“One Man’s Trash …” Your guide to reducing, reusing and recycling Southeastern Indiana Recycling District Serving: Franklin, Jefferson, Jennings, Ohio, 812-574-4080 Ripley, Scott & Switzerland Counties www.seird.org Winter 2021 Quarterly Newsletter Which types of COVID Spring household hazardous trash are recyclable? waste local collection dates set SEIRD accepts HHW (household hazardous waste) from residents throughout Franklin, The pandemic has changed Jefferson, Jennings, Ohio, Ripley, Scott, and Switzerland counties. During 2021, two much of our lives. We are special collection days will be still spending more time at available in each county except home than we used to. Plus, Jefferson, where HHW is accepted when we are out, we see year-round. Residents from all seven people wearing face masks SEIRD counties can dispose of HHW and sometimes gloves in at the Jefferson County Recycle offices, stores, schools, and Center in Madison at 6556 North Shun almost everywhere. Soap, Pike Road, Building #534, inside the Jefferson Proving Ground, during hand sanitizer, paper towels, normal business hours. disinfecting wipes, and plastic Here is the HHW local collection bags are being used more schedule for this spring. All local than ever. Many families are collections take place on Saturdays: choosing grocery delivery and takeout food instead of going • April 3 to supermarkets or dining Franklin County Recycle Center, inside restaurants. Boxes and Brookville – 8 to 10 a.m. shipping envelopes are piling Batesville Area Recycle Center (Ripley Jefferson County up in homes due to increased County) – 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Recycle Center online shopping. And, while • April 10 we are keeping ourselves and Jennings County Recycle Center, North accepts HHW our neighbors healthier by Stella opts for a washable and reusable mask. And she Vernon – 8 to 10 a.m. doing all of these things, we hopes you remember that disposal masks, gloves, and Scott County Recycle Center, Scottsburg year-round. are also creating a lot of waste wipes go into the trash — not the recycling! – 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the process. • April 17 With all of this waste, it is very knives, straws, cups, clamshells, and lids into the trash, not the recycling. Switzerland County Recycle Center, East Enterprise – 8 to 10 a.m. important to know what to do with it. Here Ohio County Recycle Center, Rising Sun – 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. are some tips to recycle right and dispose • Collect empty, clean plastic bags and properly during the pandemic: drop them off in the special bins for HHW includes household cleaners, oil-based paint, insecticides, pesticides, and recycling located at the front of many automotive fluids. This includes powder, liquid, or crystallized HHW chemicals with their • Don’t litter. grocery and home improvement stores. original labels attached. If a product is labeled “Danger,” “Poison,” or “Warning,” there is • Choose washable, reusable cloth face • When ordering takeout food to eat a good chance that the unneeded portion is HHW. When HHW is not disposed of properly, masks, gloves, and cleaning cloths at home, ask the restaurant to leave whether it is mixed with household trash or poured on the ground, it can endanger humans, when it is safe to do so. out the free plastic forks, spoons, and wildlife, and our environment. • Refill soap and hand-sanitizer bottles straws. Just use what you have at home We’ll have a second round of local HHW collections this summer. Check our spring instead of replacing them. This keeps and create less waste! and summer newsletters for dates and locations. more hand pumps, which aren’t • When possible, refuse plastic bags recyclable and must be removed and at the grocery store. Choose reusable discarded, out of the landfills. bags, if permitted, or paper, which is • Place all disposable gloves, face more easily recycled. masks, and wipes into the trash, not the • If someone in your home is ill with What do I do recycling. COVID-19, place all waste –– • Flatten empty cardboard boxes before including recyclables –– into a plastic recycling them. bag and place that bag into the trash. with batteries? • Recycle all paper bags, mail and This will keep the workers at recycling Did you know that rechargeable batteries can be recycled at all of household papers, plastic bottles and sorting facilities safe and healthy. our Recycle Centers? We also accept non-cracked car batteries with jugs, food and beverage cans, and glass • Not sure if something is recyclable? cells capped. Standard household alkaline batteries do not contain bottles and jars. Remember that items Visit our website at www.seird.org or hazardous chemicals and can be disposed in the trash. Please attach tape on both ends of alkaline batteries before disposal. should be empty, clean, and dry. call us at 812-574-4080.We are happy Credit: ideation90 | iStock Getty Images Plus • Throw disposable forks, spoons, to answer all of your questions. Problem waste collections a huge success! We would like to thank our residents for recycling right and taking advantage of our free Difficult Disposal Days and HHW events. During 2020, we accepted over 447 tires, 336 electronic items, 94 refrigerant-containing appliances, and literally tons of household hazardous waste. Keep an eye on our newsletter, website, and Facebook page for details on waste disposal events for the coming year. We thank area residents for continuing to keep this “problem trash” out of our area creeks, streams, and roadways. For information about our programs, including how to #RecycleRight, call 812-574-4080 or visit www.seird.org. Page 2 WINTER 2021 Credit: onurdongel | iStock | Getty Images Plus Ken Butler’s melodious bones It’s trash day. Those passing by homes and buildings glimpse unwanted items peeking Bricolage /ˌbrēkōˈläZH / out of trash carts and dumpsters: a rusty snow shovel, an old golf club, and a broken (noun) a construction made store mannequin. Most of us see worthless junk. But a gifted few see this everyday from materials at hand discarded trash as the melodious bones of musical instruments just waiting to be spectacular assortment of trash just waiting created. to be made useful again. Although many Ken Butler, a talented artist, musician, artists create unique art from repurposed and inventor, is truly the father of this objects, Butler takes it to the next level craft. For over 40 years, he has been by giving his art the additional purpose of turning trash into a sometimes beautiful, creating music. According to Butler, his sometimes wacky, and always interesting work embraces the French term bricolage, hybrid of art and music. Growing up, Butler which he defines as “creating a new world excelled in art school and loved music, but or dimension by reusing, reimagining, Resolutions for a new and he was told that he could not be respected transforming, and merging found objects.” in either field if he were to combine the Butler has performed on “The two. Fortunately for us, Butler has had the Tonight Show,” alongside musician Laurie improved year tenacity, creativity, and intellect to prove Anderson, and at schools and venues them wrong. throughout the world. New York City’s Whatever resolutions you made for 2020 new recipes to match what you have Butler created his first instrument in Metropolitan Museum of Art displays a were probably revised by the COVID-19 on hand. Simply search online for the 1978 when he discovered a rusty old hatchet permanent collection of Butler’s hybrid pandemic, which rewrote much of life ingredients plus “recipe” and you may in the basement of his Portland, Oregon instruments, which are the ultimate example over the past year. As you face 2021 with be pleasantly surprised with a new home. At the time, he had been working of repurposing. hope and caution, consider some of these family favorite. on a visual art project involving what he For more information and to see photos resolutions that will reduce waste, save • Cook with scraps: Using up all of the describes as a “rather guitar-looking X-ray and videos of Ken Butler’s extraordinary money, and help you cope with the year food you have stretches your grocery of a human head and backbone.” Butler hybrid instruments, visit https://kenbutler. ahead. shopping dollars and reduces your food believes that is why he saw the shape of squarespace.com. • Focus on family fun: Last year waste. Search online for “cooking with a violin when he picked up the hatchet. offered many of us a lot of time with scraps” for creative recipes that use up Holding it at his neck like a violin, he found our families. This year, plan ahead for all of the food you buy. that the hatchet felt quite right. family time by swapping board games, • Shop smartly online: Online shopping “I hurried upstairs and was amazed to jigsaw puzzles, magazines, and books now reaches into every corner of see how perfectly it fit into my violin case,” with friends and neighbors. That way our lives. It’s very easy to make Butler reflects. “I then put two strings and everyone gets some fresh fun. You impulse purchases with just a couple two tuning pegs on it and plugged it into might also look for items to borrow of clicks. Instead, shop online as you my guitar amp and was quite stunned that from the local library or purchase used would at a physical store by setting it sounded like a horrible violin.” Although items at a secondhand store. a shopping time and using a list. he didn’t realize it at the time, that hybrid • Extend the life of your electronics: Whenever possible, choose the option hatchet would spark the transformation of We rely on electronic devices to keep to “ship items together” to reduce the art world, the music world, and Butler’s us connected and help us work and traffic, packaging waste, and vehicle career, as well.