10 Recycling Tips

So of course you are recycling, but there may be areas you can improve on. Check out this list of 10 great recycling tips:

1. Make sure you are recycling everything you can - contact your local recycling company for more information on what your community recycles.

2. Once you know what can be recycled, do your best to avoid items that can't be recycled.

3. Compost food scraps and yard waste.

4. Contact catalog companies to stop any catalogs you receive and choose to shop online instead.

5. Stop junk mail as much as you can by checking out the tips found at http://www.obviously.com/junkmail

6. Use the backs of any junk mail you receive for notes or shopping lists before putting them in the recycling bin.

7. Be sure to recycle your hazardous household waste properly, consult earth911.org for more info on how and where to recycle hazardous waste in your area.

8. Create an attractive and organized recycling center in your home so your family can easy help with your recycling efforts.

9. Create some recycling fun for your kids by making crafts with items that might typically end up in the trash. Need some inspiration, check your local library or bookstore for Laura C. Martin's book Recycled Crafts Box.

10. Try to find ways to recycle everything - donate used clothing to thrift stores, donate magazines, books, and movies to the library, donate cell phones to charitable organizations for recycling, donate old towels to the local animal shelter, donate craft supplies to local schools or nursing homes, offer items you no longer need on freecycle.org - the list goes on and on. Try to make the trash can the last choice for items you no longer need.

Disposing of CFLs

While compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) are great when it comes to saving energy, they do contain a small amount of mercury and need to be disposed of safely. Here's some tips for disposing of CFLs without trashing the environment:

1. Check to see if your current garbage service recycles CFLs.
2. Retail stores like IKEA and Home Depot offer a free CFL take-back program.
3. Check to find local recycling at Earth911.org

If you want to avoid the mercury in CFLs check out LED light bulbs. LED light bulbs are shatterproof, run cool to the touch, and contain no mercury or hazardous substances and while they will last longer than CFLs they are currently much more expensive starting at $25 a bulb. Hopefully as the technology improves on LEDs the price will decrease.

A Super Wasteful Promo

During last night's Super Bowl there was a 90-second 3D preview of the upcoming movie "Monsters vs. Aliens". This huge media stunt distributed 150 million 3D glasses at 28,000 locations at the cost of tens of millions dollars.

We watched the commercial with 3D glasses we already had in our house and it was really lame. Now most of those 150 million glasses will end up in landfills. Shame on you Disney this was stupid and wasteful. I don't know if my family would have gone to see this movie or not, but we are definitely not going after this wasteful stunt.

If you picked up a pair of 3D glasses for the Super Bowl, put them to good use at http://3dparks.wr.usgs.gov where you can view 3D photos from National Parks.

Recycle with Intent

I've previously discussed recycling magazines, which can be recycled by donating them to the library, nursing homes, or in some locations in your curbside recycling bin. However here's a fun activity to do before you recycle your magazines, use them to make an intention collage. I spent last night with some amazing women hanging out and making collages. Every creation was as unique as the woman who made it - some choose images, others words or phrases, others included beads or other objects that spoke to them. What is an intention collage or vision board? It is a collection of pictures, images, words, or phrases that reflects your passions or desires. You can do a board to bring a specific thing into your life - a new home, a puppy, a new career - or you can create a collage to discover your passions. Start by going through magazines and cut out phrases or pictures that appeal to you - don't analyze why you like a particular image or word just trust your intuition. Then go through your clippings and choose your favorites, weeding out ones that no longer feel right. Glue your items on your board and hang it in a place you will see it often. My collage came together to reveal my passion for living green and my desire to simplify mine & my family's life this year. I plan to do another collage with some things I'd like to manifest - a new home, a trip to Costa Rica, etc. My daughter also wants to make one, so I guess my magazines will hang around a bit longer before they make it to the recycling pile.

Greening the yellow pages

Here's a startling statistic - about 540 million unsolicited phonebooks arrive at American doors annually. Phonebooks account for about 660,000 tons of trash every year. With the internet, when was the last time you looked up a number in the yellow pages? Want to help save some trees and clutter around your house - remove yourself from the phone directory list at www.yellowpagesgoesgreen.org. If you like receiving the yellow pages and use them, be sure to recycle your old book when you get a new one, many cities accept them in their curbside paper recycling bins. Not sure if your city recycles phone books - check www.earth911.com

America Recycles Day

Tomorrow, November 15th is America Recycles Day the only day nationally recognized to encourage people to recycle, to purchase recycled products, and to pledge to improve their recycling habits.

The National Recycling Coalition strives to educate people on the importance of recycling and its positive impact on the environment through it's America Recycles Day program.

Why is recycling important?

1. By recycling you reduce the amount of waste that ends up in already overcrowded landfills.
2. Using recycled material instead of virgin materials uses less energy and conserves valuable resources. For example, five plastic soda bottles can be made into enough fiber to make one extra large T-shirt, one square foot of carpet or enough fiber to fill one ski jacket.

Interested in learning more and taking the America Recycles Day pledge, check out http://www.nrc-recycle.org/takethepledge.aspx

How to Recycle (almost) Anything...

Try to make your garbage can the last resort for items you no longer need. Hopefully you are already recycling the big 3 - newspaper, cans, and bottles. But what about the other stuff?

1. Check with your city's waste management department about what exactly your town recycles - our town also recycles office paper, magazines, and paperboard (cereal boxes, cracker boxes, etc.)

2. To recycle your computer give it to a local non-profit organization after cleaning the hard drive or if it no longer works see if your town accepts computers for hazardous waste recycling.

3. Many organizations accept cell phones for recycling including schools and charities.

4. Recycle printer ink cartridges at Staples or Office Depot.

5. Recycle old clothes at Goodwill or the Salvation Army.

6. Most counties host a hazardous waste disposal events where you can recycle batteries, paint, household chemicals, motor oil. etc.

7. When you recycle plastic bottles, the caps are thrown away. However, now Aveda has come up with a way to recycle them into shampoo and conditioner bottles. Recycle your caps at your local Aveda store - for more info check out http://aveda.aveda.com/aboutaveda/caps.asp

8. Freecycle it - your trash could be someone else's treasure. Check out www.freecycle.org

9. Still have questions on how to recycle something? Check www.Earth911.org it will tell you what and where you can recycle based on your zip code

Check out the library

One large aspect of living a greener life is reducing the amount of products you purchase and using the library can help you in this venture. Today's libraries boast great books, magazines, newspapers, CDs, and even DVDs. By borrowing these items instead of purchasing them you help keep paper and plastic out of production. Our library also has great children's programs, craft classes, book clubs, art exhibits, author appearances, free tax help and even free wireless Internet. Many libraries also have used book sales which generate funds for the library and it's programs while keeping books, magazines, and other media out of landfills. I personally "recycle" all our magazines (most I get from Freecycle) and books (I rarely buy books, but love freebies from friends & family) at our local library. My next project is cleaning out all our VHS movies that are collecting dust and donating them to the library so they can find a new home on the library shelves or another patron's home. Remember the 3Rs - REDUCE - don't buy, borrow; REUSE - items on library shelves are used over & over again; RECYCLE - donate your old media to your local library. Just remember, if you save money on movie rentals, CD purchases, and expensive hardcover books, you will have more money in your pocket for the really important stuff - like fair trade organic chocolate and cool organic cotton tees. :)

Upcycling

What is upcycling? Upcycling is the use of waste materials to provide useful products. Which basically means using items that would end up in the garbage to produce "new" usable items. My daughter loves to visit our local recycling center which accepts items from companies and individuals which it then sells by the bag to local families and schools. We have found items for our Girl Scout troop's projects, we made a craft at her birthday party out of recycled items, we have made books out of mat board and paper we found at the center, as well as great containers we use to store craft items. All it takes to successfully upcycle is to be creative and look for new uses for recycled items. Here are some companies which sell upcycled products:

www.ecoist.com
www.terracycle.net
www.etsy.com - an online community for sellers of all things handmade

Or you can get creative and make your own upcycled projects. :)

Freecycle

Freecycle is a great way to recycle unwanted items from your home or to find something you're looking for without impacting the planet by buying a new product. What is Freecycle? "The Freecycle Network™ is made up of 4,302 groups with 4,729,000 members across the globe. It's a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. It's all about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills. As a result, we are currently keeping over 300 tons a day out of landfills! This amounts to four times the height of Mt. Everest in the past year alone, when stacked in garbage trucks! By giving freely with no strings attached, members of The Freecycle Network help instill a sense of generosity of spirit as they strengthen local community ties and promote environmental sustainability and reuse. People from all walks of life have joined together to turn trash into treasure." from www.freecycle.org.

I personally have donated many items on the network and have received many great items from other members. What can you find on Freecycle? You name it and it's there - furniture, books, clothes, bikes, plants, coupons, cameras, pets, appliances, etc. To find your local Freecycle group, go to www.freecycle.org.

Remember the 3Rs - reduce, reuse, recycle.

Recycling

We take our recycling seriously in this house :) We have your standard recycling bins - bottles, cans, and newspaper - and more. We also have bins for paper and cardboard. We recycle junk mail, catalogs, school papers, receipts, etc - virtually any clean paper that comes into the house. We also recycle food boxes, and cardboard packing and boxes. To keep the cardboard bin under control we break down the boxes before placing them in the bin. The local library which we visit weekly has recycling for paper and cardboard in their parking lot, so we just drop off our recycling when we go to pick up books. We also have a compost bin where we "recycle" banana peels, egg shells, coffee grounds, leaves, etc. We've been composting for a few months, so I should have some nice compost ready for our garden this spring. With all these efforts we have noticed a significant decrease in how much stuff actually ends up in the garbage can. Too bad I can't convince Waste Management to charge me based on actually usage! To find out about recycling in your community go to http://earth911.org