Green hobby?

[Hammers]

Sweden has a fairly evolved system for recycling so I have a fairly elaborate system for sorting our household trash involving bags and bins for each sort of rubbish (plastic, glass, metal, newspaper, cardboard, compost, electronics, hazardous material, redemption bottles, murder victims).

As I have come into the habit of dealing with the debris of our home this way, I feel a pang of guilt every time i clean out the shed where I do my hobby work. I contribute to a substantial amount of rubbish through the hobby, probably some of the more environmentally unfriendly materials to (metal filings, strong solvents, plastics...).

I am curious if anyone has set up a workbench system for sorting the trash you produce as you paint your miniatures and build your scenery.

[shadowbeast]

The closest I get to a system is "if it looks like it could be used, it tends to hang around; if not it goes right in the garbage". In modelling terms, nothing but paper and card are recyclable; nothing else used in modelling is recycled in my city.
Occasionally offcuts from lasercut kits may be put into a tray in a parts bin unit.

[Vanvlak]

I have no space for storing trash on my workbench, other than a tiny container for non-recyclable and very small rubbish, so anything to be thrown away gets dealt with directly, recycling anything recyclable, except when I see opportunities for reuse instead.
When I clear out the piles of stuff I keep to reuse in scenery I usually - again - separate as I'm working.

[von Lucky]

The three 'Rs' for me (reduce, reuse, recycle). Like shadowbeast I recycle paper/card as much as possible - everything else is in a bits box or bin.

That said - you should see house construction if you really want to see material waste that goes into landfill

[Vanvlak]

There is one item which always worried me - sprues.
Although I reuse some, I almost always end up with more than I can manage. To my knowledge it's not recyclable. The parent company could possibly reuse it - I believe at one point some years back GW were collecting sprues for re-use at their outlets - but have no idea what I could currently do with the stuff.

[Hammers]

Those sprues end up here, eventually: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch

[Vanvlak]

Those sprues end up here, eventually: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch

Not good.
Some polymers can be ground done and used as filler in future moulding, so that would be an ideal way to dispose of these, if a mechanism were in place.

[FifteensAway]

That nano-plastics in the ocean situation is genuinely frightening, discovered the issue a few weeks ago. 

I've kept more than 90% of 30 years worth of filings on metal castings, many thousands of figures and is starting to add up.  The stuff not saved was the too small and incidental fallings that get swept up later.  I figure it can easily be melted down and poured some day.  And, at least, it isn't out polluting somewhere.  Glad to see others have some concerns.

The oceans stop working and we're all in serious trouble.

[Hammers]

That nano-plastics in the ocean situation is genuinely frightening, discovered the issue a few weeks ago.  

I've kept more than 90% of 30 years worth of filings on metal castings, many thousands of figures and is starting to add up.  The stuff not saved was the too small and incidental fallings that get swept up later.  I figure it can easily be melted down and poured some day.  And, at least, it isn't out polluting somewhere.  Glad to see others have some concerns.

The oceans stop working and we're all in serious trouble.

Recycling becomes a habit once you'v started. I don't think the wargaming ecosystem makes the largest footprint, but one can do ones bit.

[Daeothar]

I have a large box labelled 'Junk Pile', into which all shapes and materials are stored that might have some sort of modelling potential. This includes not a small amount of former household appliances etc. It's a good thing we, as hobbyists, are mostly compulsive hoarders of anything usable (and even luckier that those parts tend to be small enough to be stored in reasonable containers).

Because I've studied gold/silver-smithing for a bit (conservating and restoring to be exact), I learned early on to conserve all metal shavings (YPU will undoubtedly confirm this way of working ). With a leather apron back then, and careful brushing nowadays, but I still do it, even with plastics. Over the course of a session, I will have collected two neat little piles; one metal and one plastic, which I will dispose of after I'm done.

All plastic cut offs and empty sprues end up in the plastic recycling bin. The metal shavings and filings end up binned (and let's be fair; there can never have been more than a half (or even a quarter of) a pound in over 25 years of hobbying, and that's being generous). But any cut off metal sprue, slotta-tab or other large part is saved. I have quite a heavy collection of those now. For what reason? I don't know, but there they are. I vaguely recall deciding to save them in case I would want to cast my own miniatures though...

To be honest; I don't think my hobby activities are having a very huge environmental footprint on my side of the chain, but I obviously can't speak for the industry as a whole. Tin mining is prohibitively damaging, and what goes on in the production of plastics is probably better off not mentioned. Especially since a lot of this production has been moved to China in the past decade. Then there's the production of glues and paints, which is also inherently chemical and (depending on the location of production) wasteful.

And one also has to consider the transport of our goodies all over the world. Sending stuff all over with priority airmail, and couriers zooming around with their vans for even a bits buy of a couple of grams of plastic!

The only real environmental concern I had with my hobby used to come from me using Dot 4 brake fluid for stripping paint. That stuff does not like the environment, and I had to dispose of it at the municipal recycle and waste collection point (where one has to take anything not allowed in of the 3 separate waste containers each household has, all separated).

I have exclusively used Simple Green ever since my first trip to the US back in 2009 though; no more toxic fluids there.

Overall, I think we're certainly not clean, but in the grand scheme of things not too damaging either, especially when we take care to do what little we can contribute, such as separating waste. There is some chance that we will be able to influence the industry that precedes us in the chain (the games industry and miniature casters), but very little chance of us and them influencing the big suppliers preceding them (plastic granulate producers, metal mines and forges and the chemical industry), since we're only a very small part of their revenue.

But think of it this way; at least we're not the car crowd, burning out or drifting our tires to the thread, guzzling fuel, lubricant and coolant while we're at it too...