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September 2007 - Posts
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How to recycle paper
There are several differences depending on the certain classification of paper that is being recycled (newspaper, magazines, fiberboard). Recycling these products involves many processes as listed below.
Pulping: Adding water then engaging mechanical action to divide fibers from each other.
Screening: Using a screen-like material, with small holes so that the larger contaminants may be removed.
Centrifugal cleaning: Removing the more dense materials by spinning the pulp slurry with a cleaner.
Flotation: Letting air bubbles that are passing by to enter the pulp slurry causes the ink particles to cluster with the surface foam. With the contaminated foam removed, the pulp is adapted into a brighter material. Sometimes deinking is the term used for this process.
Dispersion or Kneading: A mechanical action is enforced to breakdown the particles that may be contaminant.
Washing: The water is ran through the pulp to removed the smaller particles still within the water.
Bleaching: This is dependent upon the color of paper needed. For the most common (white), hydrosulfites or peroxides are used to removed the color.
Papermaking: The newly bleached fibers are made into the new paper product using the same concept as the virgin paper was made.
Dissolved air flotation: To reuse the processed water is cleaned once more.
Waste disposal: The left over pupls and material that are no longer needed (sludge), is usally placed inside a landfill. Then to create energy, the materials are then burned to use at the mill or local farmers often use the materials as fertilizer for crops.
Standards
Paper is one of the most common recycling materials on earth. The average amount of recycling for each paper is 4-6 times due to the weakening of the fibers. To provide more strength the virgin pulp is mixed together with the paper being recycled.
There is not a standard of the maximum percentage that a virgin pulp can be in recycled paper. Most recycled paper has anywhere from 10%-100% used paper in it. Many companies that receive government money, state governments that collect funding; therefore, a 50% post-consumer recycled paper is the standard for use. The EPA doesn't control recycled paper being used outside of our government. The only duty they have it setting a minimum guideline to go by. There are three divions of paper the may be purchased for feedstocks, including: pre/post-consumer waste. The trimmings left over at a virgin paper mill are described as the mill broke. The material that was sent for customers to purchase but was not ready are pre-consumer waste, and the material thrown away after being used is defined as post-consumer waste.
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Knowledge about the positive effects of recycling certain consumer products is spreading at a fast pace. Each day more and more products such as televisions, DVD players, computers, video cassette tapes, and cell phones are being produced. Disposing them in the wrong way can cause many dangers to our environment which is where recycling comes in place. Many companies are available to the public that have started using these unneeded and useless products to produce a new product through recycling.
There are individual companies that focus solely on the recycling of printer cartridges after they have been thrown away. These companies provide an incentive for cartridges by recycling them. By disposing unneeded goods and helping to reduce the demand for the earth’s resources. The amount of garbage in each landfill can be lessened by laster and inkjet cartridges being recycled. Some of the parts inside certain cartridges are non-degradable so recycling them is a great choice. A large amount of charities receive donations with the proceeds received from obtaining unneeded printer cartridges.
Printer cartridges are disposed of on a daily basis by thousands of business around the world. They are a necessity in the business world for certain. The majority of businesses dispose of their used cartridges that contribute to the build up in their garbage. The easiest and smartest solution to go about this problem is to properly recycle these cartridges by taking them to specific companies that can recycle them the right way. However, finding companies that can do this for you can be tough, the internet usually has information on a nearby place that can suit your needs. If the business is large enough, high-quality products can be made from their mass amount of cartridges they have donated.
To suit the needs of average person, recycled printer cartridges are available at a discounted price. These recycled cartridges usually work the same as new ones but I would check to make sure before purchasing everything is working correctly. Some of the most common consumer complains is that the ink may leak or a certain color for example, blue may run dry before the other colors. I highly recommend if you buy recycled cartridges from a known company so you can almost be assured of the quality you will be receiving. Overall, purchasing recycled cartridges and recycling them helps our economy out tremendously while keeping our environment clean at the same time.
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In North America, the most common material recycled is Steel. Counting back to more than 150 years ago the steel industry has recycled such materials on a daily basis in mass quantities due to the economical advantages. Since recycling is far more economically smart than paying workers to mine the iron ore and go through the procedures of production to form new steel which is no better than recycled. This is because while recycling no physical properties are lost during the process and requires far less energy and materials than if we were to refine from iron ore into new steel. The annual consumption of energy has been reduced by more around 75% each year due to the recycling of steel. To understand how much energy this is, nearly eighteen million homes could be powered for one whole year. In 2005 alone over 76 million tons of steel was recycled. For each ton of recycled steel, 630k kilograms of coal, 55kg of limestone, and 1,100kg of iron ore is saved.
In the past years, about 75% of all produced steel has been recycled. Most industrial steel such as structural plates and beams are recycled 97.5% of the time in 2004 and 2005. For other varieties of steel elements like reinforcement bars the recycling rate is a bit lower at 65%. Due to this high recycle rate most structured steel usually contains about 95% recycled content. Lighter, flat rolled steel only contains roughly 30% recycled materials. Since steel beams are made to be a standard dimension, a small amount of waste is produced while in construction. The little amount that is produced during construction can be recycled. Steel has advantages over wood in many ways. A few are stability, quality, and for economic reasons. A normal 2000 square-foot two-level house would use about five to six recycled cars for its steel frame. On the other hand using wood can require up to if not more than 40-50 trees.
Each year the demand for steel strengthens. There is a fair amount of steel that exists today and most is actively used daily. However, recycled steel has to be augmented by a "first-use" metal, extracted from raw materials. Automobiles, cans, appliances are a few of the more common steels recycled daily. Typical automobiles are roughly 66% iron and steel and appliances are a smaller amount lower at 65% steel by weight. Recycling the steel usually happens through the interlaced steel mills and the standard oxygen routine. Most steel is normally electrically melted by a furnace or for high alloyed products a furnace for induction is used.
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Due to the growing need for plastic bags and containers in places such as grocery stores and retail stores, plastic is now one of the most used materials in today’s society. When it comes to an increase in soil and water pollution, plastic waste is the largest contributor. While recycling may seem like an easy task to most it is not recycled nearly as much as it should. Plastic recycling is the act of parting waste plastics and used scrap to recover materials that are usable for the manufacturing industry. Plastic contains many fibers due to its large amount of layered chemical structures and resins that have been melted down to get the smooth surface as you can see on grocery bags.
Recycling plastic is far more difficult than steel or paper. Many challenges await the plastic recycling industry when doing these procedures. The main principle that should be followed before is that there are a variety of plastics which cannot be interbred before recycling. To identify plastics of different resin composition and polymer structures they use standard codes which contain several dyes, additives, and fillers. This is what makes the recycling of plastic not so easy.
By using an elaborate monomer process where the polymer undergoes an inverted polymer regression of what was used to produce it, the obstacles of recycling can be achieved. At the end of the procedure you get a chemical makeup that forms the initial polymer, then is further synthesized and purified to create a renewed polymer of the same type. An additional resolution to this problem is that the use of thermal de-polymerization process, which basically converts diverse polymers into petroleum. Any kind of polymer may be mixed during this procedure.
Plastic recycling is useful for recycling many types of plastic containers, grocery bags, sacks, and even toys that contain certain plastics. Some of the more common recycled plastics are juice, milk, and water bottles.
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Virtually every family has at least one appliance that requires some sort of battery to be used. Some appliances solely depend on batteries while others may use electrical energy as well. Incase of emergencies such as power outages, portable appliances that require batteries such as flashlights are extremely helpful. Each and everyday more products are being produced that need batteries to be useful. While becoming more popular in our daily life, the problems of pollution and many other hazards come into effect.
Have you ever wondered what was inside a battery? Each battery contains a certain metals such as lead and zinc. When not recycled correctly our environment can suffer greatly. If one leaves a battery on the ground, it may leak into the ground causing corrosion of the soil and put nearby wildlife in danger. If recycled correctly these environmental problems won't be encountered.
There are basically two classifications of batteries. Non-chargeable which cannot be recycled and chargeable which can be reused again and recycled. A vast amount of materials such as lead, nickel-cadmium, nickel hydride, and mercury are contained in chargeable batteries. All of these are recyclable so that they may form raw materials for manufacturing industries. To get a final product, the batteries must first be separated from their plastics and insulation material using gas-fired thermal oxidizers. Then each battery is processed by using heat treatment furnaces using a great amount of energy to end up with the final product.
Certain rules and standard procedures have been made by the American government which is to be followed for recycling battery purposes. Nearly all recycling locations in America contain a section for battery recycling. Each location must follow the government’s standards and principles correctly. Millions of batteries are recycled at these locations per year and recharged batteries are often offered at a minimal cost. Each rechargeable battery eventually can't "recharge" any longer so there is a service provided for those batteries as well.
By recycling batteries the environment is not being polluted nearly as much, many natural resources are saved due to the rechargeable batteries also. There is a large variety of websites on the Internet with more quality information on recycling batteries.
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