 The Clarinet BBoard
|
Author: C2thew
Date: 2007-01-24 06:03
I know this might be a minor concern in regards to the rest of the other larger issues in the world, but i'm a person who likes to recycle, even though it costs alot of resources to recycle in the first place. I've been thinking for awhile about plastic reed holders that come in vandoren and rico boxes and how almost every day someone is throwing out a plastic reed cover. is it cost effective to recycle these plastic holders? or should we just not even care about it at all? what do you guys think? just trying to minimize the pain in the environment.
Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. they are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which was already but too easy to arrive as railroads lead to Boston to New York
-Walden; Henry Thoreau
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Max S-D
Date: 2007-01-24 06:53
Well, Rico just switched from paper to plastic in the last few years. Maybe we could request that they go back?
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Mike Clarinet
Date: 2007-01-24 08:04
One of my other hobbies is model railways. I have used reed holders as wagon loads. When sprayed matt black or grey, they have the look of fabricated metal pieces used in heavy construction. When musical people ask what they are, I tell them that they are reed holders for BBBb sub-contra-mega-bass saxophone reeds. (In 4mm scale, they are about 20 - 30 feet long. I don't have one to hand to measure exactly). There are a lot of musical railway enthusiasts - about half a dozen in my band. There was even an item on my local news about a real train driver who is musical director of an amateur orchestra!
If we are concerned about recycling plastic reed holders, whould we also be concerned about the use of tropical hardwoods in instrument manufacture? Do the likes of Buffet, Selmer etc. use timber from sustainable sources? What about the impact of mining and mineral extraction for the metal parts? Or the pollution caused generating electricity for power tools? What about international artists jetting all over the world to perform? (hysteria...hysteria...we're doomed...doomed, I tell you!!!!)
While IMO every little thing counts, the impact of the music manufacturing industry must be minimal compared to other industries.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: bawa
Date: 2007-01-24 08:39
Well, you could campaign for your local authorities to recycle plastics.
We have had plastic recycling containers for the past six years or so. Actually, every rubbish point has containers for organic, paper, plastic and glass, plus the advertising boards have a neat "stem" that takes batteries for recycling. I have 3 such points within 25 metres of my home.
A little more spaced apart are the containers for recycling textiles and shoes.
This is true for most cities, towns and villages around here.
In fact, when they first put them in place, they were taken aback at how successfull they were: they had thought it would take people time to get used to them but people were more than ready for the change.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2007-01-24 08:53
A professional in my life considers all music to be a gigantic marketing con....
We are indoctrinated about the significance it plays in our lives. We are indoctrinated by the marketers of recordings to have a need for them. Some of us indoctrinated into wasting time learning and buying instruments.
In the light of this, wouldn't it be environmentally friendly just to give up music (and perhaps everythjinig else) in your life? Hmm. There does seem to be an ELEMENT of truth.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: skygardener
Date: 2007-01-24 11:32
I also have a problem that they are made of an unrecyclable plastic.
I have made a few things out of them over the years. Once I drilled a few holes in a bunch and ran a string through tham all and made a coaster for pots. Maybe we can use them to make plastic clarinets???
I once asked somone from Vandoren if I could maybe cash them in, like Bazooka Joe points. Nope.
However they would refill the old reed holders for me for the same price as the normal price of reeds, but I have to send them to him in NYC first- save the plastic or use the gas to get the plastic there... 6 of one...
paper is better... or we could make our reeds. You get 50 blanks in a plastic bag.
-S
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: bawa
Date: 2007-01-24 12:20
skygardener,
Why do you say that the reed holder plastic is unrecyclable?
I am asking just to know if someone has given you this specific information.
I understand that they recycle every kind of plastic container here, from cola bottles to yogurt pots, tetrapaks, really any kind of container, so reed holders should not be a problem.
In fact, if you have large, heavy or awkward items you want to throw away, the town hall will come and collect it for free from your house.
There is also a "clean area" in every locality that will collect anything like used cooking oil, electronics, furniture, garden waste, plastics, etc. etc. Maybe you have one nearby too...
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: BobD
Date: 2007-01-24 13:15
I am guessing that the vd reed holders are polyethylene and as such are recyclable. "It all depends on the going price for oil." All, or most, plastics today are made from oil. Whether any major user uses paper or plastic depends on some magical breakeven price of oil vs wood. If you do grocery shopping you will note the periodic shift from plastic bags to paper and back.
Bob Draznik
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2007-01-24 15:59
I think the Vandoren holders are polystyrene, like CD jewel cases. Does anyone know about the recyclability of that stuff? Polyethylene is less shiny and more flexible.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2007-01-24 18:04
In my community (in northern Virginia, USA), the only plastics we can recycle in the green bin (weekly door-to-door pickup) are the food-grade ones with a numeral "1" or "2" in a triangle molded into the bottom of the container. We can also recycle plastic bags, such as grocery bags and newspaper delivery bags, in bins at the supermarkets. We have to schlep other types of plastic, such as those unmarked reed holders, to an inconveniently-located regional facility. The need to make this trip vastly cuts down on the amount of non-food-grade plastic recycled around here. So here's a suggestion: If the reed companies do use food-grade plastic (and I suspect they do, since we put those reeds in our mouths), then have those holders manufactured with the "1" or the "2" molded into the plastic, so that we can toss them in the pickup bins along with the Coca Cola bottles.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2007-01-24 18:30
FWIW the Rico thingy is made of polypropylene (PP) with a "5" in the triangle.
Interestingly enough, the film canister I found here has a "2" and is made of HDPE.
Here, stores are required to take back difficult-to-dispose-of materials. So bring your old reed sleeves next time you go shopping for new ones.
--
Ben
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Terry Stibal
Date: 2007-01-24 20:43
However, "here" (in the Land Of The Free And The Brave™), such recycling programs are driving (for the most part) at the municipal level. Tires and batteries are handled through the retailers, and that's about it.
I am old enough to recall opening "fresh" boxes of reed, protected only by the slip of paper, only to find three out of the total damaged so much as to be useless. I'll prefer the holders, regardless of the environmental cost, until they come up with a better way to guard them.
I don't recall a recycling mark on the Vandorn holders.
leader of Houston's Sounds Of The South Dance Orchestra
info@sotsdo.com
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2007-01-24 21:00
> I'll prefer the holders, regardless of the environmental cost, until they
> come up with a better way to guard them.
I recall the [traditional] Japanese being really ingenious in packaging.
Maybe someone takes care of that problem and designs a nifty, aesthetic and environmentally sound (sic) reed package?
--
Ben
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2007-01-24 21:02
tictactux wrote:
> environmentally sound (sic) reed package?
It's always harder than it looks ... even uncoated cardboard and paper takes a very long time to decompose in a landfill. Witness newspapers still being readable after 150 years of being buried.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2007-01-24 21:11
Mark,
I was rather thinking of the "egg cartons" papiermaché. They decay rather quickly (and can be composted).
--
Ben
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: L. Omar Henderson
Date: 2007-01-24 22:31
It depends on the amount of "perceived" land fill or disposal space available and the cost. In most of Europe they have long since used up unmarketable space with landfills and are now very conscious and pocketbook sensitive about recycling - we should take a hint from them. As "bawa" indicates there is a pervasive recycling program everywhere in Spain (and I saw much of it lately) with easy and accessible containers for several varieties of disposables (one designated for wine bottles which I contributed to mightily). From a manufacturing point of view the plastic injection molded disposables are cheaper than multi-formed cardboard in the short run by a factor of 1.5. Biodegradable cardboard - paper- is about 3 times as expensive as plastic (at the moment of oil absurdity at $50/barrel), the long term cost, post consumer is 4-5 times greater to society however. As a volume contributor to the "trash" problem I think that clarinet players are in the <1% tail of the disposal curve however- I like your philosophy though!!
L. Omar Henderson
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: C2thew
Date: 2007-01-24 23:45
clarinet players are probably in the 0.01 % trash problem. but still, something should be done. i know it's not cost efficient for vandoren and rico to do so, but i think they should use recycled reed cases as long as they've been sterilized. i think that sending them in for like a dollar off the retail of another pack of reeds would be a good incentive just to recycle, then again, it will hurt their sales.
it's a double edged sword.
I suppose it's just being too optimistic.
Leave the environment untouched for future generations to enjoy.
Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. they are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which was already but too easy to arrive as railroads lead to Boston to New York
-Walden; Henry Thoreau
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: pewd
Date: 2007-01-25 00:49
>they are made of an unrecyclable plastic.
if vandoren would at least put the triangle with the proper product code (1,2,3 etc) on them, then i could dump them into recycle bin. since they are unmarked, they can't be recycled.
sure its only a tiny bit of plastic, but it would be so simple to stamp them with a recycle code number.
i would imagine a plastic reed holder in a landfill will probably not breakdown for thousands of years.
zonda reeds - i throw the paper into the recycle bin.
i also throw the boxes the reeds come in into the recycle bin.
wood clarinets - there was a thread some time back, someone commented that if you overhaul old clarinets, instead of throwing them away, you help (slightly) the wood supply problem.
so, everyone on this board email vandoren, maybe they'll listen...
- Paul Dods
Dallas, Texas
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: mk
Date: 2007-01-25 00:59
more importantly how many rain forests are being destroyed to harvest african blackwood......
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2007-01-25 01:02
mk wrote:
> more importantly how many rain forests are being destroyed to
> harvest african blackwood......
And the answer of course is ... none
African blackwood grows in the savannah
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: mk
Date: 2007-01-25 01:22
oh good, next time i go to savannah i will look for buffet tree plantations...
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: skygardener
Date: 2007-01-25 04:50
I stand corrected. Rico does use number 5 PP recyclable plastic. However, I have never seen a place were number 5PP can be recycled and anyone with slight scientific knowledge knows that it can't just be mixed with other types of recyclable plastic- you can't just put number 1 and number 5 in the same melting pot. There are a lot of types of plastics so that can get difficult- once I saw a number "42" inside the triangle.
As for Vendoren, I have not found any number on the case or the box that indicates exactly which type of plastic is being used. Technically, it is recyclable, but we have to know which melting pot to put it into, right.
I think paper is best, but then again, I live in an area that almost all types of paper products are recycled. Other places I have lived will not take anything except newspaper and magazine paper.
-S
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2007-01-25 12:06
Too bad about the "5" plastic. The local Staples takes back ink jet cartridges for recycling/refilling. Recently, the store instituted a promotion, giving a store discount coupon in return for the cartridge, but in days of yore, we just dumped the cartridges into a bin. The little reed packages clearly aren't worth enough money for a discount, but I wonder whether local music stores might offer a drop-off box for reed packages and other miscellaneous non-food grade plastics (broken mouthpiece caps, etc.). My neighborhood may be unusually "green" in that we've got block captains and other volunteers. Right now, there's no provision for volunteers to go around and pick up from businesses that phone when the drop-off bins fill up, and I'm not sure whether such a suggestion is realistic--but putting such an arrangement in place might encourage more recycling from a greater variety of stores. Or, the amount of plastic trash generated by a music store drop-off bin might be small enough for the store to simply assign an employee to run the stuff over to the recycling depot once a month or so.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Terry Stibal
Date: 2007-01-25 14:00
It's easy for anyone to suggest such a program, but for the people that have to implement it, it's quite another thing.
My wife was a long suffering teacher in a large metropolitan school district that maintained that same philosophy. After fifteen years of "It'll only take five minutes or so a day" additions to her duties, she was working a solid hour a day longer to try and crowd it all in.
Nickel and dime additions eventually aggregate to dollars once you have enough of them, and employers are already trying to cut labor costs as it is. Coming up with another "good idea" to implement that's going to impact their costs isn't going to be welcomed. When they translate into higher prices, many vote with their pocketbooks and opt to keep them in place rather than do the "right thing".
There have been many attempts to eliminate plastics from the waste stream, but the unfortunate truth is that they are the best material (both in suitability and in costs) for the job. Our huge stream of rusting tin coated cans has been cut down to near the 5% level of that of forty years ago by the advent of plastic, and for 99% of the population, that was a very good thing indeed. We (as a culture) dislike plastic precisely for the very qualities that we value it for - a dilemma indeed...
(In Africa, the story goes that one of the most valuable possessions that a poor family can own is a plastic pail. It replaces the earthenware jugs that are used to draw and carry water, and it frees women from the drudgery of making multiple trips each day to keep a family alive. (The pails are light enough that a child can do the same work.) Even good old HDPE milk jugs are prizes in those cultures, while here all that we can do is grind them up to make fake lumber. One man's trash is another man's treasure and all of that...)
Don't get me wrong - I'm not a waster of any resource, I don't litter (in fact, I "anti-litter" as my wife and I harvest aluminum cans during our daily exercise walks), and I don't go out of my way to avoid recycling. We are prodigious consumers of newsprint (my wife "takes" no less than four different newspapers, as well as a few weeklies), but we carefully recycle every page of the stuff.
(That there is so little need for it by industry is one of the best-kept secrets - much if not all of the recycled newsprint in this area ends up landfilled, despite all of that effort.)
However, there are limits of reasonable efforts in every endeavor, and until the Vandorn holders are identified, you can't pitch them in the right bin. That's a manufacturing issues (one that I would have thought that the EU would have long ago addressed, which leads me to believe that their "power" isn't as much as some over there claim), not one that we can influence.
leader of Houston's Sounds Of The South Dance Orchestra
info@sotsdo.com
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
The Clarinet Pages
|
 |
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
