Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
RELATED WEBLINKS
http://www.cleanindia.org/
http://www.kalpavriksh.org/
http://hasiruusiru.org/
http://www.greenpeace.org/india/
http://www.hcdoes.org/sw/benefits_of_recycling.htm
http://www.storyofstuff.com/
http://www.paperrecycles.org/
http://www.deq.state.id.us/
http://environment.about.com/od/recycling/Environmental_Issues_Recycling.htm
http://www.conservatree.org/index.shtml
http://www.tappi.org/paperu/welcome.htm
http://earth911.org/
http://teacher.scholastic.com/lessonplans/recycling/
http://www.rcbc.bc.ca/
http://www.energyconservationweek.ca/messages/index.aspx
http://www.carbonfootprint.com/index.html
FACTS AND INFORMATION ABOUT RECYCLING
What is Recycling?
Recycling is the process of transforming waste materials into usable resources. Recycling is one of several options to manage wastes. Other options include eliminating or reducing the generation of waste or reusing an item prior to recycling.
Why Recycle?
Recycling is preferable to treatment and disposal because it helps conserve energy and reduce waste. Much less energy is needed to make recycled materials into new products than is needed with new, "virgin" raw materials. Recycling also helps conserve natural resources and prevent pollution. Manufacturing using recycled materials is usually much cleaner than manufacturing products from new resources. Recycling also helps avoid the costs of disposing of waste in landfills or incinerators and creates jobs in areas where reprocessing facilities are located.
How Does Recycling Work?
- Recycling is a five-stage, closed-loop process. It begins with the purchase of recycled products or products that are made of or packaged in materials that can be recycled. The products are then collected for recycling, prepared and shipped to market, where they are reprocessed into new products or materials.
- Recycling saves energy and resources.
- For every tons of paper made from recycled materials saves 17 trees, 6.953 gallons of water, 463 gallons of oil, 587 pounds of air pollution, 3.06 cubic yards of landfill space, and 4,077 kilowatt hours of energy.
- In one year, recycling allows aluminum companies to save the equivalent of more than 19 million barrels of oil – enough energy to supply electricity to about 18 million households for a year.
- Recycling one glass bottle or jar saves enough electricity to light a 100-watt bulb for four hours.
- Recycling one pound of steel can power a 60-watt light bulb for more than a day.
- Recycling one ton of plastic saves the equivalent of 1,000 – 2,000 gallons of gasoline.
Recycling decreases pollution
- Making cars from recycling aluminum decreases related air pollution by 95 percent.
- Making recycled paper generates 74 percent less air pollution and 35 percent less water pollution, and uses 64 percent less energy than making paper from virgin timber.
Recycling decreases tree cutting
- If all morning newspapers in the US were recycled for one day, the equivalent of 41,000 trees would be saved and 6 million tons of waste would never end up in landfills.
- Every person in the US receives junk mail that represents the equivalent of 1-1/2 trees a year. If only 100,000 people stopped their junk mail, as many as 150,000 trees annually would not be cut down for paper productions. (One tree can filter up to 60 pounds of pollutants from the air each year)
What’s a tree worth?
- A single tree can remove 7000 particles from a litre of air.
- Trees filter air, recycle water, control soil loss and make a city more beautiful.
- A tree that will be saved will reduce the CO2 emissions in the air which is equivalent to driving 400,000 km.
- Over a 50-year lifespan, the average tree:
- makes 1,338,843. Rupees, ( 31,250 US$ ), worth of oxygen,
- creates 2,656,108. Rupees, ( 62,000 US$ ), worth of air pollution control,
- recycles 1,606,517 Rupees, ( 37,500 US$ ), worth of water and
- controls 1,338,843 Rupees, ( 31,250 US$), worth of soil erosion.
- A well-treed street is three to six degrees cooler than a street with no trees.
Reminder
- Considering our electronic savvy world these days, it is a great idea to request electronic billing from companies which provide this service such as banks and utility companies. An amazing number of trees can be saved by avoiding the printing of monthly statements.
- Please do not print Emails and electronic information unnecessarily.
ASK FOR A STAMP
The stamp is made out of acrylic and rubber (size – L 6.5 X B 2 X 5 centimeters). The ink pad is constructed from tin, cloth and contains ink (size – L 10 X B 5.5 X 2 centimeters).
- Please note, image of the rubber stamp will be posted soon.
THE VIRTUAL TREE
Each ‘virtual tree’ will grow in time and will be updated and the Blog revised every three months by the artist, Baptist Coelho. Please note that only images of reused and recycled envelopes will be counted and added to the ‘virtual tree’.
Please note, images of the 'virtual tree' will be posted soon.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
HOW TO REUSE
- When you receive your envelope, try to open carefully without tearing or destroying it. If you use a letter opener to open the letter across one side or straight across the top, they will have nice straight edges and will be more reusable.
- You may take top view digital photographs of the front and back sides of the envelope for documentation as explained below. This is optional.
- Strike off the sender’s and the receiver’s name and replace them with the new names.
- You can write down the sender’s and receiver’s name using a piece of recycled paper and fix it onto the address bar of the reused envelope with the help of glue or adhesive tape.
- Take the rubber stamp and dab it on to the ink pad and make an impression of To find out how… www.you-can-reuse-this-envelope-again.blogspot.com on the recycled envelope in a area that will be noticed by the receiver. Preferably back and front of the reused envelope.
- Create more top-view photographs of the front and back of the newly recycled envelope.
- Finally, upload the photos of the before and after images of the reused envelope to: www.you-can-reuse-this-envelope-again.blogspot.com
- Please note that the Blog is free to access for all. Follow instructions on the Blog regarding how to upload the images. If you have any difficulty in doing so, please feel free to forward your images to my personal email ID at: baptistc27 [a] rediffmail.com I will post them onto the Blog and credit the sender.
- Please note, images of the above steps will be posted soon.
Sending a Reused Envelope:
- When sending a letter or note by post or courier you can prompt the receiver to reuse the sent envelope by simply using the rubber stamp to make an impression of the words; To find out how… www.you-can-reuse-this-envelope-again.blogspot.com onto the recycled envelope. Preferably stamp the back and front of the envelope where it will be noticed.
- Take top-view photographs of the front and back of envelope that you are sending.
- Finally, upload the digital images of the envelope to: www.you-can-reuse-this-envelope-again.blogspot.com
- Please note that the Blog is free to access for all. Follow instructions on the blog regarding how to upload images. If you have any difficulty in doing so, please feel free to forward images of the envelopes to my personal email ID: baptistc27 [a] rediffmail.com I will post them on the Blog and credit the sender.
- Please note, images of the above steps will be posted soon.
Friday, May 30, 2008
INTRODUCTION
Baptist Coelho’s initiative, YOU CAN REUSE THIS ENVELOPE AGAIN PROJECT, 2008, requires contributors to reuse envelopes as often as possible and mark each envelope by stamping the words To find out how… www.you-can-reuse-this-envelope-again.blogspot.com The recipient will receive this message along with the mail and hopefully be encouraged to reuse this envelope and others again. Progress of this project will be documented by participants taking images of their recycled envelopes and uploading them onto: www.you-can-reuse-this-envelope-again.blogspot.com
The uploaded images will be used to build a ‘virtual tree’ on this blog. For each recycled envelope image which is uploaded a ‘leaf’ in the form of the stamped words To find out how… www.you-can-reuse-this-envelope-again.blogspot.com will be added to the ‘virtual tree’. Our ‘virtual tree’ will be filled with 5360 impressions of these stamped words, which will represent the same number of envelopes that it takes to save a tree. Once completed, another ‘virtual tree’ will be installed and our forest will continue to grow.. These ‘virtual trees' will symbolize and demonstrate how a simple effort, when done collaboratively, can make a difference toward sustaining a greener and healthier planet.
The YOU CAN REUSE THIS ENVELOPE AGAIN PROJECT, 2008, is a collaborative effort for everyone worldwide to spread the word about recycling. It plays only a small part in saving our planet but it can be an important part.