{"id":7220,"date":"2020-10-30T19:21:30","date_gmt":"2020-10-30T23:21:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/?p=7220"},"modified":"2020-12-02T21:28:07","modified_gmt":"2020-12-03T02:28:07","slug":"365222-plastics-is-it-worth-it-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/365222-plastics-is-it-worth-it-2\/","title":{"rendered":"365+#222: Plastics-Is it worth it? #2"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Days-365195-Reduce-Reuse-Recycle-logo.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-6327\" src=\"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Days-365195-Reduce-Reuse-Recycle-logo-150x150.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"124\" height=\"124\" \/><\/a>Recycling plastic is good. It&#8217;s better than letting it pollute our air, water, land, wildlife, and scenery. But, is it worth it? I\u2019ll have a lot more to say on this in upcoming blogs (Reducing Plastics #3 and Preventing Plastics #4). But for now, I\u2019m wrestling with the question of how <em>much<\/em> recycling is worth my time? The question popped up as I wondered what to do with empty printer cartridges that had accumulated in our basement,<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Days-365222-plastic-toner-cartridges-stacked.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-7233\" src=\"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Days-365222-plastic-toner-cartridges-stacked-150x150.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>With Covid-19 prompting more people to work at home many of us need supplies for a home office. Jim and I have had home offices for at least a decade. Each of us has a printer. Thus, we\u2019ve accumulated quite a few empty plastic cartridges \u2013 70 to be exact. They were taking up storage space, but more importantly we wanted to be good environmental stewards. I did some research (so you won\u2019t have to) and this is what I found.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Are printer cartridges refillable?<\/strong> Yes, sort of &#8211; for a limited number of times. You have to buy some equipment, ink, and be very careful.\u00a0 <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.inkjetwholesale.com.au\/printer-education\/is-refilling-ink-cartridges-worth-it\/\">Click here<\/a><\/span> for a mixed review.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Are printer cartridges recyclable?<\/strong> Yes. <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.officedepot.com\/cm\/services\/ink-and-toner-cartridge-recycling\">Office Depot<\/a><\/span> takes cartridges as long as they are one of the brands they sell. 23 of mine qualified. <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.staples.com\/sbd\/cre\/products\/131110\/31729\/\">Staples<\/a><\/span> accepts all brands. I took the remaining 47 to Staples. Each store has a small rewards program which gives you a $2 credit for each cartridge (up to 10 cartridges a month).<\/li>\n<li><strong>Are they really recycled<\/strong> or are they just sent to a landfill or overseas? After many phone calls and emails I was not able to get a definitive answer from Office Depot. Staples sends their cartridges to <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.corerecycling.com\/index.aspx\">Clover Environmental Solutions<\/a><\/span> which reuses or remanufactures them. I\u2019d go with Staples.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Days-365222-plastic-toner-cartridges-in-boxes.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-7236\" src=\"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Days-365222-plastic-toner-cartridges-in-boxes-150x150.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<li><strong>Is it worth the trouble?<\/strong> Yes, it was easy to drop the cartridges off at a local store. Although I would save more money by taking in a batch of 10 for the next 7 months and buying something with my $20 reward, I decided it wasn\u2019t worth the hassle of planning my shopping around this limit. I gave them all I had at once.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Another solution:<\/strong> Copy less. Paper copies used to be the standard way of communicating information. Since much more can be stored digitally now, we don\u2019t need paper copies as much. There\u2019s something satisfying about having a piece of paper to highlight, make notes on, and crumble up and throw if you\u2019re upset. Besides, paper is recyclable. BUT, think of all the information that can fit in even a tiny mobile phone. There\u2019s got to be a balance.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Are other recycling tasks worth it?<br \/>\n<\/strong>Maybe you don\u2019t have a home office or a ton of printer cartridges. So what recycling items are worth the effort?<br \/>\n<strong>1. Curbside<\/strong> municipal recycling is easy and worth it. Most cities collect metal, glass, paper, and plastic bottles. Metal, glass, and paper are pretty economically recycled, Plastic is a harder sell.<br \/>\n<strong>2. Single use plastics<\/strong> (especially #5s) are becoming the albatross of our day. Very few places really recycle them. BUT, they\u2019re so convenient and it\u2019s hard to get groceries without plastic packaging. My next blog post will be about reducing single use plastics.<br \/>\n<strong>3. Furniture, tools, food, toys, etc<\/strong>. Sure, share them with friends or give them away. Stay tuned for Beyond Plastic Recycling #5.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Plastic Challenge #2:<\/strong> Your challenge for the next 2 weeks is to watch <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=-dk3NOEgX7o\">Plastic Wars<\/a><\/em><\/span>, a PBS, Frontline documentary. It\u2019s free. It&#8217;s 53 minutes. It\u2019s worth your time. It will prepare you for Plastics #3.<br \/>\n<strong>Bonus Challenge<\/strong> for those who are willing: For the next 2 weeks count and list the things you buy (especially at the grocery) that cannot be reused or easily recycled.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Recycling plastic is good. It&#8217;s better than letting it pollute our air, water, land, wildlife, and scenery. But, is it worth it? I\u2019ll have a lot more to say on this in upcoming blogs (Reducing Plastics #3 and Preventing Plastics #4). But for now, I\u2019m wrestling with the question of how much recycling is worth [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[52,6],"class_list":["post-7220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-days-365","tag-plastics","tag-recycling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7220"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7333,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7220\/revisions\/7333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}