Monday, July 7, 2008

Answers... Anyone?

By JF

1. Recycling. We are asked to recycle newspapers, papers, drink cans & plastic mineral water bottles. But what about other canned packaging or plastic packaging...?
a. E.g. a Milo tin. Can this be sent for recycling together with the drink cans...?
b. ALL other plastic packaging ? E.g.
- the plastic packs that some breakfast cereals come in (oats), or
- the plastic re-fill packs that some fabric softeners or liquid soaps come in, or
- the plastic bottles that softeners, soaps, shampoo, conditioners, etc come in, or
- the plastic packs that sweets come in,
- etc, etc, etc

2. Could we get manufacturers to be responsible for the non-degradeable packaging that they send out their products in...?
a. Everyday consumer items all come in some form of plastic packaging.
b. If we could send the packaging back to the manufacturers as their responsibility to recycle, maybe they will think up packaging options that are bio-degradeable instead

3. The same delivery system used to deliver goods to mini-markets - could they be used to take empty packaging back to the suppliers ? Consumers could be encouraged to return washed, cleaned & dry packaging back to their mini-marts.

4. All electical items; e.g. fridges, etc. What happens to them when they can no longer be used ? Do they end up in rubbish dumps & leak environmentally damaging material into the soil...? Can we get manufacturers to be more responsible & take back these items & recycle the damaging materials used to make these electrical items or dispose of them responsibly...?

Maybe the above ideas have already come up before & have already been shot down as not practical... But I believe we need to get our manufacturers to be more responsible for the volume of plastic packaging that they keep churning out.
I have a big plastic bag of plastic packaging that I have been putting aside for the past few weeks but my worry is that when I send the bag for recycling, only the mineral water plastic bottles in them will be recycled while the rest of the items will just end up in the rubbish dump.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear JF,

Thank you so much for your comments and suggestions!

You have indeed raised some interesting questions on recycling other than plastic bottles and soft drink cans, which seems to be the only focus here in Malaysia.

We recently came across a local website called "All About Recycling". See link at the right column. There, we found a good list of waste collectors and recyclers.

I wonder if anyone out there have any info in regards to what you mentioned, that manufacturers can do to help to recycle their products?

Thanks again for your contribution!!! Have a joyous day :)

Greensleeves said...

Hi JF
Indeed, you have brought up a very important factor... one that really needs to be addressed by all who are for saving the environ.

Like you, I have been hanging on to bags of plastic-wares that the recycle-man is refusing to collect because these stuff are not 'recognised' in their list of collectibles!!! Huh.... so what do we do with them?

I believe if we can add more voices to this problem... and bring it up to those concerned e.g manufacturers /authorities... maybe we can then get them to work out a solution....as suggested by you.

Let's see if we can work something out...we'd like for you to share more ideas meantime .... tks for our concern for Mother Earth...

See ya!!