Environmental Responsibility: Going Beyond Basic Recycling - Finger Lakes, NY

In the United States it is common to find parcels of land and the edges of farms that were used as personal dumping grounds. Some locations may have been using the same location for more than fifty years like this location from the Finger Lakes Region of New York featured in the video. Across the United States it's regularly pushed and the average person knows they should and can recycle their bottles and cans. A redemption center, the grocer, or even the recycling bin on the side of the road are options for anything you paid a deposit on. For recycling on the side of the road some areas allow no sort. Other areas require you to sort your products by paper, plastic, metal, and glass. These categories are sometimes broken down even further, but these are the general universal categories.

What most do not realize, recognize, or even try to do is recycle their scrap metal and E-Waste. There are so many opportunities for this. Some E-Waste can be taken in to stores like Staples for recycling. A lot of it may be accepted at the scrap metal recycler. If you have larges amounts that need to be recycled but do not have the means to transport it, find a junk-man ad in the classifieds or on bulletin boards. You can also leave an ad for free scrap on Craigslist and responses will start coming. Your last option is put it on the side of the road with or without a free sign and it will slowly disappear. Even cans from dog, cat, tuna, beans, etc. . . can be taken to a scrap recycler. Sort the types of metals apart(usually magnetic vs. nonmagnetic) and they'll even pay you for it. Got a pile of old busted Christmas lights? They can be taken in too.

Do not leave a landfill for future generations to deal with like the one in the attached video.