It’s never going to be possible to simply list every conceivable item here that might or might be able to be recycled, so I try to talk about classes of items as group. Once in a while, I hear enough times of a particular item or two that they demand a specific response. Here are a few.
The bags that coffee beans or ground coffee come in are layered, and I’m led to believe they are not recyclable in our current systems. The used grounds themselves, and the paper filters from the coffee machines, are wonderful things in any sort of organics composting system you might choose. They quickly decompose in the backyard, and the organics collection companies in town find them to be very good for their mix. So, toss the bags, but compost the grounds and filters.
Some really good news is the switch in the meats section of the grocery store from paper or styrofoam containers to ones made from recyclable plastic. You can recognize them easily because they are usually clear, but sometimes black, and clearly more rigid than the older trays. Spare me the arguments, please, about whether we should or should not eat meats at all. If I now have a 114% chance of dying from occasionally eating a bit of beef (up from the 100% that goes with any diet), I’m OK with that. The point here is that we can now, by buying carefully, recycle many of the trays from the meat department. They seem to be mostly Type 7, which is generally used only one more time, but it is recycled here, so it does get out of the environment.
Old laptops and computers, as we’ve noted here in the past, can be recycled at Goodwill, where they are tested, cleaned off, and reformatted if they can be reused, or fully recycled if they are too far gone for that. In addition, Staples will take back computers as part of Maine’s Product stewardship program for recycling e-waste. If you do a search on reuse of old laptops, you will also find a long list of places that will take them in working or salvageable condition for redistribution.
Staples will also take old computers and accessories like printers or cables for recycling. You should clean off the hard disk storage before leaving the machine there, if there might be sensitive personal information on it. Any reputable repair shop or person can erase the drive for you. You should know that there are different levels of erasure from a simple one-pass cleaning to a seven-to-12 pass procedure used for erasing drives with highly sensitive government or military data on them. You should also note that, when household machines are recycled, the people who do the drives are presented each morning with a large stack of unknown origin that need to be disassembled that day. They have no time, and no interest, in looking at what is on any given device. That means a simple one-pass erasure or reformat will generally be entirely fine for recycling.
“Big Box” stores like Target, Lowes, or Home Depot, will often have bins for smaller items like cell phones or iPods (mp3 players), but usually not larger computers or accessories.
One older item with problems is CRT display screens. Those are the television-style displays that stick out in the back, rather than being basically flat. The only place I know that will take those in Brunswick is the Graham Road Processing facility, open on Saturday from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., for Brunswick residents only. A call to Public Works will quickly answer the question in surrounding towns.
The Recycle Bin is a weekly column on what to recycle, what not to recycle, and why, in Brunswick. The public is encouraged to submit questions by email to brunsrecycleinfo@gmail.com. Harry Hopcroft is a member of the Brunswick Recycling and Sustainability Committee. This column is a product of his own research.
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