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Community Corner

Five Things You Didn't Know You Could Recycle

This list could go on forever, but for now, here are five ideas that could help Santa Cruz improve its recycling measures.

In honor of Earth Day 2011, and in honor of Santa Cruz’s impressive efforts to clean up our rivers and oceans (we are among the growing number of municipalities to ban Styrofoam, a.k.a polystyrene) and reduce our overall environmental footprint, I present the Five Things You Didn't Know You Could Recycle column, which Patch has assigned to pretty much every Patch site across the country. (Check out some other Patch sites for a chuckle, and more ideas.)

We could say that Santa Cruz kicks butt in the going-green movement when compared to, say, New York City, where there is a Starbucks on every third block and not one travel mug in sight. But let’s face it, we have a long way to go. One important part of recycling to remember: Actual people sort through whatever you throw into that bin when it gets to the landfill (three miles north of city limits on Highway 1). So think before you toss; maybe you can reuse that item again in your home, or maybe you can connect it to other items like it so they are easier for humans to sort through.

1. Plastic Bags: Alas, Santa Cruz and plastic bags have a rocky relationship. A small but growing movement to ban plastic bags all together threatens their existence, and people tend to get heated about it.

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It’s impressive how many locals have finally caught on to the European custom of bringing your own cloth or net bag to the market. But we have all find ourselves at the checkout making the guilty realization that we left the bag at home. Plastic bags happen, and here’s what you can do to reduce the number of them that end up as turtle food (yes, they look just like jelly fish floating in the ocean).

 You can use them for your small trash cans, like the one you may have in your office or bathroom.

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Stop throwing them into recycling bins solo. Keep a bag hanging on your door and stuff unused plastic bags into it. When it’s full, tie it off and put it in your recycling bin. Santa Cruz’s landfill superintendent, Craig Pearson, explains why.

“Five hundred plastic bags in one is easy to recycle, but so many people just throw them in separately, and we’re just fighting an upward battle.” 

2. Graywater: Graywater is all of that waste water that goes down our sink, shower and washing machine drains and into the sewer.

Since 1928, Santa Cruz’s graywater has been diverted into the sewer system along with “black water,” aka sewage, where it is taken down to the water treatment center on Bay Street, treated and pumped into the ocean about a mile out.

But graywater doesn’t actually have to go to waste. Laundry to landscape graywater systems are one way to divert the water used to wash your clothes into your garden via underground tubing and filtration systems.

Graywater systems are now legal in Santa Cruz, and they are gaining popularity in Santa Cruz—especially for those who are dealing with finicky (read: overflowing) sewer systems. Each home is different, though, so consulting an expert (and there are quite a few in town) is highly recommended. One great resource and graywater consultant here in town is Golden Love, of Love’s Gardens

3. Batteries: How many batteries have you thrown into the trash in your lifetime? Household batteries are thrown away by the billions each year in the U.S., and their mercury produces toxic emissions when incinerated. Rechargeable batteries like the one in your cellphone and lap top also produce toxins in the air when toxic heavy metals, like nickel cadmium, alkaline, mercury and lead acid, vaporize.

Thankfully, there is a devoted company called Battery Solutions that accepts any kind of battery and recycles it in top-of-the-line equipment that disposes of the toxics in a less harmful way and extracts reusable material like plastics and metals from them.

OK, so it may seem kind of a chore to go to the post office every time you need to throw away a battery, but with a little community action, this could actually be made easy.

Battery Solutions sells collection drums and curbside containers, which make it easy to collect all kinds of batteries. (They also sell do-it-yourself recycle kits to individual households, companies and giant corporations. Visit the website to learn more about the battery recycling process and the different kinds of batteries we toss into our food supply.

4. Running Shoes and other Sneaks: Santa Cruz is an active city, so the number of thrown-out athletic shoes must be pretty high. Don’t they say you’re supposed to replace your running shoes every certain amount of miles? Although this practice is probably good for your shin splints, getting rid of old shoes can sometimes be confusing. Whatever you do, though, don’t throw them out!

There is probably somebody in the world who would benefit from wearing those old shoes. There are various programs that recycle running shoes, like Nike’s Reuse a Shoe Program, Soles4Soles, Shoe Bank, Sole Responsibility and Share your Sole, to name just a few.

And hey, this goes for all of those clothes you don’t wear anymore—not just the shirts with a coffee stain down the front or a hole in the crotch. You must have some presentable clothes that you've outgrown or just hate that would look great on some local on a tight budget. The local Salvation Army stores on Laurel and Pacific streets and Santa Cruz Goodwill stores await them with open arms!

5. Electronics:  You probably did know that you can and should recycle electronics, but you may not know exactly where to take them. In Santa Cruz, California Grey Bears at 2710 Chanticleer Ave, the Resource Recovery Facility and Goodwill Industries (if working) accept electronics.

It’s something we don’t often think about—because we don’t see it—but California's waste stream sees hundreds of thousands of electronics that have become obsolete, or out of date.

Imagine all of the computer monitors, televisions and old fax machine and copiers that bit the dust after spitting out a million sheets of paper. Some of these electronics should be recycled, because they contain toxic substances that will harm the environment, and others simply because they are made from plastic and metal that can be made into something else.

As long as we are recycling all these material items, it's important to also refresh our mindset and concept of waste.

The next time you are on your way to buy something, ask yourself if you really need it. Are you buying it because you don’t like the old one, it’s out of style, or it has reached its point of planned obsolescence?

If it still works, can you dust it off and love it again just like you did when you bought it?  Or do you perhaps have some object kicking around at home that could substitute or solve this need for a new one? Recycling is important, but it is costly and uses a lot of energy.

If we buy less, we waste less; it’s a glorious concept!

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