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❑ Household appliances and electronics- In today’ s increasingly throw-away economy it is impossible to repair small appliances when they break, and in today’ s convenience-driven world many more small appliances have motors and batteries within them. Think electric razors, hairdryers, blenders, massagers etc. While the outers of such devices may be made of plastic, inside there is metal, and often metal of high value, which can be recycled. The same goes for old computers, screens and the inevitable accumulation of spare cables and leads one acquires every time one buys a new device. Specialist recyclers of electronics will take such items off you hands with relish. ❑ Batteries – Leadacid batteries, such as car batteries
are, of course, recycled by law( you can ' t buy a battery without either paying extra or swopping it for a spent unit). But all batteries, even the small ones found in watches and cellphones should be recycled because they contain significant amounts of harmless chemicals and metals. ❑ Kitchen waste – Mostof your family ' s waste will be generated in the kitchen, and while much of it can be recycled, it is also here that the largest proportion of your landfill material will originate. Food waste such as vegetable peelings and uneaten food scraps can be composted, which bones and meat scraps can be disposed of in a bokashi bucket. Used cooking oil should not becompostedasitwill prevent air from reaching other compostable material, leading to putrefaction. But here are two uses to which cooking oil can be put. Firstly cooking oil is the feedstock for a large proportion of the biofuel made today, and if you generate large amounts, for example from a fast food outlet or restaurant, biofuel manufacturers will collect your oil for reprocessing. Smaller volumes of cooking oil, when combined with equal volumes of diesel, make an excellent form oil for concrete castings. With much of your kitchen waste being recycled, just about the only stuff that should be consigned to a landfill is wet kitchen waste, in the form of used cooking and freezer bags, used clingwrap and the little polystyrene trays in which supermarkets sell their meat. ❑ Medicines – Many people flush expired or superfluous medicines down the drain. This should be discouraged,
ENVIRONMENT especially if your grey water is reused in your home or garden because although the quantities are small, many medicines contain complex chemicals which don ' t break down easily and which, over time, will build up as a soil contaminant. Rather, expired medicines should be returned to your pharmacy for safe disposal. All the classes of recyclable material described have a monetary value when taken to a depot. However, for many the time and hassle involved makes it not worth
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