Re: [GRRN] Fw: plastic recycling

From: Darlene Vandever (blaan@flash.net)
Date: Wed Aug 02 2000 - 08:42:43 EDT

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    Neil wrote:

    > This depends on the plastic, actually. PVC is usually over 50% chlorine,
    > and creates huge quantities of dioxin when heated to the 200 - 400 C
    range.

    I had forgotten about PVC. Probably because the company I was taking
    plastic to only accepted #1 and #2, neither of which contain
    chlorine...normally.

    I tend to agree with Mr. Raine of the TNRCC who has been trying to help me
    find a new place to recycle or to help my old recycler find a new company.
    His opinion seems to be that the plastic company simply quit doing business
    with the recycler for any number of possible reasons and the worker was
    simply trying to give me a reason. Remember the game you played as a kid
    where the first person told the 2nd something in a whisper and by the time
    it got all the way to the end of the room, it was totally changed from its
    original content? Something similar may be working here.

    In the meantime, I have bottles that I don't want to put in a landfill and
    neither do my neighbors. Let me run this one past you for opinions.

    Water is a tremendous heat sink. My home is the old fashioned southern type
    which was put up on block for breezes back in the days before air
    conditioning was the norm. (I no longer air condition my home except for
    one window unit in my bedroom when the nights just get too sweltering to be
    real). I have read about people installing "water walls" etc. in their
    homes to help heat/cool them.

    Here's my idea. What do you think might occur if I was to start filling
    those empties with water and storing them under my house? *I* think that
    they would help to moderate the temperature of my home a bit, sort of like
    being near my own private lake or ocean.

    Eventually of course, I would run out of room under the house and have to
    find other uses for those empty 1 and 2 liter bottles but I figure it would
    keep several thousand bottles out of the landfill and I might get some
    additional benefits out of it.

    BTW, I live in South Texas near Houston. The chances of a long enough, hard
    enough freeze to become a problem is pretty remote, but not 0%.

    Darlene

    "No one can make you feel inferior without
    your consent." Elanor Roosevelt 1884-1962



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