Earth Day

Just saw the little blip vert on Sunday Morning with the guys on a huge pontoon floating in the middle of trash… That rather bums me right out… So, for my piece of mind… I’ll believe that kegging and reusing bottles as a way to help keep the trash to a minimal on my end… In fact, Its so nice… I’ll tend to my garden preparations today… While I sip on a few pints… how do you feel about this idea/Topic? Sneezles61

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Every day is earth day. We do what we can everyday.

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Truly sad. Our city has a recycling program but the recycling can is smaller than the trash can. In addition it is only picked up every other week. This often leads to some of the recycling items being trashed as you have no room, despite trying to make those items have as small as a footprint as possible.

We joke about sustainability while brewing but to be honest we are actually pretty “green”. I’d guess most brewers are similar. We compost spent grain and fermenter dregs, harvest yeast, reuse our duct tape lid straps and labels, reuse bottles and kegs, and return grain bags to the LHBS to be used again.

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Hmmmm, good idea on returning/reusing the grain bags(and composting fermenter dregs)…otherwise I’m doing ok. All the water I use gets recycled, or consumed :yum: :beer:

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@loopie_beer, what city is that? Ours is the exact opposite. Recycling can and compost/ yard cans are twice the size of our landfill can and they are picked up every week while the trash can is picked up every 2 weeks. Go Portland!

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Good on you! Columbus, OH could learn from that!

Yeh buddy! They give every household a compost bin as well. Was pretty surprised last year visiting my brother in New Orleans and learning they don’t recycle glass whatsoever. Also have parents in Washington and bottles and cans just go straight to the landfill. Disappointing.

An even sadder truth is that with the current low market price of recyclables, much of what we turn in to the recycling center is just added to the general waste stream. And it’s even worse in places that offer ‘no separation’ pickup.

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Very true. Why we send our scraps to China is beyond me

They aren’t taking our recyclables anymore as of 2018.
But the earth is fighting back…
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/04/enzyme-dissolves-plastic-pollution-science-spd/

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Yes. We are in the same city. I probably fill the recycling can and then put another 50% of that in the trash. Big recycling can needed!

Anyone who has a dog can also use the spent grain to make these treats. My dogs love 'em

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.deschutesbrewery.com/dogs-life-ruff-spent-grain-dog-treats/amp/

We went for a walk down by the river in town, and I really noticed all those water bottles stuck along the shore line… I suspect because the vegetation isn’t hiding it right now… My wife and I don’t drink pop, and we don’t buy bottled water… We have very good tasting water here at home, so we have 6 stainless steel water bottles… I think 2 are about 15 years old… So every day when I open the fridge, I can go right past all that plastic to find a trusty old water container… I wish there was an alternative to milk jugs, and OJ jugs and the other common plastic containers… Perhaps I’ve got to stop drinking that stuff… No more ketchup… Steak sauce… It looks very bleak…:disappointed: Sneezles61

Our refuse company privides a bigger bin for recycle than for landfill trash and the nice thing is it doesn’t ahve to bagged or separated at all. However if we fill it up they say just put the excess reciclables in clear plastic bags. I’ve finally found a use for the big clear bags I get grains in from the LHBS!!! Woohoo! They didn’t like to reuse them if I return them.

I’m now very upset wtih a local grocer who sells local eggs but won’t reuse the cardboard egg containers? Seriously? WTF. It just came out of a chicken’s butt and you’re worried about putting it back in a used cardboard container?!

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Honestly Dannyboy… It aint the butt… We have a job to do for the power company… It sure seems that recycling isn’t part of the equation… Just wack it out and replace it… Don’t even think about wind mills… There aint none here to look at… Perhaps I may be a bit too over reactive… I’ll stop my digressing… :unamused: Sneezles61

I’m sad to say that a lot of people aren’t smart enough or just don’t care enough to recycle. Our trash company will not empty the bin if there is trash or especially plastic grocery bags in it. The just leave a “nasty gram” telling you what is wrong in the bin. In a condo building that means everyone has to figure out the simple rules.

I also see full bags of beer and soda empties in the trash. With no deposit in Florida they need to have a PIA 5 cent deposit like our NY place. It does work to clean up the bottles and cans. Homeless and just broke people make a new industry picking up the deposit containers.

We also do not use bottled water. A Brita filter, saved and reused seltzer bottles work. Kegged beer and wash the pint glass.

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My middle son has an apartment in NYC. I was surprised to learn from him that the building owners can get pretty hefty fines for not recycling. So the residents just put their recycling out and the building super has to make sure it’s sorted, cardboard flattened, etc. So say what you want about NYC they seem to take recucling seriously now. Who’s to say what happens to it all once it’s collected but the city is attempting to do the right thing.

In our first house about 40 mins NW of where we currently are, recycling was every week. We could recycle anything that hadn’t come into contact with food, no sorting or stacking required. When we moved to our current house, recycling was only collected once per month and cardboard and paper had to be seperated and stacked and bound, and certain numbers of plastic weren’t allowed (can’t remember which numbers are valid and which are not atm). A lot of my neighbors stopped bothering because it was a pain and not often enough. About three years ago they bumped it up to every other week so that has helped.

:beers:
Rad

HD Mark you are on to something there… Put a deposit on all these goods… It might make it a pain in the backside for the stores and consumers but… then it would pay to clean up! I’m in… ! Sneezles61