Check it before you chuck it
Cars, CDs and egg cartons
can all be green
Audio players, cameras, modems, printers, televisions, amplifiers and vehicles — for all you tech junkies out there, there is a way to recycle all of your old technology so you can bring in the new.
Instead of throwing your old junk at the side of the road on garbage day, you can probably recycle most of what is being booted to the curb. Even items as simple as egg cartons or wine corks or foam packaging leftover from your parents' care package can be very easy to get rid of the right way.
Typically every household in London is equipped with a large recycling bin meant for plastic containers (like detergent jugs or juice cartons) and a small blue bin meant for paper and cardboard products. London recently improved their recycling program to include a wider range of plastics; now all plastic containers numbered one through seven on the bottom can be recycled.
But when it comes to recycling electronics, it's not as easy as just separating your plastics from your papers — only certain locations accept recycled electronic material. Recycleyourelectronics.ca is a website that lists all locations that accept various recycled electronics. You can enter the electronic device you are discarding and enter your postal code or your community and it will show you the closest places to recycle.
Near Fanshawe College, there are Dynamex (2515-B Blair Blvd., a 10-minute drive from campus) and Ardiel Electronics (21579 Highbury Rd. N., a 15-minute drive from campus).
Another thing people generally don't think about recycling is cars. Why would you recycle if you can sell it and make money? As a student, selling an old car can be very appealing. Living on a student budget is hard, and owning a car on that budget is sometimes not even feasible, which is why many students' first cars are often on their last legs.
As much as people try to make money off their cars, sometimes they are just too old — what Ontario Automotive Recyclers Association (OARA) calls “end-of-life” vehicles. If selling becomes impossible, recycling is a smart alternative... just ensure it's done right.
OARA does just that. This is not your typical junkyard lot. It has a set of standards on how a car is to be recycled properly and safely.
Steve Fletcher, OARA's Executive Director, said, “The code itself is not prescriptive in terms of how you specifically need to do something. It's more (about) the outcomes. We have 130 members across Ontario doing it 100 different ways. But in essence you need to remove the operating fluids before it's crushed. So you take them out in open areas so you are not contaminated, and somewhere it can be contained so it does not get into the environment. You have to be licensed to collect, contain and dispose of all the chemicals.” Fletcher said everything is documented in a registry.
End-of-life vehicles are one of the most recyclable commodities in a consumer market, but only one third of end-of-life vehicles actually have any record of being recycled, said Fletcher.
“Ninety-five per cent of all vehicles are collected at some point in their life to be recycled,” said Fletcher. “About 83 per cent of a vehicles can be reused and about 73 per cent of a vehicle can be reused for its metallic cost.
Recycling vehicles is one of the greenest initiatives that can be taken. The OARA takes all roadlicensed vehicles from motorcycles to 18-wheelers.
The standards of the OARA developed out of the Retire Your Ride Program. “We've developed the OARA getting government of all levels to recognize that code as the starting point for a regulatory starting place for anybody who wants to take part in the industry. It's an industry that has been around for a while and now we're putting standards behind it,” said Fletcher. “Retire Your Ride was a catalyst to put this sort of practice into play.”
There are concerns associated with the program such as disposing of vehicle identification numbers (VINs) so they cannot be reused illegally. However, Fletcher assured complete disposal.
“All of our members as part of our requirement keep a registry of every vehicle that enters their business and whether they wreck it or re-sell it. So we helped the government put in place a branding loss registry so that is permanently putting a vehicle in a registry whether a vehicle has been in a crash or whether it's a part-only vehicle.”
Although this type of recycling does not make you any money, it also does not cost you anything. Any vehicles can be dropped off free of charge.
“Having your car go through this type of system doesn't cost anything, unlike electronics where there needs to be a subsidy involved in order to properly collect and dispose of the equipment,” said Fetcher. “But because there's no regulatory backing to our program yet, it's a profitable program without having to accept fees. There are no eco-fees and no cost to the consumer.”
You can get just as much out of this program as you give into it. To buy recycled parts, “identify who your recycler is on our website (oara.com). We also have a consolidated website so members can search their model and part and it will generate a report as to who has that part and where,” said Fletcher.
To find green parts or to recycle your end-of-life vehicle, visit oara.com. There are members all over Ontario, including Corey Auto Wreckers located at 1804 Gore Rd. in London — check them out at coreyautowreckers.com.
Audio players, cameras, modems, printers, televisions, amplifiers and vehicles — for all you tech junkies out there, there is a way to recycle all of your old technology so you can bring in the new.
Instead of throwing your old junk at the side of the road on garbage day, you can probably recycle most of what is being booted to the curb. Even items as simple as egg cartons or wine corks or foam packaging leftover from your parents' care package can be very easy to get rid of the right way.
Typically every household in London is equipped with a large recycling bin meant for plastic containers (like detergent jugs or juice cartons) and a small blue bin meant for paper and cardboard products. London recently improved their recycling program to include a wider range of plastics; now all plastic containers numbered one through seven on the bottom can be recycled.
But when it comes to recycling electronics, it's not as easy as just separating your plastics from your papers — only certain locations accept recycled electronic material. Recycleyourelectronics.ca is a website that lists all locations that accept various recycled electronics. You can enter the electronic device you are discarding and enter your postal code or your community and it will show you the closest places to recycle.
Near Fanshawe College, there are Dynamex (2515-B Blair Blvd., a 10-minute drive from campus) and Ardiel Electronics (21579 Highbury Rd. N., a 15-minute drive from campus).
Another thing people generally don't think about recycling is cars. Why would you recycle if you can sell it and make money? As a student, selling an old car can be very appealing. Living on a student budget is hard, and owning a car on that budget is sometimes not even feasible, which is why many students' first cars are often on their last legs.
As much as people try to make money off their cars, sometimes they are just too old — what Ontario Automotive Recyclers Association (OARA) calls “end-of-life” vehicles. If selling becomes impossible, recycling is a smart alternative... just ensure it's done right.
OARA does just that. This is not your typical junkyard lot. It has a set of standards on how a car is to be recycled properly and safely.
Steve Fletcher, OARA's Executive Director, said, “The code itself is not prescriptive in terms of how you specifically need to do something. It's more (about) the outcomes. We have 130 members across Ontario doing it 100 different ways. But in essence you need to remove the operating fluids before it's crushed. So you take them out in open areas so you are not contaminated, and somewhere it can be contained so it does not get into the environment. You have to be licensed to collect, contain and dispose of all the chemicals.” Fletcher said everything is documented in a registry.
End-of-life vehicles are one of the most recyclable commodities in a consumer market, but only one third of end-of-life vehicles actually have any record of being recycled, said Fletcher.
“Ninety-five per cent of all vehicles are collected at some point in their life to be recycled,” said Fletcher. “About 83 per cent of a vehicles can be reused and about 73 per cent of a vehicle can be reused for its metallic cost.
Recycling vehicles is one of the greenest initiatives that can be taken. The OARA takes all roadlicensed vehicles from motorcycles to 18-wheelers.
The standards of the OARA developed out of the Retire Your Ride Program. “We've developed the OARA getting government of all levels to recognize that code as the starting point for a regulatory starting place for anybody who wants to take part in the industry. It's an industry that has been around for a while and now we're putting standards behind it,” said Fletcher. “Retire Your Ride was a catalyst to put this sort of practice into play.”
There are concerns associated with the program such as disposing of vehicle identification numbers (VINs) so they cannot be reused illegally. However, Fletcher assured complete disposal.
“All of our members as part of our requirement keep a registry of every vehicle that enters their business and whether they wreck it or re-sell it. So we helped the government put in place a branding loss registry so that is permanently putting a vehicle in a registry whether a vehicle has been in a crash or whether it's a part-only vehicle.”
Although this type of recycling does not make you any money, it also does not cost you anything. Any vehicles can be dropped off free of charge.
“Having your car go through this type of system doesn't cost anything, unlike electronics where there needs to be a subsidy involved in order to properly collect and dispose of the equipment,” said Fetcher. “But because there's no regulatory backing to our program yet, it's a profitable program without having to accept fees. There are no eco-fees and no cost to the consumer.”
You can get just as much out of this program as you give into it. To buy recycled parts, “identify who your recycler is on our website (oara.com). We also have a consolidated website so members can search their model and part and it will generate a report as to who has that part and where,” said Fletcher.
To find green parts or to recycle your end-of-life vehicle, visit oara.com. There are members all over Ontario, including Corey Auto Wreckers located at 1804 Gore Rd. in London — check them out at coreyautowreckers.com.
