my building now has battery recycling!

Just saw this sticker posted near the entrance to our condo complex:

So I asked, “Where is it?”.  It’s in the laundry room:

Now if we can just get everyone to use it like they’ve gotten used to composting…

– GP Dave

Recycling Isobutane Fuel Canisters

I’ve been using a Primus camp stove that uses isobutane fuel canisters.  It’s been simple to use.  But forgive me for I have committed an eco-sin since these canisters are not refillable.  To atone, I figured I’d bring the empties back to the REI store in San Francisco where I purchased them and surely they’d take them back for recycling, right?  Right???

Well, as it turns out, I was only partially correct.  They did take them back for recycling but were charging $1.50 per canister.  Now, I’m a recycling fanatic, but even I draw the line at paying to recycle.  So, I walked out of the store with my empty canisters in search of a more cost-effective solution.  In comes Sports Basement once again to the rescue.  See previous post on crutch recycling.   Not only do they take the isobutane canisters, but propane ones as well.  And, free of charge!  Thanks again, SB.  You are recycling champs!

proper battery disposal

I’m here today to talk you to about household hazardous waste disposal.   This is an especially important topic due to the extreme impact that toxins and heavy metals (mercury, cadmium, lead, etc., etc. ) can have on our environment and our health.  In my opinion, it is *essential* that waste items containing such substances are recycled or disposed of properly.

So Norm sent me this very informative link on where to responsibly dispose of a wide variety of hazardous waste materials in SF at Recology.

As you can see, a very wide variety of common, everyday household items are considered hazardous waste.   Batteries are particularly ubiquitous.   I use rechargeable AA and AAAs frequently, and rechargeables are DEFINITELY the way to go if you want to run portable devices regularly, but still minimize waste as well as save money over conventional batteries.  But things like remote controls and smoke detectors are usually most practically operated by using  the conventional disposable kind.  This is because rechargeables are an expensive inital outlay and the cost benefit of recharging them many times is not realized in a relatively static, low power application like smoke alarms and IR emitting remote controls.  Rechargeables really show their worth in relatively high duty cycle, high drain applications like very bright, high-drain flashlights that are used often, handheld video games, and guitar signal processors like the Korg Pandora and especially the Tascam GT-CD1 Guitar Trainer.  If you used regular batteries instead of rechargeables in such applications, you would be going through and disposing of A LOT of batteries over time.

I know it’s not practical to run down to the disposal center every time you replace a dead 9V battery.   So what we’ve done in my office is set up a box for which people are free to bring in dead batteries from home.  It’s a good sized box, and it’s filling up.  At some point I will bring it in to properly dispose of all those dead batteries in one trip, and I’ll do it when I’m out running errands anyway.  This box has given our staff an easy, simple way to avoid chucking their batteries in the garbage.   My wife’s work also has a similar battery disposal program run by their maintenance manager, and they have around 50 employees.

Batteries aren’t supposed to go in the garbage.

See all these batteries?  They would’ve gone in the garbage, and eventually possibly in our water supply or in our soil.

– Guinea Dave

The Key to Recycling

I moved into my apartment recently. In fact, I’ve moved quite a few times in my life-each time adding to that pile of old spare keys that I refuse to pitch into the ‘can.  This includes keys for the house, car, bike locks, and even those old-school “Clubs” for your steering wheel (you know you had one back in the day!).

It occurred to me that they deserve a better fate than entombment in the landfill.  After all, they are metal.  Recycling metal, e.g. keys, eases the pressure to mine for metal ore, and reduces the energy needed to refine and process the ore into new metal.

Returning to the place where I’ve had keys made in the past, Ace Hardware in San Francisco’s Laurel Heights District, I discovered that they have a program in place to collect and return them for recycling.  I’m sure any place you get keys made will have similar recycling practices, so check with them too.

With a little further digging I came across an organization called Keys for Kindness, who uses the proceeds from recycling to support the Multiple Sclerosis Society.

So, dig into those drawers and coffee cans and give those old keys a new life.

Happy Recycling!

-Norm