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Fun Recycled Products
How many of us really know the difference between the terms Fair Trade and Ethical Trading? These are terms we are asked to mingle with every day due to the new green conscious world we now inhabit. I hope a brief and possibly over simplistic explanation will save many readers from the confusion created by these two terms and the embarrassment of not knowing the intricate differences when faced with a newly informed client.
Fair trade is primarily concerned with the payment for goods and services at a fair rate, thereby ensuring producers get a fair deal. One basic criteria of fair trade includes employees being paid what is termed a living wage, a level of pay that can sustain that employee in their given country. There are often no real meaningful minimum wage laws in developing countries and where there are, they are often not upheld or policed sufficiently. This is why independent organisations and responsible purchasers monitor pay and inform the foundation of fair trade principles.
Why We Should Recycle
Are you wondering why we should recycle? I mean, what’s the big deal with recycling? I thought maybe it was all just a bunch of hype until I really started exploring why we should recycle. Let’s go through some of the thoughts behind recycling.
When we used recycled items, the earth benefits from less air pollution, less water pollution and significantly less waste. Recycling really does make a difference, even in the smallest ways.
The Benefits of Recycling – It’s Not All About the Environment
There are many direct and indirect benefits associated with recycling. Virtually all of them will come under one of the big three categories: environmental, economic and energy. I like to call these the 3 E`s of recycling. Let`s take a closer at each one.
Environmental Benefits of Recycling
Live to Recycle to Have a Life to Live
Recycling involves the collecting of waste or materials that are no longer in use. The recyclables are sorted according to similarities in their basic components, like: plastics, paper, and metal. The recyclables then goes through a process whereby its components are broken down and cleansed. After the process, recycled clean materials ready to be shaped into a final product and used. A good example of a recycled material is aluminum can soda. Once collected, sorted and shredded at the recycling plant; the shredded aluminum will be brought to a facility that will turn it again to sheets of aluminum and into soda cans. The effects of this single process, is tremendous.
Since aluminum cans are 100% recyclable, they can be whole recycled and used again. If it was added to a landfill, it would take 200 years to biodegrade.
Recycling Ideas For an Old Banana Skin!
As recycling ideas continue to build up around the UK and around the world did you know that there are at least a couple of ways in which you can recycle banana skins for the benefit of your shoes!
This is a particularly use of banana skins which goes back decades although it is something that has been overlooked even in the recent recycling trend. Apparently rubbing the inside of a banana skin onto brown leather shoes is said to “feed” the leather and give a greater shine and look to your shoes. It also appears as though this particularly strange polishing instrument also has the same effect on silverware, giving a new shine and a new look to those old ornaments.