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 On Tuesday, October 27, Summit County Recycling staff moved the Frisco Recycling Drop-off Center to its new location – just across the street at the County Commons, next to the Colorado State Patrol building. The drop-off center was moved to make room for the new County Maintenance Facility which will be built over the next year. Aside from the location, recyclers won’t notice much change at the drop-off center. The used motor oil, oil filter, and antifreeze collection containers were moved to their new location at the recycling facility at the landfill in October after the motor oil bin was severely contaminated with gasoline. One change that may not be so obvious will be the addition of surveillance cameras to help deter illegal dumping, an increasing problem for the community recycling program.
“Illegal dumping and contamination of the recycling bins increases the overall cost to recycle,” Berg explained, “and its jeopardizing many aspects of our community recycling program.” From mattresses to paint to carpets, illegally dumped items at the drop-off centers have increased costs to manage the free, public drop-off centers over the past few years, according to recycling employees. Offenders intentionally leaving materials that are not accepted could be cited and fined. Signs will list materials that are not accepted.
Historically, the drop-off centers in Frisco and Breckenridge had gates that were closed after 5pm and on Sundays, a situation which recycling coordinators believe helped to limit illegal dumping. But, the closures did pose an inconvenience to the public and in 2006 the drop-off centers began to remain open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Aside from paper and cans, Summit County residents can recycle batteries, TVs, computers, scrap metal, appliances, household hazardous wastes like paint and pesticides, and wood waste. Current sorting guides are available by calling the High Country Conservation Center at 668-5703 or e-mailing info@highcountryconservation.org.
“People need to take responsibility for the products they purchase and subsequently need to dispose of,” Berg added, “it’s the only way we’ll ever get close to zero waste.” For more on recycling in Summit County, click here.
 One
of the greatest things you can do for the planet is to break
single-use habits. The two things that always come to mind
are plastic bags and plastic water bottles. Recently, I
received quite the wake-up call when I watched the trailer
“Tapped.”
For those of you who haven’t seen this five minute
video about water bottle waste, I strongly recommend it!
Click here
to view it.
The useful life of a plastic water bottle is very similar
to that of the plastic bag. They both provide about 10 minutes
of convenience and then we no longer need them or want them.
And like the single-use bag habit, our obsession with convenience
– a fresh bottle of water available to purchase just
about anywhere – has a dramatic negative impact on
our environment. Recently, quite a few water bottle manufacturers
have admitted to bottling tap water and selling it to the
American public. Have we been duped? How much do you spend
on bottled water in a year? And you could have been getting
it for free all along?
After you watch the trailer for "Tapped,"
read this Denver
Post article about the local fight to stop Nestle's
plan to "suck, truck and bottle Arkansas Valley spring
water" from Chaffee County to Denver - "The company
(Nestle) wants to draw 65 million gallons a year from an
aquifer feeding two freshwater springs near Nathrop, pipe
it 5 miles to a truck stop and ship it 100 miles to a Denver
bottling facility. It would be sold under the company's
Arrowhead brand."
What a waste! You may remember that plastic is made from
petroleum. In addition, petroleum is used to ship water
all over the world. According to the film “Tapped,”
18 million barrels of oil are used just to transport bottled
water. And we haven’t even talked about the landfill
waste! Isn't it time we gave up that single-use water bottle
habit?
60 Minutes = "The Electronic Wasteland"
- Where do the millions of computer monitors, cell phones
and other electronic refuse our society generates end up?
 60
Minutes featured a story “The
Electronic Wasteland” on November 10,
2008 that rocked the electronics recycling industry. The
story was indeed shocking, especially since we have known
about this issue as a society for many years. Exporting
our toxic waste to other countries is simply unethical.
For those who didn’t catch the 60-Minutes story, it
highlighted a company from Englewood, Executive Recycling,
that collected used computers and TVs for recycling and
shipped some of those materials to China. Oh, and they pledged
just the opposite - that they would not ship materials there.
 These
shipping containers sent to China were likely destined for
an underground and unregulated “salvage” yard,
where workers use open fires and strong acids to extract
the valuable materials, letting unchecked toxic pollution
into the air and water and their bodies.
Sadly, even in this day, when we, as a society, are aware
of the pervasive nature of such toxic sources of pollution,
we still turn a blind eye to this type of “recycling”
in the name of free or cheap computer recycling… (click
here to read on)
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