Junk Mail Facts and Statistics

Anyone who has a mailbox knows that junk mail has all but become an epidemic, especially in the past few decades.

Direct Mail Advertising (DMA) from places like restaurants, car dealerships, political parties and credit card companies account for the vast majority of the junk mail delivered in the United States. Regardless of the source, DMA, commonly referred to as “junk mail”, poses serious environmental hazards.

How Do I Dispose of Medical Waste?

Medical waste comes in many forms and from many sources. Doctors offices and hospitals are only the beginning. Dental offices, blood banks, and vet clinics also produce medical waste. 

Medical waste can be liquids, solids, semi-solids, or contained gases. They can be manufacturing process byproducts, sludges or spent materials, or simply discarded products. 

Whatever their form, proper management and disposal is essential to protect human health and the environment.

What is Green Power?

Much of the modern world relies on some kind of power source for a multitude of things such as lights, heat, and entertainment sources like televisions and computers. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), “The U.S. energy supply is composed of a wide variety of energy resources; however, not all energy resources have the same environmental benefits and costs.”

Conventional power is achieved by the combustion, or burning, of fossil fuels such as natural gas, coal, and oil. “Fossil fuels have environmental costs from mining, drilling, or extraction, and emit greenhouse gases and air pollution during combustion.” (EPA)

What is a Fuel/Compliance Surcharge?

As our website assures, Waste-Away Group is committed to providing quality service at the best possible value. Since trucking and hauling is the main focus of our business, fuel charges and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) compliance are large components of our cost of doing business.

Waste-Away Group’s Fuel/Compliance Surcharge covers more than just the cost of fuel. The cost to maintain fuel systems in our trucks in accordance with state and federal guidelines is also a substantial part of our company’s costs.

Tired of Tiresome Tires?....Say That 3 Times Fast!

“What do I do with these old tires?” One of the most popular recycling questions ever asked. Our best advice to you is to go to your local tire dealer to dispose of them properly. Tire dealers usually take unwanted tires for around $1.50 - $2.00 per tire, then turn them over to authorized recyclers.  

“Rubber is difficult to recycle due to the procedure known as “vulcanization,” which it undergoes to attain its springy, flexible nature. Vulcanization is a curing process that involves adding sulfur to rubber, which creates stronger bonds between the rubber polymers. Due to the vulcanization method, tires are difficult to melt for reuse and are therefore typically broken down by a mechanical process.

What Does Convenience Cost?

Disposable dishes have been around since the introduction of the Dixie cup in 1907. Dixie Cup is
more of a genericized trademark now and used as a description of any small paper cup. It was first called "Health Kup", until 1919 when it was named after a line of dolls made by Alfred Schindler's Dixie Doll Company in New York.

This new fad of disposable cups and dishes instead of a washable, reusable type spurred on a whole line of products targeted at convenience.

Industrial Waste and Pollution

Industrial waste is the waste produced by industrial activity and includes any material that is rendered
useless during any manufacturing process. Factories, mills, and mining operations contribute to industrial waste.

The world was introduced to industrial waste during the Industrial Revolution which happened between about 1760 and 1830. Some examples of industrial waste are chemical solvents, paints, sandpaper, paper products, industrial by-products, metals, and other general wastes.

What's Your Carbon Footprint?

The amount of carbon dioxide or other carbon compounds released into the atmosphere by the activities of an individual, company, country, etc. refers to its “Carbon Footprint.”
 
The carbon footprint is 54 percent of humanity's overall Ecological Footprint and its most rapidly growing component.

The ecological footprint is a measure of human demand on the Earth's ecosystems. It is a standardized measure of demand for natural capital that may be contrasted with the planet's ecological capacity to regenerate.

Natural Resource Conservation

The conservation of natural resources encourages the wise use of the Earth's resources. The term "conservation" came into use in the late 19th century and referred to the management of such valuable natural resources as timber, fish, game, topsoil, pastureland, and minerals. It also speaks to the preservation of forests, wildlife, parkland, wilderness, and watershed areas.

Local government agencies and municipalities have conservation committees, conservation commissions, and other councils in place to help with these efforts.

Recycling Food? It’s Not as Unusual as You Think

As stated in previous articles, when we discuss recycling we often think of plastics, aluminum, glass, paper, cardboard, and similar commodities. What about another item commonly thrown away? Food. 

“Recycling” food seems a little unsettling, but composting is a recycling of sorts. Composting is mixing various organic substances, such as dead leaves, food scraps, grass clippings, allowing them to decay, and using the new material for fertilizing soil. 

The Garbage Disposal Controversy

While remodeling your kitchen, you install a $200 under-the-sink garbage disposal. Finally, the last twist of the wrench. A big job but well worth it….it’s done. You turn it on to make sure it works and doesn’t leak. Perfect. Now you’re ready…..to not use it. Not use it? What? 

The controversy spiraling around the use of garbage disposals for food scraps vs throwing it in the trash to be buried in the landfill has many facets and can get pretty heated.

What Does It Mean To Be Sustainable?

In a world more specifically focused on conservation, preservation, and recycling, the term "sustainability" usually comes up in conversation.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), "sustainability is based on a simple principle: Everything that we need for our survival and well-being depends, either directly or indirectly, on our natural environment.

Sustainability creates and maintains the conditions under which humans and nature can exist in productive harmony, that permit fulfilling the social, economic and other requirements of present and future generations.

WasteNot....The Most Basic Concept for One of the Most Troublesome Concerns

Historically, the phrase “The 3 Rs” meant Reading, wRiting, and aRithmetic. The basis on which all other schoolwork, and life for that matter, was going to be based.

In more recent years the 3 Rs became the 4 Rs as awareness and emphasis on recycling, preservation, and conservation grew. Not to say, however that the original basis doesn’t still hold some validity. Reading, writing, and math are still stressed in school systems, as well they should be.

As the 4Rs make their debut in the everyday language of Americans, “they are commonly summarized as... reduction, reuse, recycling and recovery."

Water As A Renewable Energy Source

Water as a source of power and energy it not a new concept. The use of water current to accomplish such tasks as grinding grain at a mill dates back hundreds of years.

Power from water, called hydro power or hydroelectric power, is yet another renewable source of energy. Since water is about 800 times denser than air, even a slow flowing stream of water can yield considerable amounts of energy. 

Container Deposit Laws

Container deposit laws, also popularly termed "Bottle Bills", were created by the beverage industry as a means of guaranteeing the return of their containers to be processed, refilled and resold. The deposit-refund system is a proven, sustainable method of capturing beverage bottles and cans for recycling and is a very simple process.

When a retailer buys beverages from a distributor, a deposit is paid for each can or bottle purchased. The consumer then pays the deposit to the retailer when they buy the beverage. When the consumer returns the empty beverage container to the retail store, a redemption center, or to a reverse vending machine, the deposit is refunded. The retailer recoups the deposit from the distributor, plus an additional handling fee generally ranging from $0.01 to $0.03 to cover costs incurred by the retailer.

Running Out Of Space For Landfills?

Americans' use of landfills peaked in the 1980s when we threw nearly 150 million tons of trash each year into landfills. Even today, we throw away more than 100 million tons of garbage yearly. That translates into landfill space possibly being scarce.

In the United States recycling efforts have the ability to divert more than 60 million tons of waste away from landfills yearly, according to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). That amounts to about 32 percent of all of our garbage. As for the remaining trash, where will we continue to put it?

There is a debate between experts as to whether or not we are running out of usable landfill space. Some pay that with the increased number of closed landfills and the increased recycling efforts, we will continue to have ample space for new landfills. Others claim that with the increased population and commercial and residential growth, that we will end up in a space crunch before long.

Waste To Energy...Turning Landfills To Goldmines

With the habits of modern lifestyles causing an increased worldwide waste problem, finding innovative ways to deal with the excessive waste can be a challenge.

Local landfill capacities are being met or exceeded and many first world nations are beginning to export their refuse to third world countries. This practice is having a devastating impact on ecosystems and cultures throughout the world.

Wind as a Renewable Energy Source

Renewable energy resources are generally defined as energy that comes from resources which are naturally replenished on a human timescale such as wind, sunlight, geothermal heat, and water in the form of rain, and tides, waves.
 
Wind power is the conversion of wind energy into a useful form of energy, such as using wind turbines to produce electrical power, windmills for mechanical power. Wind has been recognized as a source of energy, in some capacity, for several hundred years. People used wind as the sole power source for boats, to pump water, or grind grain.

Glass Recycling Made Clear

Glass waste is recycled into new products every day. Such products as kitchen and bathroom countertops are made from used glass that has been put through a specific recycling process. 

Color and chemical composition are some ways different glass jars and bottles must be sorted before the recycling process can begin. Since glass retains its color after recycling, many recycling centers insist that different colors of glass be separated before the recycling process; the most common colors being clear, green, and brown (amber).

Electronics and E-Waste Recycling

Electronic waste, or more well-known as e-waste, is a popular and fairly informal name for electronic
products that are near the end of their useful life. Every day non-working or unwanted electronics end up in the landfill. The detriment to our environment with respect to the air, soil, and drinking water was not known or understood until more recently.  The definition of Electronic Waste was not specifically understood either.

Generally, the agreed-upon definition of e-waste is usually more of a theory and a list of examples rather than a hard and fast specific definition.