When it comes to waste, we only have two options for it, trash it or better make use of it through recycling. As we celebrate America Recycles Day, let's all make an effort to do recycling or at least participate on some recycling programs even just for this day. Cities and councils are all making an effort to push recycling concepts and such rules for their community to learn how to reuse and recycle. Make a change or either make a difference, all will end up well if your goal is for the betterment of our environment and our country.

Greenhouse gas effect, abrupt climate change, energy consumption, amount of waste, we all have a single goal and that is to reduce all of these. So let's all gather and be a part of this annual America Recycles Day (ARD) on the 15th of November, and celebrate all the good impacts each and everyone of us made for the environment through different forms of recycling.

ARD encourages you to take the following pledge:

Learn: I will find out what materials are collected for recycling in my community at americarecyclesday.org.
Act: Reduce my personal waste by recycling. Within the next month, I will recycle more.

Get involve and be a part of this great event. Here's how you can participate, you can visit their website through this link http://americarecyclesday.org/join-event , then enter your zip code and check all the events happening near your place. Do you know that through their website, you can also discover tips, how-to's and locations from where you can properly recycle all your reusable materials? One of their events includes a mass recycling from which you can bring all those unused stuffs and old materials that can be recycled, especially e-waste which includes, computer peripherals, home and office equipment, printers and printer consumables like toner or ink cartridges, which will then be recycled to produce eco-friendly toner cartridges and ink cartridges.

So what are you waiting for, take the pledge!

Citizens from the U.S. celebrates America Recycles Day for the third year in a row,  especially from Los Angeles, as they celebrate the largest waste and recycling collection event. Everyone can go visit and participate at Staples Center to drop off their E-waste from 7AM up to 7PM on Thursday November 15,2012. Please refer on the list below for the items that you can bring in Parking Lot 7 at 1150 S. Figueroa, which will then be recycled.

ACCEPTABLE MATERIALS FOR RECYCLING:

• Computers - CPU and Laptop, Computer Monitors
• Computer Peripherals -  Keyboards, Mice
• Printers - Consumables (OEM, remanufactured toner cartridges)
  
• Fax Machines
• Photocopiers
• Televisions
• VCRs/Stereos
• Home and Office Phones
• Cell Phones
• Consumer Electronics
• Microwaves

UNACCEPTABLE MATERIALS FOR THIS EVENT:

• Light bulbs
• Batteries
• Smoke Alarms/Detectors or Fire Alarms/Detectors
• Thermometers, Dehumidifiers
• Any unit with sludge or liquids
• Large and Small Appliances – refrigerators, etc.
• Non Decontaminated Medical Equipment

"One day to educate. One day to motivate. One day to make recycling bigger and better 365 days a year." from AmeriRecyclesDay

America Recycles Day is coming up on Thursday, November 15, 2012.

America Recycles Day (ARD) is the only nationally recognized event dedicated to promoting, encouraging and celebrating recycling in the US. ARD is celebrated annually on or around November 15 and is facilitated by Keep America Beautiful. 

According to Wikipedia, The World Recycling Day celebrated in most countries, though falls on July 8. Thousands of events are held across the U.S. to raise awareness about the importance of recycling and to encourage Americans to sign personal pledges to recycle and buy products made from recycled materials.

Started by the recycling sector organization National Recycling Coalition in 1997, America Recycles Day has been a program of national nonprofit Keep America Beautiful since 2009. As the managing entity of America Recycles Day, Keep America Beautiful provides promotional and marketing support and resources to a network of local event organizers. It is sponsored by private and public entities and the EPA.

There will be a lot of programs and organizations to participate in the said event. Now is the time for you to gather all those stuffs you left unused, worn out garments, old materials and all other things that can be recycled. It's an event that only happens once a year, though recycling can still be practiced everyday. You can also use recycled stuffs like eco-friendly toner cartridges to have a greener printing practices and have a more environment friendly living.

Aside from teaching your students the wonders of science, the fundamentals of math, and the mysteries of history, it's also a part of your job to discipline and train your students about green printing practices. To help you encourage your students on saving printer consumables and printer papers, here are some of the tips you may follow:

Require your students to use a couple of book resources when giving them assigned papers. Instead of just saying, make a research of this and that, be specific of the book title, authors, and all other related textbooks that they can use as a reference for their assigned paper. Most students has the tendency to search over the net, then print a copy, and that's what we're trying to avoid.

Encourage your students to proofread their papers and create a draft, cause more likely you'll end up putting red marks on their works, to prevent wasting ink/toner and printer paper. It would also be better if they send their paper works on your email so you can check all the mistakes and necessary remarks before it gets printed. If it's not a good idea on your part, then tell them to use the draft settings of their printer to use less ink/toner. 

Remind them the use of Print Preview, some students are not fond of using this but believe me it really helps a lot on misprints, especially when it comes to page numbering, there are instances that a page number doesn't appear to a certain page, and you have no other choice but to reprint it. 

Black prints only, can also be implemented. If the use of color inks can be avoided then do it. Students usually add unnecessary borders, lines and images probably to reach the minimum page limit. They should know that the content of their work matters most and not the design. For photos, if it really requires to print some, then you may suggest using gray-scaled settings when printing images.

Make them understands, that quality is always better than quantity. Longer paper works, doesn't always get better grades. Sometimes the shortest term paper that is full of substance, is way better than longer ones. Just like buying printer consumables, quality is not only measured by the price, but by its performance. As a teacher you should practice what you preach, and that you're using eco-friendly toner cartridges in your house or even at the faculty room. 

How would you like your coffee to be served, steaming hot, cold with ice, or would you like it with ink? I guest after you've read this post, you'll surely ask for the last one. Coffee with it's aroma brings soothe with every sip, it can even gather people from all walks of life, let them sit and talk to each other like they knew that person for quite a long time. Even businessmen talk about their negotiations over a cup of coffee. What fun could it be having a coffee with something printed on top of it, would you still take a sip or you'll take a picture first?

If you're saying that this thing isn't new to hear, yes, you're right somehow. The concept of creating designs on top of coffee lattes isn't new and has been known for several years. But technology wise, this thing isn't just designed manually by some artistic hands, but rather with the use of a printer. The question is how does a printer capable of printing designs on top of lattes besides paper materials. In this case, a standard plotter printer has been utilized to print anything onto a cup of coffee or the actual latte itself.

Oleksiy Pikalo is the genius person behind this creation, he adopted a printer plotter from eBay and used it to developed a printer that can print on the top of the latte coffee. You don't have to worry about being poison with the ink, cause this invention uses a brown edible ink to create the graphics. Unlike a standard printer that uses ink cartridges, the printer plotter he developed uses a pen like device to deliver the ink and create wonderful images as you please on top of the froth.

Though I suggest you think of a design not too intricate unless you want your hot coffee serve as cold as ice, cause it'll take about a minute to finish a simple design. Still, this one is a great innovation and I would likely be glad to see one of these on Starbucks.

It's kind of exciting to see this one in action, maybe I'll try to re-model my printer at home and see if can also make one for myself. Though I'm not sure where can I get an edible ink to use for my own invention, maybe I can make some experimentation with my eco-friendly toner cartridges, well that'll make me busy.

There's no other way we can do but to reuse or recycle an electronic equipment once it reaches it's maximum life expectancy. While some companies are still unable to pay attention or rather has totally no intention of looking into this matter in order to developed a product that has a higher percentage of possibility to be recycled. Finally, they've come up with a unique way to improve the disassembling and recycling ability of an electronic equipment at the end of its life. 

UK's National Physical Laboratory researchers developed a printed circuit board that falls apart when submerged in hot water. A few components including resistors, capacitors and IC's that can be found from the circuit board can merely be scraped off intact. Thus creating an option to recover, reuse and recycle certain parts of an equipments circuit board once it worns out. 

This project is a part of Britain's ReUSE which is an abbreviation for Reusable, Unzippable, Sustainable Electronics. Unlike other typical printed circuit boards, this one is made of unzippable polymeric layers that can withstand daily heat, stress, humidity, and thermal cycling of a properly working device. Its components are said to be intact and won't come apart unless the user submerged it in a hot water. This invention can be applied in flat circuit boards, flexible and 3D configurations, that allows the user to disassemble, reuse and recycle all the components used in the board at the end of its usable life.

According to a lab test conducted by Gizmag, "In lab tests, it was found that 90 percent of the original circuit board components could be salvaged. By contrast, according to NPL, just two percent of the material in existing circuit boards can be re-used."

It's refreshing to know inventions and projects like this that promotes reusing, recycling and sustainability. Especially nowadays that the amount of electronic wastes is certainly getting bigger and becoming more of a serious matter. Aside from different organizations and councils around US that accepts old equipments that can be salvage, like for example printer consumables that are recycled producing eco-friendly toner cartridges. This invention will come a long way, and if I may suggest, if they can increase the percentage of materials that can be reuse from the circuit board then it would be better.

We've been talking about recycling mainly of electronic stuffs and printer consumables, but do you also know that even home furnishings can be recycled. Instead of disposing your dingy old furniture how about recycle them or if you're too lazy for it you can send them out to some local organizations that accepts home furniture considering that it can still be repaired.

In this digital age, aside from electronic waste that we've been dealing with, food waste shouldn't be taken for granted. Would you believe that there are certain organizations that offer people the opportunity to recycle their food waste. They use a container from which all food waste are kept and recycled, setting you free from the awful smell of rotten and decaying food waste from your bin. If it hasn't reached you, how about the idea of home composting, it's another way for you to get rid and recycle food waste.

Like I said, electronic waste recycling is a great way to get rid and reuse your old PC's, gadgets, mobile phones and so on. Try to research for some organizations that caters recycling schemes for your old electronic materials, or ask your local councils if they do have a similar service. But remember to clear all personal files/data from your PC or mobile phone before you send them out for recycling, just to avoid any conflicts.

A few handsets are quite normal for most of us, but if we're not using all of them and some were even old enough to be use, then I guest it's time for you to hand them over to some organizations that accepts mobile phone recycling. Do you know that there are websites like CompareMobilePhoneRecycling that will offer you cash or gift checks in return for your unwanted handsets.

If you have a few used printer cartridges which I'm pretty sure you do, it would be great to start your own share for the environment, and save some money as well. Millions of printer consumables especially laser toner and ink cartridges are just thrown away to the landfills. These are mainly made out of plastic components, which as we all know brings a lot of harm to the environment, then what more could it bring if you add up the effects of toxins inside each containers. Recycling them is the only way to reduce its negative impact, remanufactured toner cartridges and ink cartridges are far better for the environment. If you're waiting for me to say this, yes they give rewards of course money to those who participate on printer cartridges recycling. So why not do your part on saving the environment and earn a few cash for yourself, besides there's no harm on trying it.

A global problem that we've been facing year after year is the amount of waste we accumulated annually. From the amassed volume of waste, we have there the general waste that comes from our daily activities which covers a large percentage, and a noticeable amount of electronic waste that dramatically increases every year. This dilemma is not just for a few specific countries, it's a bad situation that the rest of the world is facing.

Though there are few of us who have realized the enormous effect or rather impact of this on the environment, still the number of people who haven't realize this is 10 times greater on our count. Considering that electronic gadgets, equipments, and all other materials that comes from technology are populating the market industry, they all add up on the existing problem. Electronic materials or its components may carry toxins which will then create a destructive impact on the environment when improperly disposed of. However, there are certain conditions at which electronic gadgets, equipments, and its components can be recycled and reused.

As they're supposed to stop working when they reached a certain limit or extent of life span, it became a bad habit for most people to simply throw away their used items without even considering the impacts of what they're actually doing. They're doing no good for the environment or even from themselves. Yes, it can bring a detrimental impact to our environment, but who will suffer from it, of course it's us. What can you do to save our world from agonizing, that is a very simple question, how about instead of recklessly throwing your garbage from anywhere else, why not drop them off to a recycling station or send them out to a recycling program.

Nowadays, most cities in the US have recycling programs and organizations that deal with electronic waste. I'm sure whatever gadget, equipment, machine, or any electronic material you have there, they do have a program for it. Even your printers consumable like printer cartridges now comes as eco-friendly toner cartridges and ink cartridges, thanks to this programs. As long as they can recycle or reuse your electronic waste, then you'll have no worries on how to properly dispose your waste problem. Special recycling bins can be found on several retail outlets where you can drop off old phones, gadgets, tablets,and printer consumables that you would like them to recycle.

One man's trash is another man's treasure, a wise old saying that only see good beyond what most of us can express whenever we see boundless landfills full of waste materials. What's more alarming is the amount of plastic materials that are accumulated each and every year. 

It's a good thing, that aside from generating added plastic waste materials on the landfills, 3D printing technology has been applied to recycle and turn plastics into more useful products. 
A team of students from the University of Washington claimed top prize in the first 3D4D challenge. With the urge to find funding for their project, the team join an international contest that use 3D printing technology to influence and deliver social benefits in the developing world. It was a success that the team WOOF-Washington Open Object Fabricators won $100,000 to form a company that will work with partners in Oaxaca, Mexico, to build machines that can transform waste plastic into composting toilets and pieces for rainwater harvesting systems and composting toilets in the developing world.

Matthew Rogge, a post-baccalaureate mechanical engineering student presented the project in London, he said “We built drilling equipment for our own well, and then built our own pump out of plastic,” and as he added, “There were a lot of parts that took a fair amount of skill to make.” Mr. Rogge was frustrated by the challenge of making custom parts in low-resource settings.

The winning proposal that the team presented was intended to create composting latrines that are lightweight and use less energy to manufacture than concrete toilets. The machine would also make rainwater catchment components that are specifically designed to fit to rain barrels, unlike current systems where joining available plumbing parts cause leaks and frequent failures.