that are from trees and not from recycled papers, there will be millions more trees in our forests.
    The non-stick pan use chemicals to coat our pan. When we scrub them, the chemicals get washed off and they go to our water bodies. We can use stainless pots instead. They are healthier (no chemicals leach while we’re cooking) and they are easier to clean than non-stick pans.
    How much trash do we make in our kitchen? Probably a lot everyday. We can reduce our trash by segregating the biodegradable wastes like the pared vegetable skins or excess food and make a compost pit in your backyards. There are some villages and residential communities who organize environmental drive that turn biodegradable wastes to natural fertilizers.
    Turning our kitchens from ordinary to green kitchens doesn’t necessarily need to be expensive. Little changes in the things that we are using can mean a lot of difference. If each one of us will reduce our kitchen wastes by 1 kilo every day, we will have at most 60 million kilos of reduced wastes when we add them all together. Now, I don’t know how many tons are those but I’m pretty sure it’s a LOT!
Filed Under: Everyday Green Tagged With:

Greening Your Bath with Natural Bath Sponge

January 7, 2009 By Leave a Comment

loofah bath sponge

    Aside from using natural bath soaps and bath wash that don’t use a lot of chemicals, another way to green your bath is to use natural bath sponge. If you are still using a sponge that is made from net (polyurethane) or cellulose, throw them in the trash can and replace them with loofah.
    Unlike the bath sponge that is made from polyurethane and cellulose, loofah is 100% natural and is made from a vegetable. The vegetable is called Chinese okra which looks like a cucumber. When this vegetable is dried, it becomes loofah.
    When you are in the store, make sure that what you are buying is 100% loofah which is made from this vegetable gourd. There are many synthetic bath sponges that are labeled as loofah in the market so beware.
    Aside from being a good bath sponge to working up a lather and exfoliating, loofah also helps in the proper circulation of our body.
    There is another natural bath sponge that can be used which is the sea sponge. Environmentalists do not recommend people to use this. Sea sponges are getting extinct. We have never seen many sea sponges in their habitat. Except maybe for Sponge Bob but that’s another matter.
    Sea sponges are actually animals so it takes a while for them to breed. On the other hand, loofah is vegetable so we can plant as many as we want. We can even grow them in our own backyard so we can have a ready supply for natural bath sponge.
Filed Under: Everyday Green Tagged With: , ,
« Older Posts
Newer Posts »