As interest in green issues increases, more and more people are taking a look at their trash and trying to reduce the amount of waste they send to landfill.
We all know plastic bags are bad, whether it’s the packaging our food comes in or the bags we bring our groceries home in. And we also know that anything we can reuse or recycle is generally better for the environment.
But going on vacation recently, I wanted to buy some disposable cameras that I could take with me throughout the day, without risking damaging my regular digital camera. The question was: are these disposable cameras bad for the environment?
My assumption was that they had to be. After all, they are made of plastic. You ship your camera, the film is removed, and then the camera body is thrown away. Or is that it?
Further investigation revealed a rather amazing secret. Most disposable tubes are made in a “modular” format so that multiple pieces can be removed. For example, the flash may come off, the rear door covering the film, etc.
So it turns out that disposable cameras are not normally thrown away.
The film developer, of course, first carefully removes your film and then develops it for you. But then the camera body, far from going to landfill, is often sent back to the manufacturer for recycling.
The main camera itself is repaired, necessary parts replaced and batteries swapped out for the flash (while the old ones are recycled) and then repackaged and resold with almost no waste.
So despite my initial misgivings, it seems like disposable cameras are surprisingly friendly to the environment if you ignore the fact that they’re almost always made from plastic which, of course, comes from petroleum.
But once the main body of the camera has been manufactured, it is recycled and reused over and over again, greatly reducing the environmental impact of these cameras. Imagine my surprise!