Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with recycle

How do I create overlapping arrows in a circle (Illustrator)?

The Dutchman — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 11:40:23 -0800

What's the "right" way to create an arrows-in-a-circle diagram such as this one or these? The last post in that second link works (in Illustrator) if I then expand, ungroup, and bring the last arrowhead to the front...but it seems like a crude solution. Is there a better way? Illustrator seems like it's the right sofware for the job, but I'm open to other ideas, too. Thanks!

What can I do with an old laptop word processor?

ollyolly — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 07:00:18 -0800

I've seen great ideas for modding old laptops, but what can I do with an old laptop word processor? A few years back I bought a cheap word processor on eBay so I could write when away from home. Besides being huge and weak-batteried, the thing's been usurped by my new netbook.
I've seen a lot of cool instructions about what to do with old laptops (e.g. dedicated media center, use the display as a second monitor, etc.), but none of these work for the decrepitude that is the word processor (for one thing, the display isn't great and I imagine the memory is not large). Here's a photo I found via Google.
Any ideas for putting it to good use?

Besides claiming the year is 1995 whenever I turn it on, here's some specs:
- Brother "Super PowerNote" Model PN-8500MDS (I think Brother makes sewing machines now)
- 3.5" floppy drive and AC power adaptor
- ostensibly portable
- Claims to have "access to CompuServe and Internet Email", though I've never connected the thing
- Currently offers word processing, spreadsheet, and TETRIS
- 22 line by 80 character black-on-green LCD display (about 4"x9")

Where can I find speherical bags that will help me turn my trash into toys?

cross_impact — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:45:27 -0800

Where can I find bags of various sizes that: are spherical or ball-shaped when full of stuff are made of durable outdoor-hardy material and close with velcro or a drawstring or some other kid-safe closure mechanism Bonus: Bags of other useful shapes like kid furniture, that can be filled and closed You see, I want to make balls out of trash... We throw away a lot of junk mail, paper, etc since we don't have recycling in our community. I was wanting to find a way to collect that trash in a way that would make a useful outdoor play toy for my kids using paper and other relatively soft, dry trash as "stuffing."

Every year at Christmas, I save all the wrapping paper and make a huge ball of it with masking tape to hold it together. The kids love playing with it before we throw the whole mess away. I was looking for something made of durable reuseable material I could use in this capacity and then keep and not throw away. A trash bag that converts into a ball. I had my eye on making one of those giant earth balls out of out recycled newspapers from a month or so. Or even something the size of a soccer ball would work.

My search for a commercial version of this has been fruitless. Commissioning a prototype from a craftsman or seamstress undermines my goal of a cheap alternative to an expensive item while reusing what would otherwise go into the bins. Any leads?

Alles frei!

molecicco — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 02:45:10 -0800

FreeCycle equivalents in Berlin? Inspired by this FPP, I joined Berlin's FreeCycle group - but it looks like it gets offers posted about once a week. Any Berlin/Germany-residing MeFites know about a more happening group doing the same thing?

Can I recycle a broken hairdryer?

Kirn — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 12:43:13 -0800

I have a broken hair dryer. Can I recycle it? I live in Brighton, UK - I can't find anything on the local council website about recycling this type of item. Do I just bin it? Thanks!

Which papers go in the rectangular file and which go in the circular file?

fiercecupcake — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 06:08:53 -0800

What important household papers and documents must I keep and file? What papers are OK to throw away? My wife and I are going to go through a ton of old stuff tonight that needs to be filed. What is important for us to hold on to? What is not worth our time to file?

We bought a house last year. We have two cars and no car payments. We have student loans.

Documents may include, but are not limited to:
- mortgage stuff
- water and utility bills (electric, septic maintenance)
- tax things from previous jobs
- insurance bills/statements (car, house, life)
- ??? whatever fun things have been stacked in piles

Please hope me. This seems daunting.

Looking for crafty suggestions for a huge glass bottle

primer_dimer — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 06:27:03 -0800

Looking for crafty suggestions for a big glass bottle I've just scored a big glass bottle that was being thrown away at work. I think technically it's a tapped demijohn - it's a big cylindrical bottle about 12" across and about 20" high, with a bung at the bottom. It looks a bit like this but with the tap. It's previously been used to contain 10% ethanol.

What crafty thing should I do with it? I'd love to have something living in it to look at - maybe one of those moss terraria that are so popular at the moment? How about turning it into a micro fish tank, but with just plants and maybe snails - I'm pretty sure it's not big enough for fish. Is this easy to do? Could I just scoop up a load of mud and algae from a local pond, fill 'er up, and see what happens? Would I need one of those air bubbler things? As you can see I'm pretty clueless about all things aquatic...

How can I recycle living in multi-unit housing in SoCal?

stewiethegreat — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 00:51:36 -0800

I just rented a place in Pasadena, California that doesn't have any recycling. Other than piling mounds of recycling in my tiny kitchen before driving it to a recycling center, what are my options? I'm living in a small courtyard with 10 little cottages in it, all owned by the same (nice) guy. When I asked about recycling, during the first week of the lease he shrugged and said, "No recycling, you can take the cans to the grocery store if you want."

Right now I've been separating and bagging recycling, but my kitchen is infinitesimal. I had guests over today and had to move all of the recycling debris into my car. I'm planning to drive the accumulation to the recycling center tomorrow, but would love to have some sort of weekly recycling service that picks up our recycling.

A few data points- we're in Pasadena, California, and I'm pretty sure we're in an incorporated area of the city. Our garbage is in a dumpster and picked up by a company weekly.

I'm willing to pay some modest sum to be able to recycle without driving/extra hassle.

Right now I'm just not sure what to do- I moved from the Bay area and had no idea I should even ask about recycling when I was checking out apartments. Help me, AskMe!

MeFi recycles it beautifully!

HopStopDon'tShop — Tue, 26 May 2009 08:32:39 -0800

Tell me about the best and worst elements of recycling in your town so you can help me set up my recycling (collection) business. In a few months I'm going to be launching a service to collect people's recycling, both from residences and offices. We will be collecting paper, glass, plastics, metals, e-waste and other household waste, except for hazardous materials and compost (for now).

You recycle, someone collects stuff from your house or your business, what do you like the most about the service, and what do you like the least or hate? What seems like a waste of time? What could they do that would make the whole experience better for you?

I'd love to hear anything you have to say but mostly I'm looking for any small details that you find really add value or detract from it from your point of view. (I have the broad strokes of the various systems in place but I'm looking for gems here, stuff that falls between the cracks and usually doesn't get noticed.)

(Please assume for the purposes of this question that I don't need advice on getting permits or how to set up the business or whether recycling is better or worse for the environment etc.)

What can I do with my mattresses?

unceman — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 10:48:46 -0800

What can I do with extra mattresses? I have heard that mattresses are one of the worst things that can be put into landfills since they can't be compressed due to the springs. I want to be responsible and dispose of my mattresses properly. What is the easiest way to get rid of a couple mattresses if I want to avoid putting them in the landfill?

Place to recycle or donate CAT6 cable in Centennial-Aurora-Littleton?

everichon — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 08:19:00 -0800

I have a lot of Cat6 cable we need to donate or recycle--a bunch of partial boxes and some bags of random lengths. Ideally, it needs to be somewhere in the Centennial/Aurora/Littleton area. Anyone know of a good place to do so?

What do you do with your old clothes?

seagull.apollo — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 12:00:03 -0800

I've had a lot of clothes over the years that I've hung on to, for no reason other than that I can't bear to throw them away. What do you do with your favorite clothes once they are too worn out to continue to function as clothing?

How should someone in London dispose of a printer?

marmaduke_yaverland — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 14:12:37 -0800

Trying to get rid of a printer, some battery packs and an old PDA, without simply throwing them in the black bag. How does one recycle electronics ethically in London? Previous answers to this question seem to deal with USA only, and I live in London. The options I have found apply only to businesses and industry junking stuff in bulk. I can't find advice on my council website (Kensington and Chelsea). I know they take little batteries, but not the power pack kind. I would rather not spend money if possible because I am but a poor graduate living with me Mam.

The printer is broken and much hated, the PDA is ancient. I don't know if anyone would take these as donations.

I think the law says you can take electronics back to the shop that sold them to you now? The printer is from 2003, I can't remember where my Mum bought it from and I don't have a receipt. These things are starting to clutter my life and I wish to be rid of them, please help me!

Why shouldn't I be able to reuse a glass jar?

fructose — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 18:24:46 -0800

GlassJarFilter: Is a "single-service" container really only able to be used once? I've been reusing the glass jars (with hard plastic screw lid) from my plain yogurt to store cornmeal and flour, and sometimes as drinking glasses. I was washing and taking the label off of one of these jars tonight when I noticed "single-service container, please recycle" written on the label. Is that true? The ones I've reused have the label taken off and are washed in the dishwasher before I use them. I also throw away the soft styrofoamish disc that goes between the jar and the plastic lid.

Is there any reason to think these jars aren't safe for reuse? I Googled "single-service container" and found that this was part of a pasteurized milk ordinance, but the rationale for the containers being single-use only is not explained.

If they are safe to reuse (which I am assuming is the case since I've never had anything bad happen from their use), why must the container be marked in this way? I may contact the company, White Mountain Foods, but it seems that this is a government thing, not a company choice.

Deprecated Physical Magnetic Media and You

cavalier — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 12:15:30 -0800

Audio Cassette Tapes. VHS tapes. 1/4" Reel-to-Reel tapes. If it's magnetic and stringy and housed in plastic casing, I have it. Quite a few boxes. A few shrink wrapped, some new in box, many more used. Besides craigslist -> free, does anyone have a use for my deprecated media? Aye, this question was already asked in 2004. I thought I'd ask it again. Just in case there's some hipster revival in Provo that's in desperate need of magnetic media. Anybody out there still need/want tape?

Big Samsung is Watching You

softsantear — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 14:36:38 -0800

Is there a reason why Samsung requires me to register my name and address with them in order to recycle a toner cartridge? The site states that some models of toner come with shipping labels packed in, but some do not. Mine was the latter. In order to get the label, I have to sign up... which I'll probably end up doing, but I am loathe to put my info in yet another company's DB.

My first guess is that they use such a thing to generate the return address on the label, but more practically, you are registering, not generating a label ad-hoc, so my gut instinct is that they are using this as a convenient excuse to get statistics about customers.

Isn't there an easier or, rather, more anonymous way?

I want to recycle and be secure!

6:1 — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 18:33:10 -0800

iMac G5--how do I wipe the drive prior to recycling? Apple will recycle, but I want to make sure all data is off or "secured" prior to handing it over. How do we go about doing this? FWIW, I searched under G5 and hard drive without finding anything that helps.

What to do with several dozen old National Geographics?

odinsdream — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 08:43:27 -0800

What should I do with several dozen old National Geographic magazines? I've got several dozen old National Geographic magazines starting from the late 1980's and going up into early 2000's. I doubt I have each and every one during the date range. They're all in near-perfect condition.

I don't really want to keep them, but it seems awfully sad to just toss them into the recycling bin with the coupons and cardboard.

Is there something useful we can do with them? We've considered some kind of arts-n-crafts but this isn't a workable solution, at least for us right now. Would a library want them?

We're keeping all of the maps, by the way.

Reuse/recycle paint

richg — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:06:36 -0800

We've got a fair number of cans of house paint left over from various projects. Is there some agency or organization that will take the paint and use it (as opposed to disposing of it in a landfill)? We live in the Seattle area. It's almost all latex paint. Recycling would be OK, too, but we'd really like is to see it used for something. There's no more than a gallon of any one color (a couple dozen cans all told).

What's the best way to get rid of old, outdated tech / web books?

theNonsuch — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 13:01:43 -0800

What's the best way to get rid of old, outdated tech / web books? Like everyone who works on the internets I have lots and lots of books that have either outgrown their usefulness or become obsolete with time.

Obviously one route to dispose of these is to recycle them, but I'm wondering if there are any other novel, earth-friendly ways to get rid of these books.

Other ideas I've had include donating them to a library or school or turning them into incredibly uncomfortable furniture. Er, maybe not that last one.

Any suggestions?

Unwanted VHS tapes - what to do?

mouthnoize — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 12:23:23 -0800

Been converting VHS videotapes to digital and now I have boxes of VHS tapes. Is their next destination the landfill? Is there any merit to breaking them up first and finding some recyclability?

SpringCleanFilter: Help me get rid of old clothes when Goodwill won't take 'em

potsmokinghippieoverlord — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 11:26:29 -0800

I have loads of old clothes I want to discard responsibly, but my local charities are quite picky about what they will accept. I'd rather not add to the landfill. Hope me! Now that I have married Mr. Psho, I need to get rid of loads of old clothes I have that either no longer fit, look silly, or just need to go to Clothes Heaven.

Now, here's the issue: when I wear clothes, I wear them unto death. I have t-shirts that are older than most of you, and are frayed and stained from, well, wear. My local charities seem only interested in clothing that have some resale value -- I don't have many clothes in that category. I also have old undies, socks that have broken elastic and holes -- no one wants those, surely? (I live in Oakland, CA.) I was excited a few years ago when I discovered those green GAIA bins, but I did some research and I really don't want to support something quite so... controversial.

So -- what can I do with my misfit clothes?

What to do with an old iBook and iPod?

methylsalicylate — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 08:00:13 -0800

What to do with an old iBook and iPod? The iPod is an original 5GB model, FireWire only, and still has good battery life. iBook is one of those non-G4 white ones, has had a battery replacement, and the DVD drive doesn't work (I use an external LaCie drive but otherwise everything is hunky dory).

I bought a new MacBook to cope with work needs and a new iPod because the old one is too big to take running. I hate throwing things away. I think recycling is dangerous, inefficient and in terms of the people who handle doing it, only borderline ethical. I've seen this page and have no problems being hands-on with hardware. Unfortunately the only option there I would consider is making a new external hard drive, but couldn't I do something with the iPod to make it suitable for essential backups and do something better with the iBook instead? Keep in mind I'm in the north of England before suggesting places to donate it. I lead a reasonably stripped-down life and use no computer other than a laptop so have no desire for a second laptop running linux or working as a home server or whatever. Ditto a digital photo thingy. Any ideas?

Neoprene, not neo anymore

nekton — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 14:51:07 -0800

What can I do with my old wetsuit? I have an old wetsuit (2mm SeaQuest shortie, essentially this suit) that has had a fantastic run. I've managed to wring 12 years out of it (snorkeling, surfing, scuba diving, and just messing around in the ocean) and have sewn and glued it back together at the base of the zipper multiple times. It is in great condition still (some minor aging of the rubber) but the hole is not repairable anymore.

What are some cool things I can do with it? I am pretty crafty, so any suggestiions that involve cutting it apart and making something cool with it are great. I would also be willing to have it recycled for another purpose.

Recycle rags?

sLevi — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 10:30:49 -0800

Is there a place in Los Angeles (preferably the South Bay) where I can take (recycle) clothing and rags that are in too poor shape to donate?