GC7FFNAReduce, Recycle, Reuse
Type: Mystery
| Size: Other
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By: PayMeCache & fearthefish@
| Hide Date: 11/29/2017
| Status: Available
Country: United States
| State: Colorado Coordinates: N39° 35.586 W104° 57.547 | Last updated: 08/30/2019 | Fav points: 0
The cache is not at the posted coordinates. However, the posted coordinates are a good place to practice the art of saving Mother Earth.
Saving our dear planet is the theme of this puzzle. It is amazing how much waste we can save by simply reducing, recycling, or reusing many of the products we have created throughout our years on this spinning ball of dirt. So, rather than waste space on the servers at geocaching.com with two separate caches, fearthefish and I combined our ideas into one, thus reducing the number of caches and containers on the surface of this third rock from the sun.
As you take a moment to ponder how to solve this puzzle, please keep in mind fearthefish really likes statistics.
In 2013, Americans generated about 254 million tons of trash and recycled and composted about 87 million tons of this material, equivalent to a 34.3 percent recycling rate. On average, we recycled and composted 1.51 pounds of our individual waste generation of 4.40 pounds per person per day.
So, rather than waste space on the servers at geocaching.com with two separate caches, fearthefish and I combined our ideas into one, thus reducing the number of caches and containers on the surface of this third rock from the sun.
On average, it costs $30 per ton to recycle trash, $50 to send it to the landfill, and $65 to $75 to incinerate it. That being said it is reported that 9 out of 10 people would recycle more if it were made easier.
1 recycled tin can would save enough energy to power a television for 3 hours. 1 recycled glass bottle would save enough energy to power a computer for 25 minutes.
On average, 16% of the money you spend on a product pays for the packaging, which ultimately ends up as rubbish.
Up to 60% of the rubbish that ends up in the dustbin could be recycled.
The unreleased energy contained in the average dustbin each year could power a television for 5,000 hours.
Americans use about 50 billion plastic water bottles per year. However, the U.S.'s recycling rate for plastic is only 23 percent. Thus, 38 billion water bottles are wasted each year. The recyclable materials in the U.S. waste stream would generate over $7 billion if they were recycled. That's equivalent to Donald Trump's net worth!
Almost every hour, nearly 250,000 plastic bottles are dumped. It is not surprising that plastic bottles constitute close to 50% of recyclable waste in the dumps...
A plant takes a minimum of 15 to 20 years to grow into a tree, but takes less than ten minutes to be felled, and on an average one tree can yield about 700 paper grocery bags, which will be consumed in less than an hour by a supermarket!
According to The Public Recycling Officials of Pennsylvania, for every ton of paper that is recycled, the following are saved:
17 trees
275 pounds of sulfur
350 pounds of limestone
9,000 pounds of steam
60,000 gallons of water
225 kilowatt hours
3.3 cubic yards of landfill space
Energy used to recycle paper is close to 70% less than when paper is prepared using virgin wood and other raw material.?
You can validate your puzzle solution with certitude.
GC93AVT Gandalf (1.18 kms S) GC21JB4 Gorilla Watering Hole (6.30 kms SW) GC80WKQ You can bank on this cache (6.73 kms E) GCA2FT3 Einstein, et alia (7.65 kms NW) GC93AQT Sikslalad cache of awesome (12.23 kms SE)
10/26/2018 By sleuthers I spent a long time struggling on the multiple stages of this puzzle, and eventually ended up seeking some hints. I was in the area today and signed the log. Cheers.
04/23/2018 By fearthefish I want to thank the wonderful and devious PayMeCache for including me in this puzzle cache creation and placement.
As we began to work on this hide, we agreed that we wanted to make a truly challenging puzzle cache. Our goal was to create something so sinister that those who unraveled the mystery and found this cache would feel a sense of accomplishment (or, at a minimum, relief).
When we bounced ideas off of each other, fiendish grins and maniacal laughs came from both of us. I would think of something and PayMeCache would add a demonic twist or vice versa. By the time we finished, we had created a masterpiece of puzzling genius and/or cruelty (depending on your viewpoint).
The Geocache Rating System defines a 5 star difficulty cache as one that "requires very specialized knowledge, skills, or equipment to find cache. This is a serious mental or physical challenge." This cache is, without question, a 5 star difficulty and I hope those of you insane enough to tackle this one enjoy what we made for you.
03/15/2018 By animjason That was an adventure! Found with Bhob.
More later...
JK! I admit I needed a plethora of nudges, but that was a cool layer of puzzling puzzles.
Loved the final, and will move the trackable along. Thanks, gets a fave!
Thanks PayMeCache & fearthefish! Logged Reduce, Recycle, Reuse from a seventh galaxy using c:geo!
~ Cache find #9536 ~
02/24/2018 By the5millers Co -{FTF} @ 5:28pm with Benj59, PoshCacher and MagicCacher. Where do I begin with amazing puzzle. When this first published the PoshCacher and I tried to wrap our heads around what we were looking at. Then I threw up my hands and was like this is impossible!!! Then we started looking at it in a different way . Piece by piece we started to put things together... or so we thought. The next piece Benj59 and us teamed up. We thought this is no problem... wrong!!! After we reached the next problem we smacked ours heads against the wall for weeks. Benj59 was the ultimate genius in the last part... I could not believe it. Once we had the final coordinates, we thought we got this. Today MagicCacher was the Right TOTT for this Retrieval. What a great time all around!!! Dropped a TB. Can’t wait to do another one like this.... maybe not!! This was so brain hurting difficult. Gets a favorite point, wish I could give it more than 1, it deserves at least a 5. Keeping our streak alive. Thanks for placing this cache and keeping our recreation going. SL/with PoshCacher & MagicCacher & Benj59 . Tftc #1152 Found using Cachly on iPhone!
02/23/2018 By PoshCacher TFTC TNLN Found with: the5millers SL: PoshCacher
The_posh_cacher : @poshcacher
02/23/2018 By benj59 [FTF] at 5:28pm with the5millers, PoshCacher and MagicCacher.
This was quite the experience. It literally started months ago after it published. I ignored it for a while, and then I decided to tackle it since it was deemed almost impossible to solve. This ended up truly being a joint effort between the four of us. T5M figured out the initial stage and then we got stuck. Once we knew what to do though, I figured the next part fairly quickly. So quickly in fact that a piece was altered to make it slightly more difficult for the next solver. (sorry about that everyone) Several weeks passed and then we teamed up again for the next stage. We were determined to get the final. But that idea died a heavy death with significant mocking from the COs. At this stage, PoshCacher was crucial to our success of just getting everything in place. But what to do next?! This kicked off weeks of off and on theorizing, spitballing, analysis, frustration, ignoring, and more wild and crazy ideas then you could shake a stick at. And then, it hit me. What if....? And yes! That was it! I couldn't believe it. I was very proud and pleased with my hypothesis. But that was weeks ago...
T5M and I talked off and on about getting the final but schedules could never align. Finally, FINALLY we decided to make it tonight. But that almost didn't happen. My wife's car battery died (dome light on last night) and she was using my car for a doctor appointment for our daughter. Were we ever going to get this find?? The battery got jumped (shout out to State Farm roadside service), and I was on my way. We met up at GZ and then it was MagicCacher who was able to spot what T5M and I couldn't. Eureka! Months of hard work finally paid off.
What a long, crazy adventure. This is definitely one for the books. And definitely a favorite.
Thanks for the hide PayMeCache and FearTheFish
Find number 1721
Found Reduce, Recycle, Reuse with Cachly app for iOS
Reduce, Recycle, Reuse
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