“Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”

This maxim has been pounded into the minds of our collective youth for the past few decades. Recycling is the “R” that has definitely caught on the best, it being government-mandated since some time in the 1970s. Today, there are many curbside recycling programs (8,660 as of 2007, according to the EPA*), which makes recycling today seem ridiculously easy. Unfortunately, for many people recycling isn’t so straightforward because every municipality has its own set of specific rules to follow. Towns, specifically, are very particular about the plastics they accept for recycling. Most only take packaging made from #1 (PET or PETE) and #2 (HDPE) resins. To check that the number is right you need to look at the bottom of the package for the chasing arrow symbol. New York City is even more restrictive, accepting #2 containers with necks, but not wide mouths because the two are formed differently and thus have different melting points. The reason for such restrictive measures is that the wrong kind of plastic can “contaminate” an entire batch, rendering it garbage to the company with the recycling contract.

iRecycle by the popular and reputed Earth911.com site brings all this recycling information upfront in an easily navigable iPhone app, helping you finally figure out where to dump that old computer, that leftover paint, other hazardous recyclables, and things that are otherwise too big for curbside pick up. To use iRecycle, tap the top bar to search for a recyclable material; as soon as you begin typing, iRecycle will formulate results for you. As soon as you type “O” the search tab gives you a list containing used motor oil, used oil filters, other plastics, tin or steel cans, organic waste, other batteries, cooking oil, white office paper, unwanted or expired medications, agricultural used motor oil, office machines, office supplies, and way more. As you can see, iRecycle covers a lot of ground. Once you make your selection, iRecycle will use either your current location or a set location to give you a list of all the nearby places that will recycle the material at hand. According to iRecycle, Office Depot and Computer and You are two of the closest places that will recycle office machines for me (based on an address in SOMA, SF). Clicking on Office Depot, I am shown a page giving me the business number, the website, the address and map, and a list of the materials they accept. All the tabs are interactive, allowing me to call them or view the directions directly from the app.

Without iRecycle, I know I personally have a hard time figuring out what to do with old computers and paint, and often just leave them lingering, collecting dust and taking up space in my garage. Computer technology has such a high turnover rate that computers and their accompanying parts become obsolete at increasingly faster rates, making e-waste quite the debacle to be contended with. According to the Earth911 site, in 2007 500 million computer needed to be disposed after people no longer had use for them. Obviously, old computers may be refurbished and donated to schools in need, or recycled and broken down into elements like plastics, glass, steel, gold, lead, mercury, cadmium, and more. Latex paint, when recycled, can be processed into concrete and oil paint can be burned as fuel to produce energy. Having a convenient source of recycling information at one’s fingertips with iRecycle may help prevent people from throwing these in the trash and causing these elements to leak into groundwater and create pollution.

Consumer product companies are always selling us a new bill of goods. The latest is that we can shop our way to a healthier planet. But there are some things money -and advertising – can’t buy, and a clean environment is one of them. The cold, hard truth is that global warming, deforestation and other earthly ills cannot be solved by something as simple as switching brands. It takes resources to manufacture and transport all products, even those made from recycled content. At the very least, energy is spent. And spending resources leaves the world poorer, not better off. So don’t kid yourself. Buying nothing is better for the earth than buying green.

*figures taken from the Environmental Protection Agency Annual Study, Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling, and Disposal in the United States: Facts and Figures for 2007