Paper was made from vegetable fibers called cellulose, paper as we know it today was first created in China more than two centuries ago. Since the advent of the printing press in the 15th century, its use has spread across all continents to the extent that, currently, it is hard to imagine the world without this versatile material. More than 400 million tons of paper and cardboard are produced worldwide every year, with more than half coming from recovered sources.

Approximately 50% of recovered paper comes from industry and business. This includes paper trimmings, cuttings and shavings from manufacturers and converters, as well as goods discarded before they reach the consumer, such as unsold newspapers and magazines. Well over a third of recovered paper comes from households. Almost any used paper can be recycled, including newspaper, cardboard, packaging, stationery, direct mail, magazines, catalogues, greeting cards and wrapping paper.

According to industry estimates, paper can be recycled an average of 4 to 6 times. Each time recycling occurs, the fibers become shorter and weaker and virgin pulp must be introduced into paper production to maintain the strength and quality of the fiber. Through this process, recovered paper and forest-based product complement each other ecologically and economically.

1)      Paper is taken from the bin and deposited in a large recycling container along with paper from other recycling bins.

2)      The paper is taken to a recycling plant where it is separated into types and grades.

3)      The separated paper is then washed with soapy water to remove inks, plastic film, staples and glue. The paper is put into a large holder where it is mixed with water to create ‘slurry’.

4)      By adding different materials to the slurry, different paper products can be created, such as cardboard, newsprints or office paper.

5)      The slurry is spread using large rollers into large thin sheets.

6)      The paper is left to dry, and then it is rolled up ready to be cut and sent back to the shops.

Paper recycling is very important for our life and our environment. Don’t you know that recycled paper produces 73% less air pollution than if it was made from raw materials? It happens because it takes 24 trees to make 1 ton of newspaper. So, you also can help decrease paper waste by doing these things:

-          Deposit used paper at your local recycling bank.

-          Reduce paper waste by cancelling unwanted paper deliveries, or read news online as opposed to buying newspaper.

-          Set your printer to print on both sides of the paper.

-          Buy recycled paper whenever possible.

It is estimates that more than 1 million tons of quilts are thrown away every year, with most of this coming from household sources. At least, 50% of the textiles we throw are recyclable; however, the proportion of textiles wasted or recycled is only around 25%. We should know that old clothes can be used to make other textile items, such as cushion covers or cleaning cloths. We also can create new pieces of clothing from scraps of old clothes.

The recycling processes are usually as follows:

1)      Sorting: collected textiles are manually sorted and graded according to their condition and the types of fibers used.

2)      Re-sorting: Mills-grade incoming material according to their type and color. The color sorting means no re-dying is needed, saving energy and avoiding pollutants. 

3)      Shredding and pulling: Textile materials are shredded or pulled into fibers. Depending on the end use of the yarn, other fibers may be incorporated. 

4)      Carding: The blended mixture is carded to clean and mix the fibers.

5)      Spinning: The yard is re-spun ready for later weaving or knitting. 

With the re-use of recovered materials in manufacturing processes or in consumption cycles, there is a strong decrease of CO2 emissions compared to the production of virgin materials. Here is an example of the environmental benefits derived from a study of the University of Copenhagen (research sources 2008) which shows the environmental advantages resulting from the collection of used clothing. By collecting 1kg of used clothing, one can reduce:

-    3,6kg of Co2 emissions

-    6000 l of water consumption

-    0,3 kg of the use of fertilizers

-    0,2kg of the use of pesticides

                We also can recycle quilt at house. We can create new pieces of clothing from scraps of old clothes or quilts. We also can make other, such as cushions covers or cleaning cloths.

Plastic recycling is the process of recovering scrap or waste plastics and reprocessing the material into useful products, sometimes completely different in form from their original state. For instance, this could mean melting down soft drink bottles and then casting them as plastic chairs and tables. Typically a plastic is not recycled into the same type of plastic, and products made from recycled plastics are often not recyclable. 

The symbol code we’re familiar with—a single digit ranging from 1 to 7 and surrounded by a triangle of arrows—was designed by The Society of the Plastics Industry (SPI) in 1988 to allow consumers and recyclers to differentiate types of plastics while providing a uniform coding system for manufacturers.

The easiest and most common plastics to recycle are made of polyethylene terephthalate (PETE) and are assigned the number 1. Examples include soda and water bottles, medicine containers, and many other common consumer product containers. Once it has been processed by a recycling facility, PETE used to make bean bags, rope, car bumpers, tennis ball felt, combs, cassette tapes, sails for boats, furniture and, of course, other plastic bottles.

Number 2 is reserved for high-density polyethylene plastics. These include heavier containers that hold laundry detergents and bleaches as well as milk, shampoo and motor oil. Plastic labeled with the number 2 is often recycled into toys, piping, plastic lumber and rope. Like plastic designated number 1, it is widely accepted at recycling centers.

Polyvinyl chloride, commonly used in plastic pipes, shower curtains, medical tubing, vinyl dashboards, and even some baby bottle nipples, gets number 3. Like numbers 4 (wrapping films, grocery and sandwich bags, and other containers made of low-density polyethylene) and 5 (polypropylene containers used in Tupperware, among other products), few municipal recycling centers will accept it due to its very low rate of recyclability.

Number 6 goes on polystyrene (Styrofoam) items such as coffee cups, disposable cutlery, meat trays, packing “peanuts” and insulation. It is widely accepted because it can be reprocessed into many items, including cassette tapes and rigid foam insulation.

Last, but far from least, are items crafted from various combinations of the aforementioned plastics or from unique plastic formulations not commonly used. Usually imprinted with a number 7 or nothing at all, these plastics are the most difficult to recycle and, as such, are seldom collected or recycled. More ambitious consumers can feel free to return such items to the product manufacturers to avoid contributing to the local waste stream, and instead put the burden on the makers to recycle or dispose of the items.

UK households produced 30.5 million tons of waste, of which 17% was collected for recycling (source: defra.gov.uk). This figure is still quite low compared to some of our neighboring EU countries, some recycling over 50% of their waste. There is still a great deal of waste which could be recycled that ends up in landfill sites which is harmful to the environment.

Recycling is an excellent way of saving energy and conserving the environment. Did you know that:

-           1 recycled tin can would save enough energy to power a television for 3 hours

-           1 recycled glass bottle would save enough energy to power a computer for 25 minutes

-           1 recycled plastic bottle would save enough energy to power a 60-watt light bulb for 3 hours

-           70% less energy is required to recycle paper compared with making it from raw materials

Reuse, Reduce, Recycle is one of the best ways for you to have a positive impact on the world in which we live. It is important to both the natural environment and us. We must act fast as the amount of waste we create is increasing all the time. There are so many benefits from 3R;

Saves natural resources. Waste is not just created when consumers throw items away. Throughout the life cycle of a product from extraction of raw materials to transportation to processing and manufacturing facilities to manufacture and use waste is generated. Reusing items or making them with less material decreases waste dramatically. Ultimately, fewer materials will need to be recycled, combusted for energy, or land filled.

Reduces toxicity of waste. Selecting nonhazardous or less hazardous items is another important component of source reduction. Using less hazardous alternatives for certain items (e.g., cleaning products and pesticides), sharing products that contain hazardous chemicals instead of throwing out leftovers, reading label directions carefully, and using the smallest amount necessary are ways to reduce waste toxicity.

Reduces costs. The benefits of preventing waste go beyond reducing reliance on other forms of waste disposal. Preventing waste also can mean economic savings for communities, businesses, organizations, and individual consumers.

The 3R’s of reduce, reuse and recycle have been considered to be a base of environmental awareness and a way of promoting ecological balance through conscious behavior and choices. It is generally accepted that these patterns of behavior and consumer choices will lead to savings in materials and energy which will benefit the environment. Additionally, this would be consistent with supporting consumer behavior and choices that are beneficial for the environment and economy.

Day by day, year by year, the earth is getting filled with wasted things people around the world have used. What’d earth be in the next 10 years? That’s why we need to do reuse, reduce and recycle to avoid earth from being broken.

  Reduce is reducing the amount of garbage. Try to buy items that are going to last longer so you don’t have to buy them as often. Waste prevention or reduce is the strategy behind reducing and reusing waste. Here are some benefits of reducing:

·         Saves natural resources; waste isn’t just created when we throw items away. Reusing items or making them with less material decreases waste dramatically. Ultimately, fewer materials will need to be recycled, combusted for energy, or landfilled

·         Reduces toxicity of waste; Selecting and using non-hazardous or less hazardous items is another important component of source reduction. Sharing products that contain hazardous chemicals instead of throwing out leftovers, reading label directions carefully, and using the smallest amount necessary are ways to reduce waste toxicity.

·         Reduces cost; Preventing waste also can mean economic savings for communities, businesses, organizations, and individual consumers.

  Reuse is that you should reuse items as much as possible before you throw them away or replacing them with the new ones, or to take useful products discarded by those who no longer want or need them and provide them to those who do.  For example, we can reuse the used paper that is renewed. Reuse is recognized as being distinct from recycling. Reusers, on the other hand, with little or no processing, keep materials out the waste stream by passing the goods they collect on to others.  Some benefits of reusing are reuse needs fewer resources, less energy and less labor, it reduces air, water and land pollution, limits the need for new natural resources and it makes new things from the used ones and it is less burden on the economy because it’s less expensive to buy used than new

  Recycle processing used materials into new products to prevent waste of potentially useful materials. Collecting used bottles, cans and other materials and taking them to the curb or to a collection facility is the easiest way to participate in recycling. Some benefits of recycling are reduces the need for landfilling and incineration, prevents pollution caused by the manufacturing of products from virgin materials.

References:   http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/reduce--reuse-and-recycle--r3-.html, www.wikipedia.org,  http://www.pollutionissues.com/Re-Sy/Reuse.html, http://ezinearticles.com/?What-is-Reduce-Reuse-Recycle?&id=1189887, http://www.epa.gov/osw/conserve/rrr/recycle.htm, http://www.recycling-guide.org.uk/rrr.html

               

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  Plastic is one of the most widely used products. We use it to package consumer products, to charge our purchases with credit cards, to carry our food and drink, to build our toys and to even make our clothing! There are over 10,000 different kinds of plastic in the world, and it is so versatile and can be mixed with so many other elements that its uses are limitless.

  Plastic recycling is the process of reprocessing waste plastics and used scrap into new plastic material. Plastic is created by combining petroleum or natural gas with oxygen or chlorine. This process requires the burning of large amounts of oil. Recycling old plastic products uses 20%-40% less energy than manufacturing it from new. Types of plastic products can be recycled are

·        Marked “1”, contains PET or PETE (Polyethylene Terephthalate) plastics, include plastic wrap, salad dressing bottles, moutwash bottles, food and peanut butter jars, water bottle, etc.

·        Marked “2”, contains HDPE (high-density polyethylene) plastics, include trash bags, milk containers, shampoo bottles, liquid laundry detergent containers, etc.

  Plastic takes up about 10% of our total waste stream, and it’s composed mainly of the non-renewable resource petroleum. The more petroleum burned to make new plastic products, the more greenhouse gases released into the air. Only 5% of all plastic is recycled, so we need to push for more plastic recycling practices in our daily lives.

  Some benefits from recycling plastic products are:

·        Recycled plastic can be made into plastic lumber, which is more durable

·        Reduces greenhouse gas emissions

·        Can be used to make toys, park benches, car parts, drainage pipes and more

·        For every 7 trucks it takes to deliver paper bags, it only take 1 truck to deliver plastic bags

·        Recycled soda bottles can be reused to make filling for pillows and jackets

 

 

References:  http://www.greenstudentu.com/encyclopedia/recycling/plastic

In the early 1900s, cloth began to be created in factories chemicals rather than natural fiber. We call these chemical fabrics "synthetic fabrics." These synthetic fabrics, such as rayon, polyester, and spandex are so affordable and readily available that we stopped conserving them. People today have many more clothes and often throw them away when they no longer want them. Today, 700,000 tons of fabric end up in the landfills each year!

  Textile or rag recycling is for both, environmental and economic benefits. It avoids many polluting and energy intensive processes that are used to make textiles from fresh materials. Majority of textile waste comes from household sources. Average lifetime of any clothing is deemed to be for about 3 years, after which, they are thrown away as old clothes. Sometimes even not-so-worn-garments are also discarded as they become unfashionable or undesirable. These are post-consumer waste that goes to jumble sales and charitable organizations. Most recovered household textiles coming to these organizations, are sold or donated. The remaining ones go to either a textile recovery facility or the landfill.

  The textile recycling industry employs approximately 10,000 semi-skilled workers at the primary processing level and creates an additional 7,000 jobs at the final processing stage. Primary and secondary processors account for annual gross sales of $400 million and $300 million, respectively.

  The benefits of recycling rag (mostly in social life):

• An estimated 11.9 million tons of textiles were generated in 2007. It equates to 4.7 % of total municipal solid waste (MSW) generation.
• As per the Council for Textile Recycling, textile recycling industry prevents 2.5 billion pounds of post consumer textile product waste from going into the solid waste stream annually.
• About 500 million pounds of textiles collected are used by the collecting agency. The balance is sold to textile recyclers, including used clothing dealers and exporters, wiping rag graders, and fiber recyclers.
• Most textile recycling firms are small, family-owned businesses. Majority of them employ around 35 to 50 workers, many of whom are semi-skilled or marginally employable workers.

References:  http://www.squidoo.com/Reuse-Recycle-Old-Clothes, http://www.teonline.com/knowledge-centre/textile-recycling.html

Manufacture of paper that we use eveyday, requiring hundreds of trees felled. Actually, almost every day we're waste paper. For example, when a copy, if something fails, the paper immediately discarded.So there's no benefit at all from the paper. To prevent the disposal of excess paper that isnt helpful, then do recycle waste paper into new paper.

There are 3 categories of paper that can be used as feedstocks for making recycled paper:

·  Mill broke, pre-consumer waste, and

·  Post-consumer waste.

Mill broke is paper trimmings and other paper scrap from the manufacture of paper, and is recycled internally in a paper mill. And Pre-consumer waste is material which left the paper mill but was discarded before it was ready for consumer use. Post-consumer waste is material discarded after consumer use, such as old corrugated containers (OCC), old magazines, old newspapers (ONP), office paper, old telephone directories, and residential mixed paper (RMP).

Paper can recycling become a new paper useful. The following are ingredients and how to make:

Materials:

·         Mortar+pestle 

·         Water 

·          A frame 

·          Tacks 

·          Sieve (with holes of about 0.04") 

·          Plastic sheets (cutted to the right side of the inner frame) 

·          A container (large enough to fit the frame) 

·          USED paper (newspaper in this case)

 How to make:

·           With the mortar & pestle, crush a little bit of paper at a time (adding water), until you get an homogeneous paste. THEN put that mixture into the container (with more water) and let it "macerate" for 2-3 days. 

·           Cut the sieve of the same size of the frame, then fix it using the tacks. 
The "special frame" is ready :)

·           Dip the frame in the watery suspension (the sieve should be facing down) 

·           Slowly remove the frame from the suspension keeping it steadily horizontal 

·           Apply the plastic sheet... 

·           Squeeze out the water (somebody uses to collect the water with a sponge, at this time).. 

·           Turn the frame, keeping the plastic sheet in contact 

·           Carefully remove the sheet. 

·           Let the sheet(s) of paper dry.(You can speed up the process using an hairdryer)

·           You can add food colors or small flowers in order to make original paper for love letters, greetings, etc. (you can also store the remaining mixture for future paper-making). Enjoy :-)

Quality of recycled paper isnt much different from the new paper. Then, there isnt harm if we recycle paper to reduce the number of trees fells. Save paper can save the forest from extinction too.  So, let's save the forest from extinction and destruction by saving paper.

References:

Instructables.2011.How to Recycle Used Paper (Homemade letter paper).available at: http://www.instructables.com/id/how-to-recycle-used-paper-homemade-letter-paper/step6/heres-the-result-recycled-paper/. Accessed on: October 2011   Wikipedia.2011.Paper Recyclimg.available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_recycling. Accessed on: October 2011

 

To save the earth from the thereat of damage, isnt difficult. Just need think critically and have a high creativity. From recycles junk into useful items, can reduce the amount of waste and the environment kept clean. One example, recycle patchwork. From sheets of fabric formes into a useless interesting items, such as bags, hats, etc.

Patchwork can be made into any items, one example is a bag. The following are the ingredients and how to make it:

MATERIALS:

·  Patchwork obtained from tailors around the house, could free it could be paid.

·  Sew yarn bought at the Market

·  Dacron, can be purchased at the Market

·  Zippers

HOW TO MAKE:

·  Believe grouped wide fabric, then spiced.

·   After the fabric sheet, cut fabric in accordance with the plans bag model

·  Dacron is put on the next cloth fabric is sewn to unify

·   Mounted bag strap and zippers also according to taste

Advantages of recycling is the amount of garbage patchwork fabric will decrease and can increase creativity. Deficiencies in the recycle patchwork are works made can fail, because it takes flair and extra vigilance.

Any efforts we must do to keep the earth from destruction. So let's think creatively and create something usefu!!!

References:

Huzaifah.Hamid.2009.Daur ulang Kain Perca Sebagai Inovasi Produk Rumah Tangga. available at: http://zaibio.wordpress.com/2009/07/07/usaha-daur-ulang-kain-perca-sebagai-inoovasi-produk-rumah-tangga/. Accessed on: October 2011

Kumara.Luqman.2008.Tas Daur Ulang.available at:                    http://tugupahlawan.com/3266/tas-daur-ulang/. Accessed on: October 2011