...nobody!!? hello!!?

As mentioned in my previous post, i am in a country where the concept of recycle-bins and drop-off points is non-existent for a majority of the population. So i am learning to recycle in the limited resources available to me here. This is what i have learned so far. Need further help from you guys:

I have segregated all the stuff into the following groups:

• Paper: Includes newspapers, wrappers, cardboards, pizza boxes, shopping mall bills…pretty much anything paper in which food items have not been wrapped, or rather that have not been touched by food.

• Plastic: Bags, Wraps, Containers…again, pretty much anything plastic.

• Glass: Self-explanatory

• Metal: Self-explanatory

• Electronics: Self-explanatory (includes electric wires)

• Earthenware: Pots, mugs, chinaware, etc.

• Clothes: Self-explanatory

(a) and (b) are the major ones i am focusing on right now. How things work around here for these is that you don’t have a drop-off point. Instead, you have to take these to what can roughly be translated as “old-paper shop”. They have fixed rate at which they will buy this junk from you. They will pretty much segregate this stuff for you. Bu the catch is that they will reject stuff that they themselves cannot sell to recycling plants or ‘other’ sources.

Some Questions:

• My major question is that a LOT of stuff comes wrapped in plastic. I have somewhat reduced the plastic by using cloth shopping bags. But, if you order take-away or home-delivery then you do not have control in how they package. A lot of food items comes packaged in small plastic bags, rather than containers. My question is, can i wash these bags and put them up for recycling? Washing them would require soap/cleaners to get the oil, etc. off, so i am not sure.

• One of the items i am concerned with is pressurized containers, like the ones used in Deodorants, Insect sprays, Room fresheners, etc. Now, the old-paper shop will buy them, but there is a danger that they can be sold to sources that can use them to make counterfeit products. Other kinds of paper & plastic you can tear up or crush or puncture, but you can’t do that with pressurized containers…help, please!

Because i live in a country where a concept of recycle bins and drop-off points doesn’t exist!

I am gonna have to innovate…a lot!

Hopefully this place will answer some of the questions and help me get grip on things. This and google…lol!