Tag Recycling

Reuse it or lose it

Michael 4 Comments

Are you a recycler? There are recyclers and then there are re-recyclers. And don’t forget the upcyclers. I might be a little of all but mostly I’m a re-recycler. That’s where I’m doing my most to save the planet. Actually, if I’m going to be really, super honest, that’s where I’m doing my most to save a few bucks, the planet comes along for the ride. Let me explain.

Recycling is what we do with our blue bins and our bottles and cans and papers and cardboard. If you’re lucky enough to live somewhere where the recycling agent accepts glass, plastic, carboard, and paper you’ve got it made because that’s the most of it anyway right. Once a quarter some organization will have a program that will accept your extruded polystyrene, household chemicals, and electronics, but if you stick to the four basic food groups, er, if you stick to the big four, as far as I’m concerned, you’re doing your part. ‘Nuff said on that.

Upcyclers are the creatives of the recycling world. They can look at a TV stand, a stained chunk of kitchen tile, and a garden hose and say “Gee that would make a great a wet bar” and do it, and add an integrated wine rack, wine and beer coolers, and cheese platter with a well for a fondu pot and skewer storage. Damn they’re good.

I fall in between. I’m a re-recycler. I’ll find an old TV stand and turn it into a different color TV stand. I believe recycling doesn’t stop at getting rid of stuff from your home but not putting it in the trash. It’s donating it to charity run thrift stores, consigning it to second hand shops, or giving it away through neighborhood apps, Facebook groups, web communities, or the old stick it on the curb with a “free to a good home” sign. Then when somebody like me needs a new stand for his toaster oven, or a new toaster oven, he’s likely to shop first at the thrift store to see what can be given a new life.

lampI thought of all this last week when my daughter asked me if I’d like a stand to hold my herb pots in the kitchen, she found one on the curb. My first thought was “damn I’m glad that apple didn’t fall far from its tree.” My second thought was to run right over there and get it.

A lot of stuff that people don’t want still has lots of life left. Usually just a little cleaner is all it takes to have them looking good enough for company. Right now I have several kitchen small appliances, a mug holder, a table lamp in the living room, a floor lamp in my office, the stand for my keyboard, a small bookcase, and the office worktable courtesy of several thrift stores, and a roll of sound insulation that I’m working into a podcast booth that I found in front of one of the buildings here marked “free if you want it.” A couple old favorites of mine at the house were an arbor made from an old brass headboard and an end table for the sunroom fashioned out of 4 shutters and some plywood leftover from an old project. When I get tired of these or almost anything else, I make a drop-off trip to the local charity.

Re-recycling may not for everybody. Out and out upcycling is beyond a lot of people’s capabilities, certainly mine. But providing the raw material isn’t. The next time you have a TV cart or a garden hose that you don’t want anymore, donate it to a thrift shop, or put it out with a sign for somebody to take. Don’t jus throw them away. There could be a wet bar out there waiting to happen that just needs a little help from you.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Michael 12 Comments

I had my transplant evaluation appointment today. This post won’t be about that. I’ll chronicle that next step of the journey in my next post. Today I want to talk about paper. Everywhere I went today, there was paper.

Years ago when I was working in the hospital we were promised that a paperless environment was on its way. In fact, I think they might have been planning that when I was in college. The first time. In the 1970s. They ain’t got there yet. They’re trying. Really, I do believe that. But I think they are fighting a really big uphill battle.

It’s an accountability thing. When I was still working, many of our suppliers used paperless invoicing. Anything you needed to know you could get from their partner sites on line. Yet whenever we would receive anything from a supplier, the contracted delivery service had their copy, in duplicate, and we had to make 3 copies of each invoice for our records. Corporate, hospital, and department each got its own copy. Everyone looked out for himself.

That extends to patient records. Today I electronically reviewed then signed the authorization to treat, release of records, and informed consent forms. After the ceremonial signing, they printed off two copies of each form. One for me, one for the paper file to go along with that electronic copy. Each department that I visited, which had received an advanced electronic order of whatever test was to be performed, printed a copy for me to pass on to the technician who would perform the test who then scanned the order that was previously printed from the computer system back into the computer system upon completion of the test verifying the test had been completed.

Receipt

Yes, that is a 16 inch ruler. No, I don’t remember where I got it.

This paper hanging is not peculiar just to health care. Stop for a late lunch on the way home and count on the waiter, who would enter the order on an electronic tablet, to bring two copies of the check at the end of meal just in case you want to pay by card, and then two more if you actually do.

My final stop was at the supermarket for a handful of items. It’s a store I regularly use and my email address is on file there. I randomly receive electronic coupons and when I check out I am offered the choice of a printed or emailed receipt. I always go for the email version because stores receipts have become the length of War and Peace. They include the purchased items, any discount on those items by way of weekly sales, deductions made due to coupons or loyalty rewards, progress towards those rewards, surveys, upcoming specials, and of course the store name, address, phone and hours. Just in case you forgot where you were shopping I suppose. Whether you elect paper or e-receipt you get printed versions of the coupons that had recently been emailed. Today, the clerk failed to ask how I wanted my receipt and just printed it off. All 21 inches, 3-1/4 inches which actually reflected my purchases. (Yes, in fact, I did measure it.) (Because I have that kind of time, that’s why.) (I’ve told you that before.)

So, the next time somebody mentions the paperless office, you know what the real score is. But please, feel free to print this missive for later reading if you want. You’ll be in good company.

 

 

 

 

Euphemistically Yours

Michael 2 Comments

I was going to write a light, breezy post about something humorous that happened to me. But all of that changed when I saw what was on my coffee table. Let me start in the middle. (The beginning would make this just WAAAAYYYYYYYY too long.) A couple of weeks ago I bought a new television. Sometime over the weekend I read the instruction manual. At least I got around to it eventually. Actually I didn’t get around to it. It somehow ended up on the table instead of the recycling bin and as I was walking it over to said bin it fell out of my hands and broke open. And that’s when I started reading.

At first I wasn’t sure I was really reading it. I thought that maybe I was having a dream but one of those dreams that is so lifelike that you wake up thinking that you really did just have lunch with Aunt Ella even though she died 12 years ago and even more that you don’t have an Aunt Ella. Now that’s a dream. But I thought that maybe that’s exactly what I was having because no company on Earth could actually put into writing what I was reading right there in black and white.

About halfway through the “IMPORTANT NOTICES” was, in bold letters, “End of Life Directives.” This is why I at first thought that I was having and/or had had a dream. And probably a bad dream. To someone who spent 40 years in health care, “End of Life” has a very specific meaning. Usually, no, always, end of life means someone’s life has ended. Died. Checked out. Kicked the bucket. 86’d on out of here. Gone. Never to return. Dead.

On top of it, I’ve spent the last few years in and out of hospitals where the first thing anybody asks (after “are you bleeding?”) is, “Do you have a living will or advance directives?” And just last week the dialysis clinic social worker brought to me a stack of papers to be signed for this year and at the top of the stack was a pre-formatted form labeled “End of Life Directives.”

So you can see why when I saw that associated with an Open Box Internet Special yet still over-priced television set I thought I was hallucinating. Or at the very least way past my bedtime. We have enough things that are challenged, sufficient opportunities, plenty of stuff that is deprived, depressed or disadvantaged, that we don’t need to borrow an actual sentiment to be euphemistic for something that really doesn’t need to be spoken of gently.

Exactly what is this “end of life” that the manufacturers of electronic components are afraid to call a spade? Apparently, as I learned upon further reading, it’s when the TV has reached the end of its usefulness to me and the manufacturer wants to make me aware that there are environmentally responsible means of disposal that are at my umm, disposal.

I know it’s terribly politically incorrect to call a shovel a shovel but hasn’t the need to call everything anything but whatever thing it is gone too far now? We can’t even put in an instruction manual that this thing you just bought might break, fail, quit, or stop working. We have to speak gently so that if you actually paid full price for the item you won’t file an wrongful breakdown suit against the manufacturer. Bull shit. It will break and when it does either recycle it or throw it away. Those are your choices. Directives or not.

But if I should happen to outlive the newest electronic member of my family I will be certain to dispose of it in a responsible and thoughtful manner. I’ll hold a respectful gathering of its friends, we’ll have a non-denominational service with a few of the other appliances offering their thoughts and best wishes for the survivors and afterwards some light refreshments and fellowship. We will then gently load the life-challenged inanimate object into the back of my pre-hybrid automobile, drive several times around the county looking for a recycling center that accepts electronics, pay $1 per pound or $45 per dropoff whichever is less, and then hightail it back home. In air-conditioned comfort.

California will be proud.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

 

Don’t Pick in Public!

Michael Leave a comment

Its’ ok to do it, but don’t pick it in public where other people can see you.  No, we don’t mean your nose.  If you want to pick your…. But we digress.

We know it’s ok, there’s even a television reality show about it.  Picking.  Picking stuff. Picking what’s basically other people’s cast-aways.  Do you pick?

We had this discussion the other day.  Is picking, um, too picky for some?  There are different degrees of picking.  The most basic picking is cruising the neighborhood the night before garbage day and picking your pick of the good stuff.  We’ve probably all seen this, often with our own stuff.  He of We has had chairs, a recliner, even an electric stove picked from his driveway before the garbage team had a chance to wrestle them into the back of the truck.  Some things disappear the moment they hit the curb (bar stools, stained cushions, dated finish, still serviceable), some things sat for days mostly because the garbage guys couldn’t lift it into the truck and He of We didn’t want it back in the house (faux NordicTrak skiing exercise machine, like new).

This would make He of We the pickee and has no problem with others picking about his stuff, that is his discarded stuff.  She of We is theoretically fine with being a pickee or a picker, although there has not been a midnight drive through suburbia on Garbage Eve, hence the theoretical.

If you stop to think about it, not many people should be anti-picking.  Particularly today in the land of reuse, recycling, or repurpose we should preserve as much as we can.  Neither of us grew up with silver spoons nearby and both were used to hand-me-overs from relatives and neighbors.  When our families were done with the whatevers, they took another turn about.  It was picking without the pick-up truck.

Today’s picking doesn’t have to be a clandestine canvass ‘round the cul-de-sac.  There are legitimate picking outlets.  The web-site of the aforementioned television show notwithstanding, you can pick in heated or air-conditioned comfort, depending on your location and calendar.  We know them as rummage sales, flea markets, thrift stores, and (minus the air-conditioning) garage sales.  There are even stores that do big business recycling architectural and building supplies.

Is it ok to do it?  And that reminds us, have you ever been stopped for a long time at a red light and looked around at some of the other nearby drivers.  Does it look to you too like some of them just got caught with their fingers up………. But we digress again.

So is it ok to do it?  It would be un-American not to!  Go ahead and pick that up and get your lesson in today’s 3 R’s – reuse, recycle or repurpose.  Now, for those who are really serious, He of We has a couple more exercise machines around the house.  Like new.

Now, that’s what we think.  Really.  How ‘bout you?