You know the 3Rs: reduce, reuse, and recycle. But what does it really mean and why is it important to cut back on waste? Each year, businesses and homes in the United States throw away enough garbage to equal 251 million elephants. Where would we keep that many elephants? More to the point, where does all that garbage go? Discover why waste is creating problems for Earth and how you can reduce, reuse, and recycle now. Book features: Table of Contents; Glossary; For More Information including books and web sites; Index; photos and captions; charts and graphs; source notes.
Describes how people can help solve a growing problem -- garbage. Outlines many practical steps to reduce the amount & toxicity of garbage. Includes success stories, reusable vocabularyÓ, & other resources. Illustrated.
What do you do with your old mobile phone? Where can you take your old medicines? Which plastic is recyclable? What happens to the stuff you recycle? This easy-to-use guide has the answers to all your recycling questions. Use its A-Z listing of everyday household items to see how you can recycle most of your unwanted things, do your bit for the planet, and maybe make a bit of money while you're at it. Did you know that: Around 60% of your rubbish can be recycled, but only 11% is recycled (half is sent to landfill); Landfill sites are running out; Recycling a one-metre stack of newspaper saves one tree; It costs million a year to clean up the litter on Britain's streets; A plastic vending cup can be made into a pencil or a pen; You can make money recycling your aluminium cans; 150 million plastic carrier bags are used in the UK each week - they last up to 500 years in landfill. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle is packed with ideas for cutting your consumption, reducing your rubbish, reusing, and recycling. It will also tell you where your old plastic goes to, what happens to your old glass jars, how they handle waste in other countries. With a comprehensive resources section and information on getting more involved, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle is an invaluable guide for anyone who wants to slim their bin and help stop the earth going to waste.
Plastic Waste and Recycling: Environmental Impact, Societal Issues, Prevention, and Solutions begins with an introduction to the different types of plastic materials, their uses, and the concepts of reduce, reuse and recycle before examining plastic types, chemistry and degradation patterns that are organized by non-degradable plastic, degradable and biodegradable plastics, biopolymers and bioplastics. Other sections cover current challenges relating to plastic waste, explain the sources of waste and their routes into the environment, and provide systematic coverage of plastic waste treatment methods, including mechanical processing, monomerization, blast furnace feedstocks, gasification, thermal recycling, and conversion to fuel. This is an essential guide for anyone involved in plastic waste or recycling, including researchers and advanced students across plastics engineering, polymer science, polymer chemistry, environmental science, and sustainable materials. - Presents actionable solutions for reducing plastic waste, with a focus on the concepts of collection, re-use, recycling and replacement - Considers major societal and environmental issues, providing the reader with a broader understanding and supporting effective implementation - Includes detailed case studies from across the globe, offering unique insights into different solutions and approaches
Zero Waste Kids features fun and practical projects designed to get kids reducing waste, reusing materials, and recycling to benefit the environment and lead more sustainable lives.
A manifesto for a radically different philosophy and practice of manufacture and environmentalism "Reduce, reuse, recycle" urge environmentalists; in other words, do more with less in order to minimize damage. But as this provocative, visionary book argues, this approach perpetuates a one-way, "cradle to grave" manufacturing model that dates to the Industrial Revolution and casts off as much as 90 percent of the materials it uses as waste, much of it toxic. Why not challenge the notion that human industry must inevitably damage the natural world? In fact, why not take nature itself as our model? A tree produces thousands of blossoms in order to create another tree, yet we do not consider its abundance wasteful but safe, beautiful, and highly effective; hence, "waste equals food" is the first principle the book sets forth. Products might be designed so that, after their useful life, they provide nourishment for something new-either as "biological nutrients" that safely re-enter the environment or as "technical nutrients" that circulate within closed-loop industrial cycles, without being "downcycled" into low-grade uses (as most "recyclables" now are). Elaborating their principles from experience (re)designing everything from carpeting to corporate campuses, William McDonough and Michael Braungart make an exciting and viable case for change.
Think you know all about how your stuff impacts the environment? Think again! Where did all our “stuff” come from? And where does it go when we’re done with it? Kids find out by tracking the life cycles of typical items in a school backpack — water, food, clothing, paper, plastic, metals and electronics. Though they all end as waste, there are lots of decisions to be made along the way. And kids will see that there’s an important, constructive role they can play by making choices that are good for them — and for the planet! A cotton T-shirt. A plastic water bottle. A cell phone. Kids will never look at their stuff the same way again!
Public concern for the conservation of natural resources and a general awareness of the environmental consequences of waste disposal is reflected in current legislation aimed at reducing waste. Recycling is commonly cited as one of the preferred methods of waste reduction and this book summarizes a recent study of paper recycling in Europe, which investigated the entire production and disposal process using a life-cycle methodology. The results of the study underline the economic and environmental advantages of paper recycling, but more controversially, they also show how, under certain conditions, the renewable character and the high energy content of paper seem to make energy recovery more attractive than recycling.
#1 Bestseller in waste management Stop Garbage sheds some light on the world of waste and recycling, topics often filled with questions for most readers. Do we really know why it's important to recycle and the consequences of not doing it? What environmental impact does our behavior have? What trends will prevail in waste management during the next decade? Far from being a technical book, Stop Garbage introduces us to the field of waste and recycling in a clear and enjoyable way. It deals with garbage or waste, whatever you want to call it, but in it you will also find a kidnapping, a destroyer, successes, food waste, the biggest dump in the world, the first incinerator, questions about money and employment or riddles: how many times can you fill the Camp Nou Stadium with one year's waste? How many trees do we save from felling if we recycle paper? What's the best waste in the world? Added to this, multimedia content, articles and videos make up a didactic book of reading which is, without a shadow of a doubt, entertaining. After years of experience in the sector, Alex Pascual (Barcelona, 1976) brings us closer to the key concepts that can help us to formulate our own opinion on the subject. A book full of vital data as well as funny anecdotes that will trigger successive reflections on waste management, undoubtedly one of the pillars of the contemporary and future commitment to the environment. About the author Industrial Engineer specialist in waste management, street cleaning and public services. He has been working in the private sector for many years and now, after more than nine years works as a public services chief for a city council. He also writes on a blog about the same subject www.stopgarbage.com, Twitter profile @stopbasura1 and on Instagram as @stopbasura. Readers reviews " It is a very affordable book for anyone who wants to know how the recycling system works in Spain. With a simple language and away from the technicalities, step by step the writer introduces you to why it is important to recycle, the main magnitudes in our country and the recycling process of each container ." Nicolás "This is a good book to understand the garbage and what represents in our society. It is impressive to read the data and interpretation that the author gives us ..."Luis "Very good book, practical, with a surprising data that reveals and the clarity of the explanation. Despite containing a large amount of information, its reading is enjoyable and facilitated by numerous graphics, links to websites, etc. The book really opens your eyes to the world of recycling! Highly recommended. "Dani
