Garbage
8 things you can do to Green Your Garbage
Toss your trash and your waste hauler hauls it away. Out of sight, out of mind. Trouble is, all that trash piling up is increasingly, well, a pile of environmental trouble. Before you toss next time, try these strategies for reducing, reusing, and recycling first.
Reduce the amount of garbage you create
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The first rung on the "reduce, reuse, recycle" ladder is the ultimate garbage minimizer. By consuming less, you end up tossing less.
Reuse items instead of throwing them away
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Give new life to old items by giving them to someone who can use them or finding creative new uses for what could otherwise end up as landfill waste.
Recycle your garbage
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By recycling your garbage, you keep valuable material out of landfills, provide resources to the recycling industry, support local jobs, and keep toxins out of soil and water.
Compost your biodegradable and organic waste
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By cultivating a worm bin or backyard compost pile, you produce your own healthy compost for houseplants and garden plants alike, while diverting usable organic matter from landfills.
Opt for recycled-content products
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Buying products made from recycled materials keeps trash out of the landfill and reuses resources rather than requiring the eco-unfriendly procurement and processing of virgin ones.
Dispose of household hazardous waste properly
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Prevent toxic chemicals from old paint and used car oil from leaching into groundwater and soil by taking them to your local toxic roundup center.
Dispose of used appliances properly
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Many appliances, such as refrigerators, contain chemicals that can deplete the ozone layer and must be disposed of with special care.
Dispose of pharmaceuticals properly
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Old or unused medication can contaminate groundwater if flushed or poured down the drain. Find out the correct way to dispose of them.
Comments
5:48pm
A couple of more R's to expand the paradigm:
Rethink your purchasing habits
Refuse to make wasteful choices
6:03pm
Does anyone know how much land in the U.S. is dedicated to landfills?
11:08am
Great question, Tiferet. I've done a bit of digging and it would appear that there's no formal way for states to report on how much land is actually used for landfills, although there is a count of the number of active municipal sites: 3581 (in 1996)! You can get more information (including some about industrial waste sites) here: http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/nonhaz/municipal/landfill/sw_pubs.htm#reports.
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