Living Like Ed

by Ed Begley, Jr.

  But while I could put pretty much all my waste paper into the blue curb-side recycling bin in L.A., for extra credit, I save certain kinds of paper—my white office paper and my colored paper—and I shred it up and use it as packing material when I ship my cleaning products, Begley’s Best. And if I’ve shredded all I can use, I take the rest of that paper to Alpha Recycling in North Hollywood. There, I can put it in the white and colored-paper bins.

  I use shredded waste paper as packing material.

  Why go the extra step? Because the mixed paper that’s going in the blue curbside recycling bin will be used mostly for backing material for roofing tiles. It’s a very low grade. Think about it: It gets mixed in with old tuna fish cans, and most people don’t rinse things out really well. What kind of paper is it after it’s been mixed in with everything else? It’s a crappy paper, so it doesn’t get a high use.

  My good white paper and colored paper that’s clean and dry is a higher-quality recyclable. It can even, conceivably, be made into paper again, or into file folders or something like that.

  What about recycling newspapers? Newspapers are absolutely recyclable—every part of them, even the glossy inserts—and you can mix brown paper grocery bags in with newspaper, too.

  We’ve been recycling newspaper in this country for decades—for a profit. When newspaper gets recycled, it often gets made into newsprint again, or it gets made into corrugated boxes or folding boxes.

  Magazines can also be recycled in curbside bins. Of course, you can find other ways to recycle magazines, too. You can donate them to a library or a veterans hospital or a doctor’s office. You can even use the pages as gift wrap or let your kids use them for arts and crafts projects. The same goes for catalogs.

  Phone books are another easy-to-recycle item. Just put them in your curbside bin, along with most of your junk mail (you just need to pull out any stuff like magnets or product samples first).

  You can put corrugated cardboard into curbside recycling bins, too. And if you’re recycling boxes or office paper, you don’t have to worry about removing staples. They’ll get taken care of during the recycling process. But you do need to remove packing tape.

  The one exception, with regard to recycling cardboard, is dirty card-board. Things like greasy pizza boxes can’t be recycled. They’re just going to contaminate the other stuff you and your neighbors put in your recycling bins, so they have to go in the trash.

  Other paper that cannot be recycled includes wax paper, paper that’s been contaminated with food, carbon paper, thermal fax paper, paper with a sticky backing (like stickers and Post-its), and paper that’s been laminated.

  Because they have a waxy coating, milk cartons and juice boxes cannot be recycled. Well, technically, they can be recycled, but the process is so difficult and so expensive that very few companies are recycling that stuff right now. A few cities’ curbside recycling programs will take milk cartons, like the program in Boston. But this stuff mainly does not get recycled right now. So when I go to buy milk or juice at the store, I choose to buy it packaged in a glass container—or if I can’t, then I’ll buy it in a recyclable plastic container.

  Hazardous Waste

  Hazardous waste comes in so many forms. Hazardous waste is AAA batteries, 12-volt batteries, car batteries. Hazardous waste is hearing-aid batteries. Hazardous waste is old paint cans. Hazardous waste is old household cleaning products. Hazardous waste is e-waste—that is to say, electronic waste—an old computer monitor, an old printer, an old computer.

  All of this hazardous waste contains toxic elements that wind up in a land-fill and leach into the water table or otherwise enter our environment. So at the most basic level, anything toxic or corrosive is considered hazardous. That includes:

  • oven cleaners

  • drain cleaners

  • wood polish

  • metal polish

  • toilet bowl cleaners

  • tub, tile, and shower cleaners

  • bleach

  • pool chemicals

  • motor oil, transmission fluid, and brake fluid

  • carburetor and fuel injection system cleaners

  • antifreeze

  • air-conditioning refrigerant

  • rat poison

  • flea repellents

  • mothballs

  • bug sprays

  • roach traps

  • snail pellets

  • weed killers

  • adhesives and glues

  • oil- or enamel-based paint

  • wood stains

  • paint thinners and turpentine

  • paint strippers and removers

  • photographic chemicals

  • driveway sealer

  • batteries

  • mercury thermostats or thermometers

  • fluorescent lightbulbs, which contain mercury

  • incandescent lightbulbs, which contain lead

  Flammable products, anything that can be ignited, are also considered hazardous waste. Things including:

  • propane tanks and other compressed gas cylinders

  • kerosene

  • home heating oil

  • diesel fuel

  • gasoline and oil mixed together

  • lighter fluid

  • automotive starter fluid

  Sadly, most people don’t realize that a fraction of these things are hazardous waste. And they also don’t realize that disposing of such products in their trash cans will reintroduce them one day to their environment, their children’s environment.

  People usually have a lot of this stuff lying around. An average home can accumulate as much as 100 pounds of this hazardous waste—in the basement, in the garage, in sheds, and in closets.

  So how do you dispose of hazardous waste? Responsibly, I hope. Many cities have a designated hazardous waste pickup day. It’s also quite easy to find drop-off locations. People regularly write me after watching the show Living with Ed: “I heard you talk about disposing of hazardous waste. I’m in Texas and we don’t have anything like that here. Where do you dispose in a place like Texas?” And I Google “hazardous waste pickup Texas.” Turns out there’s a place in Austin. So I e-mail them back, “You said you lived near Austin. There’s one in Austin. There’s one in Houston.” All you have to do is do a Google search for “hazardous waste” and your city, and you will find one in your area. “Hazardous waste Albany.” “Hazardous waste Schenectady.” You’re going to find a hazardous waste pickup or drop-off service in your city or very near your city.

  I never throw away any of that stuff. I certainly don’t buy any non-rechargeable batteries. Occasionally we’ll get something that has them, and I use them until they run out. So I get a few without even purchasing them, and those have to be recycled maybe once a year. If one of the many compact fluorescent bulbs I have goes out, if it’s finally seen the end of its fifteen- to seventeen-year life, it has to be dealt with. I have a shoe box in the garage, and it takes me a year or so to fill it with batteries and things like that.

  There are other options for dealing with hazardous waste, too, specialty programs. Let’s say you’ve got some leftover paint. You certainly don’t want to throw partially full paint cans in the trash. Regular oil-based paint and latex paint are hazardous waste. And even if you were using nontoxic, biodegradable paint, there’re better things to do with the leftovers than to send them to a landfill. Many cities have what’s called a paint exchange. You bring in your leftover paint. It gets sorted right there on the spot. And then people who need paint can get those leftovers for free, right then and there. Some cities also collect leftover paint and use it for their beautification efforts or to paint over graffiti. So you can find environmentally sound ways to get rid of almost anything.

  COMPUTER AND ELECTRONICS RECYCLING

  Household electronics items—like televisions, printers, fax machines, computer monitors, keyboards, computer mice, VCRs, cell phones—all these thin
gs are hazardous waste. In many cases, they can contain stuff like lead, mercury, cadmium, and chromium. Stuff you definitely don’t want leaching into your groundwater.

  I know there’s a lot of pressure to upgrade this stuff. But I try to use a piece of electronic hardware as long as it’s functioning and current enough to just work. I stuck with Windows 98 for a long time—until it just didn’t work for what I needed to do. I had to upgrade to XP, and I had to get a new computer. But I try to stick with the technologies for as long as I can. And then I usually give my computer, which is still working well, since I take care of it myself, to a family member—a grown son or daughter, my young daughter—and recycle that way.

  But when something finally craps out—a cell phone, a printer, a computer that can’t be fixed—that’s considered e-waste, electronic waste. And there are places that will take it.

  There’s a very good e-waste bill that passed in California, which was the first state to adopt this sort of approach. There’s a premium, a deposit, that you pay for every monitor, every printer that you buy in California. It’s a small sum, like $5 for a monitor. And that deposit pays for the program. Basically, that stuff is taken back and the mercury is taken out, the lead is taken out, and then it’s recycled.

  These old electronics items used to be shipped over to Asia to be refurbished and resold. But now it’s more cost effective to fully recycle the e-waste here in California.

  Now I take my e-waste to SoCal Computer Recyclers in Harbor City. They have a big recycling facility, where I can drop off my e-waste. Also, they’ve got a lot of corporate accounts, so when some big company decides to replace thousands of PCs, all that e-waste can be recycled. Even companies outside California are having their e-waste shipped to this company to make sure everything gets recycled properly. SoCal also holds events at schools and parks, places throughout the community, so people can drop off e-waste close to home. And they don’t just recycle this e-waste. They also make sure to remove any proprietary data—on a computer’s hard drive or on a cell phone or on a BlackBerry or what have you. They make sure your data is safely and properly destroyed.

  So the bottom line is, if it runs on batteries or gets plugged into the wall, they can recycle it in a way that’s good for the environment and good for your privacy, good for things like preventing identity theft.

  Reusing: The Easiest Form of Recycling

  You know, recycling doesn’t always have to mean taking stuff apart and melting it down. Reusing things is the easiest form of recycling. I like to give stuff away to Goodwill, and Rachelle likes to sell stuff at a garage sale. She likes the cash.

  There’s another kind of curbside recycling that a lot of people do every day, and it’s great. They put stuff they don’t want anymore out on the curb with a sign that says FREE. It’s like Recycling 101. Let someone else, instead of a landfill, have it.

  That is what we did with Hayden’s old plastic playhouse that she had outgrown. There was no way I was going to send it to a landfill. Somebody with little kids would love to have it. Especially for free.

  Donating stuff to a charity is another great way to make sure it gets reused, and you get a tax deduction at the same time. All kinds of charities operate thrift shops—stores where they sell the stuff you donate—and then they use that money to benefit the charity’s cause. You can donate stuff to thrift shops that benefit the American Cancer Society, Habitat for Humanity, a local hospital, a homeless shelter, a church, a no-kill pet shelter. Groups like the Salvation Army and Goodwill also have thrift shops, plus they have training and rehabilitation programs, so they may take stuff like an old lamp that needs rewiring or a couch that needs reupholstering.

  There are other options, too, besides donating stuff to a charity or leaving it out on the curb or having a garage sale. Freecycle, for example, is a living like worldwide nonprofit that connects people who want to give stuff away with people who want to get stuff for free. You go on the freecycle.org website and find a group in your area. Then you just post something, and it goes out to this list. You just go, “I’ve got an old TV stand that’s gotten ratty, but it still works. It just needs a new paint job.” Someone will probably come and pick that up and be very happy to have it. They have the time to paint it or what-ever. If you’ve got an old lawn mower that’s broken or an old TV that doesn’t work anymore, you know there’s someone out there who knows how to fix it and then can use it or sell it. There’s a place for just about anything through freecycle.org.

  You can find other ways to help people with your old stuff, too, like prescription glasses. Charities collect them and then they distribute them to people in need, here in the United States and all over the world. You just drop off your old glasses at a store like LensCrafters or Sunglass Hut or a Pearle Vision center. The store collects them and then gives them to a charity like Give the Gift of Sight.

  You can do the same kind of thing with an old cell phone. It’s kind of ironic, but it’s actually cheaper to provide cell service than it is to build all the infrastructure for old-fashioned landline telephones in some underdeveloped countries. So if you donate an old cell phone that’s just junk to you—it’s just cluttering up your closet—you literally can provide a lifeline for someone in another country.

  Buy Recycled

  Now, everything we’ve discussed so far is really important. But it’s not enough just to recycle or to find someone who can reuse your old stuff. Unless you’re buying recycled products, you’re not really recycling.

  Why? Because recycling programs only work when there’s a demand for recycled products. If people don’t buy recycled products, companies won’t make them. Then things that can be recycled wind up going unused. They wind up in a landfill simply because there’s no need for them.

  So buy every envelope, every sheet of paper, everything you can that’s recycled. The products are out there. You just have to go online to a search engine and type “recycled envelopes,” “recycled paper,” “recycled fences,” “recycled lawn furniture.” Buy it. It’s out there.

  All the paper that I use in my printer—and in every way—is 100 percent postconsumer recycled paper. That’s great.

  And that’s an important point: Recycled paper can mean different things. It can be called 100 percent recycled paper and still be from the paper mill. It’s just the end of the roll and the stuff they chop off. So yes, it’s recycled, but it’s just what’s left over when they make paper. They didn’t have 8 by 11-inch pieces, so they put those scraps in their recycling bin.

  And that’s fine; it’s still reusing their waste. It’s not a bad thing. But it’s not as good as post-consumer recycled paper. That’s made from the stuff you and I and businesses all across the country have put into recycling bins.

  One hundred percent post-consumer recycled paper is now available—and it has been for some time—even with the Staples logo on it. It used to be that you had to buy some off brand, some earth-friendly paper, and maybe it was 50 percent postconsumer waste, and it was a lot of money per ream. They didn’t make much of it. But now they’ve got it down, making recycled paper, and they’re doing it in an environmentally sound way.

  And we’re not just talking about paper for your printer or copy machine. We’re talking about all different kinds of recycled paper.

  According to the Natural Resources Defense Council:

  • If every household in the U.S. bought just one box of 100 percent recycled tissue (175 sheets) instead of one box of virgin-fiber facial tissue, we could save 163,000 trees.

  • If every household bought just one roll of 100 percent recycled toilet paper (500 sheets) instead of one roll of virgin-fiber toilet paper, we could save another 423,900 trees.

  • If every household bought just one roll of 100 percent recycled paper towels (70 sheets) instead of virgin-fiber, we could save another 544,000 trees.

  • And if every household bought just one package of 100 percent recycled paper napkins (250 count) instead of v
irgin-fiber, we could save another one million trees.

  Suffice to say those little choices at the grocery store really add up to a huge difference when we’re talking about natural resources being saved.

  So what else can you buy that’s recycled? All kinds of things.

  I line the trash can in my kitchen with Seventh Generation recycled plastic trash bags. I’ve done it the other way. I’ve had a trash can with no bag. But then, living in L.A., where water comes at such an environmental cost, you’re having to regularly use a lot of water and soap and effort to clean out a trash can. You really need to have some sort of a bag, so I buy these recycled Seventh Generation bags and put my trash in them.

  You know, for many years, the problem with plastic was that it would never break down. You’d put it in a landfill and it would be there forever, in-tact. Well, now companies are making things from recycled plastic that you don’t want to break down. So that’s no longer a problem. Now that’s an asset. A good example is our white picket fence made from recycled milk jugs. That’s a good thing for the environment, to get those milk jugs out of the waste stream. But also, this fence never needs to be painted. It never has any bug, like termites, that attacks it. Water never damages it. It’s like a hundred-year fence. So where the problem with plastic was that it never breaks down, now the good thing about plastic is that it never breaks down.

  The same goes for a deck or an outdoor staircase that’s made from 100 percent postconsumer recycled plastic lumber. It never has to be painted. It never has to be stained. And it never breaks down.