Can you help me by answering a short questionnaire on recycling?
If you could answer this I could be very appreciative 
What age group do you fall in? 10- 20 21-30 31-40 41-50 50+
Do you understand why recycling is important?
Do your family recycle? – Why?
If you recycle, how long have you been doing so for?
How do you think we can influence people to recycle?
What are the recycling procedures in your local area?
Do you think people should be making more of an effort to recycle?
Any additional comments?
Thanks
I am using this questionnaire for a school recycling project
Good luck on your project–here are my answers
1) 21-30
2) Yes. Recycling is important because it conserves our natural resources. Not only the resources which actually make-up the material (i.e., the oil in the plastic container), but it also reduces the environmental impacts which indirectly result from resource extraction (i.e. drilling for oil, refining the oil, etc.). Reducing and reusing things are always better than recycling them, but recycling them is definitely better than just throwing them in a big heap (read: landfill) and covering it up for the next 100 years.
3) Yes, we do…see reasons above.
4) We’ve been recycling for years–my husband grew up recycling, as did I; we both recycled throughout college, and after we got married. If you need a number, I’d guestimate ~15 years
5) For a college paper/project, I surveyed students at Arizona State about the on-campus recycling program. The most clear result was that people will do it if it is *convenient*. Recycling bins must be prominently positioned and frequent in number (i.e. paired alongside every trash can). Although they understand in general that recycling is “good”, they will not go out of their way (typically) to recycle stuff.
6) In Houston, it’s not set up very well (and gee, they have low participation rates, I wonder why)…if you live in a neighborhood, you have to get your neighborhood on a list before the city will initiate recycling service in your area. Otherwise, you have to drop recyclables off at community centers, which are not always conveniently located. On the plus side, they did recently help initiate a partnership between our local grocery store (HEB), Keep Houston Beautiful, and a disposal company to place bins in the grocery store parking lots–this seems to be very popular so far. (note: they made it MORE CONVENIENT!) As far as what you can recycle, Houston takes most everything, depending on which community drop-off point you have (i.e. some take e-waste, others don’t), but a notable exception is chipboard (i.e. cereal boxes). See: http://www.houstontx.gov/solidwaste/recycling.html.
As for us, we have to go to a community drop-off because the city of Houston will not serve apartment complexes.
7) Absolutely–the amount of waste in our country is disgusting to me. My husband and I joke that with all the household goods we’ve seen thrown into the dumpsters around our complex, we could’ve furnished our entire apartment with it. We’ve personally saved books, tables, (fake) floral arrangements, and a pet carrier from the trash, among other items.
Additional comments…although I’m not confident that this would translate into higher recycling rates, I think it’s extremely important that the general level of awareness is raised about what exactly recycling benefits (and what it doesn’t)…as noted above, recycling isn’t only about conserving glass, aluminum, trees, etc. It’s benefits ripple way, way beyond it through the product’s “life cycle” (the chain of events that leads from a product’s extraction, manufacture, transport, use, and disposal). For example, let’s say I recycle an aluminum can. Most people will get the idea that they have saved X amount of aluminum from being dumped in a landfill, and instead it is being redirected to say, another aluminum can. But what does that really mean? It means the following:
a) X amount of aluminum ore does not have to be mined, therefore leading to reduced mining impacts (reduction to health risks for miners, reduction in acid mine drainage, reduction in land clearing (which conserves habitat, improves water quality, reduces greenhouse gases, etc.), reduction in air pollution from mining equipment)
b) X amount of aluminum ore that does not have to be (raw) processed (reduction in energy consumption (which leads to reduction in air pollution, water usage, etc.), reduction in air pollution from mine processing facilities, reduction in solid waste ore, etc.)
c) a likely reduction in transport (air pollution, fuel usage) to the product manufacturer because it is likely the recycling facility will be closer to the manufacturer than the mine will.
d) a reduction in landfill usage, which translates to reduced water pollution and soil contamination, and preservation of land for other types of uses.
On the other hand, most people also don’t realize that recycling is not in and of itself an “environmentally friendly” process either…recycling also consumes energy, produces air pollution, consumes water resources, etc. That’s why reducing and reusing products is better than recycling them. Still, on the whole, recycling is better than just throwing products away.
I think if people were more cognizant of the complexities and interrelatedness of resource management and usage (i.e. how a product is made, how a resource is extracted–the whole life cycle), and how recycling helps make this “greener”, then perhaps there would be a greater sense of urgency on the part of the public to do so more often and more effectively. That’s my hope, anyway, for what it’s worth
Christine
Determine your exact recycling equipment needs
