Monday, June 25, 2012

Conley Students Awarded with Pie-Throwing Contest for Recycling Efforts

Fifth grade student Taylor Hallam throws a pie at her teacher Mrs. Edie Gogny and Ms. Jill Adams in celebration of winning $4,000 in the Waste Management and PepsiCo Dream Machine Recycle Rally.
Brave staff participants Mrs. Michelle Kenefick, Mrs. Julie McLaughlin, Mr. Ed Garza, Mrs. Edie Gogny, Ms. Jill Adams, Mr. Shawn Nordeen, Mr. Marcus Boynton, and Ms. Alice Stech.
Upload Photos and Videos

Recycling efforts by students at Conley Elementary School, 750 Academic Drive in Algonquin, have paid off.

The school recently learned it won $4,000 through the Waste Management and PepsiCo’s nationwide Dream Machine Recycle Rally contest, according to a District 158 press release. In total, students collected 194,900 bottles and cans over the past nine months as part of the challenge.

As a way to celebrate, the students from the top three classrooms that brought in the most bottles and cans—Mrs. Edie Gogny, Mrs. Julie McLaughlin and Mrs. Michelle Kenefick’s classes—took part in a pie-throwing contest last week. The students threw pies in the faces of some Conley staff members.

Conley Elementary ranked 41st in the nation for its recycling efforts through the Dream Machine Recycling Rally contest, according to a District 158 press release. In total, 618 schools participate in the recycling challenge. An average of 212 containers were collected per student over the past nine months.

The $4,000 prize from Pepsi Co will be used to further Conley's recycling efforts. The top prize was $50,000. 

Monday, June 18, 2012

New waste system hopes to improve city's record on recycling

Last week, crews started to deliver Winnipeg's first recycling carts to neighbourhoods in the northwestern part of the city. Over the next three months, Winnipeg will replace homeowners' blue boxes and garbage cans with automated garbage and recycling carts in an effort to get residents to recycle more and throw out less. It's part of the waste overhaul approved by city council, and one major goal is to boost recycling.

The 240-litre recycling carts hold the equivalent of roughly four blue boxes. That means in a short period of time, the Henry Avenue plant will be collecting, shipping and selling about 15 per cent more tightly packed bales of newsprint, cans and mixed plastic that will be turned into new products in processing plants as far away as China.

"It doesn't sound like a lot, but it is," said Randy Park, city supervisor of waste diversion. "The changes we're doing to our collection, that's going to drive (up) the incoming amount of tonnage; that's going to really help everybody at their home recycle more."

"When we recycle more, we're going to separate more out, and we're going to sell more."

When Winnipeg first launched its curbside residential recycling program in 1995, the onus was on residents to separate and sort their discarded containers. Plastic containers went in the box, and all paper materials needed to be placed inside a separate bag.

Today, everything Winnipeggers throw in their blue box lands in one big pile and is sorted by machine and by hand.

One of the biggest misconceptions is recyclables get thrown out. In fact, Park said, about 96 per cent of the recyclables Winnipeggers put in their blue boxes are sold and turned into other products.

The core-area material recovery facility is operated by Emterra, which has a contract to collect, sort and sell all Winnipeg recyclables.

Park said the facility ships the products as soon as it can -- about 130 bales a day of tightly packed recyclables or the equivalent of about six semi-trailer loads -- because there is little room to store them.


"I think a lot of people think it goes to the landfill. There's a lot of cynicism about the recycling program, and people need to realize it does help the environment significantly," said Green Action Centre spokesman Josh Brandon.

Brandon said more public education is needed to make citizens aware of recycling's benefits and how they can participate in the program. He said "it's a shame" Winnipeg used to be a leader in residential recycling and has since fallen behind other jurisdictions and puts more waste into landfills.

Despite recent public consultations over garbage and recycling collection, Brandon said some people still don't understand it.

"A lot of people now see the program as it's going out as a bit of a negative thing," Brandon said. "People are being forced into a situation where they can't put out an unlimited amount of garbage that they used to be able to."

Regardless, the city expects to see an immediate boost in recycling.

Neighbourhoods in the city's northwest were the first to test the new garbage carts in 2010, and after one year, the area recorded the highest level of recycling Winnipeg has seen -- 47,000 metric tonnes -- and saw the amount of waste sent to the landfill drop by nearly 11,000 metric tonnes compared with the previous year.

A similar spike is expected once the carts are fully operational city-wide, which is why Winnipeg is working to increase the capacity at the recycling facility.

Park said the facility operates near capacity, and by most afternoons the tipping floor is full of heaps of recyclables. The plant has had to extend its hours in order to sort and ship the additional recyclable volumes, he said.

Aside from residential recycling, Brandon said he would like to see the city work to address commercial and institutional waste problems. It is cheaper for companies to throw their waste into a landfill than recycle it.

"We need to tackle tipping fees and to put more resources into making recycling the easiest option for business in Manitoba," he said.

Thursday, June 14, 2012

The Function and Types of Shear Machine

There are many types of shears used to shear sheet metal. Shearing, also known as die cutting, is a process which cuts stock without the formation of chips or the use of burning or melting. Strictly speaking, if the cutting blades are straight the process is called shearing; if the cutting blades are curved then they are shearing-type operations. The most commonly sheared materials for shear machine are in the form of sheet metal or plates, however rods can also be sheared. Shearing-type operations include: blanking, piercing, roll slitting, and trimming. It is used in metalworking and also with paper and plastics. Following I will introduce 6 different types of shear.

    Alligator Shear: It is a metal-cutting shear with a hinged jaw, powered by a flywheel or hydraulic cylinder. Alligator shears are generally set up as stand-alone shears, however there are types for excavators.

    Bench Shear: It is usually used for cutting rough shapes out of medium sized pieces of sheet metal, but cannot do delicate work. For the small shear, it mostly designed for a wide field of applications. Light weight and easy efficient operation, yet very sturdy in construction.
  
    Power shears: A power shear is electrically or pneumatically powered hand tool designed to blank large pieces of sheet metal. They are designed to cut straight lines and relatively large radius curves. They are advantageous over a bandsaw because there is not a size limit.
    Throatless shear: It is a cutting tool used to make complex straight and curved cuts in sheet metal.
    Tin snips: Snips are hand tools used to cut sheet metal and other tough webs. Tin snips are one of the most popular type of snips. Depending on the size of the blade, tin snips can cut between 23 and 16 gauge cold rolled low-carbon steel.

Monday, June 11, 2012

7-Eleven and Envirobank join forces to promote recycling

Convenience franchise, 7-Eleven, has teamed up with Envirobank Recycling, the company behind reverse vending recycling machines, rolling out a trial of the first two Envirobank machines in NSW's Kensington South and Victoria's Brandon Park.

Similar to a vending machine, customers can deposit an empty plastic bottle, aluminium can or plastic Slurpee cup into the machines, located out the front of the 7-Eleven sites, and receive a reward voucher for instant redemption in that 7-Eleven store.

During the two month trial, free gifts will include a Slurpee upgrade or $1 Cadbury chocolate bar, but luckier recyclers will be in with a chance to win an Apple iPad, iPod Touch, eight $25 fuel vouchers or four one month free Slurpee cards.

Warren Wilmot, 7-Eleven CEO, is most excited about the fact that the franchise's plastic Slurpee cups can be recycled. "Customers love our Slurpees and we're excited that our plastic Slurpee cups can be now be recycled at these two stores. Our aim through this joint initiative with Envirobank is to reduce the amount of litter in the areas around our stores to make it more pleasant for everyone and increase the material that can be recycled," he said.

Monday, June 4, 2012

Be Counted With Recycling Savings Calculator

As company owner, you can determine just how much additional income you are able to acquire once you sell recyclable products. However, maybe you have thought of just how much savings will your business have whenever you participate in recycling and “go green” programs? For this specific purpose, you might require a recycling savings calculator. This kind of calculator aids you count just how much you save whenever you begin recycling.

Whenever administration finds out just how much financial savings the organization can get for recycling, management can move the funds for expansion or even employee rewards. This plan might have the co-operation of staff as well as the recycling program will be effective.

The recycling resources that companies as well as organizations can use are paper and cardboards, most sorts of plastic and some metals. To procedure these recyclable goods, your business could have to purchase gear.

On the non-monetary side, this significantly of paper scarp can conserve more than 1 thousand five hundred trees, more than 6 thousand pounds of air pollution, conserve about 800 gallons of oil, seven hundred thousand gallons of water and over 600 thousand of electrical power in kilowatt-hour.

Plastic scrap as a single of recycling resources can’t provide exactly the same financial savings as paper scrap. A recycling savings calculator can figure out just about $20 savings for landfill expenditure for the usage of about 4 cubic yards of landfill for a single 1, 000 pounds of plastic scrap. Nonetheless, even when conservation of energy and oil is much less than 8 thousand and much less than 200 respectively, this a lot of conservation may go a lengthy way to make earth a better spot to reside.

Man of course can also be amongst the recycling resources. It is possible to calculate the potential financial savings a worker can contribute to the business he belongs. Based on the Surroundings Protection Agency (EPA) determines that a staff produces over 4 lbs of waste every day. If seventy per cent of this is recyclable, each and every employee generates 84 pounds of waste in 30 days or about 1008 pounds a year. If waste disposal expense is 2 cents per pound, a staff contribute $20.16 financial savings. This quantity is low per employee, but not once you have 100 workers. Your organization can save $2,016 for waste disposal price.

There are other recycling resources. Nonetheless, it has no value if you usually do not find methods of making good use of it. Look to get a recycling savings calculator so you are able to start counting just how much chance expense you might be missing and start doing something to save for your business and for our atmosphere.