CONSERVE
It seems obvious; a barrel of oil not used is a barrel of oil saved. However, many of us think of recycling before we think of conservation. Although reusing and recycling is important and significant, not using oil in the first place is the best way to fight dependency and the negative impacts of it. There are a number of ways we can do this without negatively impacting our lifestyle or causing ourselves great inconvenience, like buying less to avoiding overly-packaged products to shopping locally to increasing our miles per gallon to telecommuting to consolidating trips in the car. Think before you consume. If you don’t need it, don’t consume it.
REUSE
Of course, there are certain things we all need to live our lives and we are going to consume them. However, there are few cases—such as that of medical supplies—in which it’s necessary to use plastic once and then discard it. We can reuse many items, thus saving oil. For example, zip-top and shopping bags are built for strength and are difficult to recycle. Why then do most of us use them only once and throw them away? We can reuse them. We can also, for example, choose re-usable storage containers over disposable ones to avoid buying and tossing numerous water bottles and other containers. Remember, if it is plastic, it is likely made from oil. If you have to have it, choose glass when you can, but if you can’t, reuse the plastic. It is durable and washable (hand washing is better than machines for energy use) and there is no need to use it only once.
RECYCLE
So, if you can’t avoid it and you can’t reuse it (or it has just become too worn out), recycle it. Some plastics can be recycled and all motor oil should be recycled.
Plastics:
Americans recycle only about 5% of the plastics produced in the country, largely because industry isn’t incited to recycle them due to the expense and amount of energy required and partly because the system is confusing to many. Before you buy plastics, check not only to see if they can be recycled by looking for the recyclable symbol, but also if they are easily recyclable by checking the number in the symbol. The most easily and commonly recycled plastics are #2, High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE) commonly found in milk jugs, detergent bottles, and trash bags, and #1, Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) used in soft drink bottles, peanut butter jars, and mouthwash bottles, followed by #5, Polypropylene (PP) used in most yogurt containers, straws, bottle caps, and diapers, and #4 Low-Density Polyethylene (LDPE) found in grocery bags, produce bags, food wrap, and bread bags. All other numbers (3, 6, and 7) are recycled only at very negligible levels and should be avoided if at all possible. #3 plastic is particularly nasty, so much so that there is a large movement to phase out the use of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) altogether because it poses serious health threats at every stage of its life cycle.
Motor Oil:
Recycling used motor oil keeps it out of our rivers, lakes, streams and even the ground water. All used motor oil should be recycled. As a matter of fact, throughout the U.S. it is often illegal to dispose of used oil in sewers, drainage systems, surface or ground waters, watercourses, or marine waters, by domestic incineration, or onto the land, or in the trash. Used motor oil is very recyclable and is typically re-refined into lubricating oil. Re-refining used oil not only takes pressure off the supply of new oil, but also takes 50-85% less energy than refining crude oil.
RESOURCES If you have curbside recycling, check to ensure what types of plastic your collector accepts before throwing it in the bin (adding plastics the collector does not accept can result in none of the plastic being recycled).
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