The ziploc bag dilemma

Ziploc bags? How un-environmental, right? Still, sometimes they come in handy. I only use a fraction of the amount I used to use. I try to find alternatives like reusing bread bags and cereal box liners instead of ziplocs. But as I'm working towards wasting less food and cooking double batches to save money and time, I find that I need them once in a while.

I found a fabulous post today on The Greenest Dollar on How to reuse and recycle ziplocs. There are ideas for washing and drying them, labeling them so there is no cross contamination, and tips for figuring out how to recycle them when they have outlived their usefulness. Hop on over to the website and read the piece. It's helpful.

My youngest is in a production of The Wizard of Oz this weekend (he's a munchkin and a flying monkey and a flower) - they are putting on three performances, plus his 7th birthday is tomorrow, and my oldest still has baseball, so I'm running around like a mad woman today so there's no original post.

Have a fabulous weekend.

Plastic caps can be recycled through Aveda

The plastic bottles that most of us put in our recycling bins are #1 or #2 plastics - those are the most easily recyclable plastics. The caps that are one those bottles, however, are often made from a thicker plastic - #5. Most people toss them right into the recycling bin with the bottles, but when they get to the recycling center they need to be separated and end up in the trash.

Aveda cosmetics has a program now that makes it easier for those #5 caps to be recycled instead of ending up in a landfill. It's the Recycle Caps with Aveda Program.

The program accepts caps that are rigid polypropylene plastic, sometimes noted with a 5 in the chasing arrows recycling symbol. This includes caps that twist on with a threaded neck such as caps on shampoo, water, soda, milk and other beverage bottles, flip top caps on tubes and food product bottles (such as ketchup and mayonnaise), laundry detergents and some jar lids such as peanut butter.

Excluded from collection are pharmaceutical lids and non rigid lids such as yogurt lids, tub lids (margarine, cottage cheese), and screw on lids that are not rigid. If you can bend or break the lid with your bare hands, then it does not meet the rigid plastic definition. Please do not include any metal lids or plastic pumps or sprayers. Unfortunately, too much of the wrong types of materials can contaminate the recycling process. We appreciate your efforts in keeping it clean!

You can bring your caps into any Aveda store and they will be recycled into new Aveda packaging. For store locations, click here.

Image: Casey West

How to recycle video cassettes, denim jeans, wine corks and more: An a little greener roundup

I've noticed that some of the posts that keep getting page views on this blog are ones about How to Recycle different hard to recycle items. Since I'm approaching my 45oth post here on A Little Greener Every Day, I thought I'd sift through the back posts, and bring all the recycling ones together in one for you.

Most of these are programs that recycle things that the majority of people cannot put out at the curb on recycling day.

Wine Corks

Recycling Wine Bottle Corks

Another Way to Recycle Wine Bottle Corks: Terracycle

Glue Bottles and Glue Sticks

Elmers Glue Crew Recycling Program

Yogurt Containers

Recycling Yogurt Containers: What are the Options

Denim

How to Recycle Denim

Recycle Your Denim Jeans and Help Set a World Record

Polystyrene (a.k.a. Styrofoam)

Ideas for Reusing and Recycling Polystyrene

Christmas Lights

How to Recycle Christmas Lights

Christmas Cards

Recycle Your Christmas Cards and Help a Good Cause

Cell Phones

How to Recycle Your Cell Phones

Cosmetic Packaging

Origins Helps You Recycle Cosmetic Packaging

Video Cassettes, Floppy Disks, CD's, DVD's and Audio Cassettes

How to Recycle Old Video Cassettes and Floppy Disks

Origins helps you recycle cosmetics packaging

When the lipstick runs out and the mascara goes dry, what do you do with the plastic containers they come in? Chances are you throw them in the trash because they aren't easily recyclable.

Origins cosmetics now has a program that allows consumers to bring cosmetic containers of any brand to their stores to be recycled.

Starting March 29, 2009, bring your empty cosmetic tubes, bottles and jars, etc. - regardless of brand - to your nearest Origins retail store or department store counter nationwide.* All returned packaging will be sent back to a central location where products will be recycled or used for energy recovery.

In an industry first, Origins will accept packaging from any cosmetic company regardless of the manufacturer. We believe that the more we collect from consumers, the more we can keep cosmetic packaging out of landfills. And we hope this program will encourage other companies into following our example.

To thank you for joining us in our commitment to the environment, we’ll treat you to a FREE sample of your choice of one of Origins high-performance skincare products.

To find an Origins store near you, click here for their store finder.

*Excluding Nordstrom, Canada and Puerto Rico.

Recycle your denim jeans and help set a world record

National Geographic Kids magazine is asking kids to help them set a Guinness World Record. They want to create the world's largest collection of clothes to recycle, and they are asking kids to send in old denim jeans to be recycled into insulation through the Cotton. From Blue to Green program. 

Recycling denim into insulation is a good use for old jeans that are too worn out to be handed down or donated. The problem is that it's not always easy to find a place that will take them. Now it is easy. They can be sent in to:

NG KIDS/Set a Guinness World Record

P.O. Box 98001

Washington, Dc 20090-8001

However, you don't have to send them and pay the postage. If you drop by any Build-A-Bear Workshop between March 27-29, 2009, you can donate your jeans there, and you'll get a free virtual gift to use at buildabearville.com. Just don't let your kids suck you into making a bear while you're donating.

All jeans must be received by June 30, 2009. Any denim is accepted, not just jeans.

Image: Richard Masoner

How to Recycle Cell Phones

I told you a couple of weeks ago I was finally going to get rid of my Chocolate devil phone and purchase an iPhone. I finally got around to it last week, and now I've got my old cell phone sitting here waiting to be responsibly disposed of. What are my options?

Donate it

Google the phrase "donations of old cell phones" and you will come up with pages of organizations that accept old cell phones and repurpose them to be used again. Here are just a few:

Cell Phones For Soldiers - This organization actually sells the cellphones they collect to ReCellular, and they use the money they make to buy pre-paid phone cards for American soldiers. The organization was started by by teenagers Robbie and Brittany Bergquist, and they have donated over 500,000 pre-paid cards to date.

Phones for Life - This organization distributes free emergency cell phones to those over 60 years old, victims of domestic violence, and those with serious physical disabilities.

Support Network for Battered Women - Reprogrammed cell phones help victims of domestic violence call police when needed.

Recycle it

This is the option I'll be going with for the devil phone. It would be cruel to saddle someone else with a phone that doesn't want to call out when you want it to. Especially someone who would be using it in an emergency.

Old cell phones, like most electronics, are considered e-waste and should never be put in the trash to end up in a landfill. Most municipalities have e-waste recycling programs or you can go to Earth911 to find the closest place that will accept your old cell phone for recycling.

One last thing

I read over at MSN money that "A user needs to perform "an advanced hard reset," which is typically outlined in the phone's user manual, to permanently clear the memory." 

If you can't find your manual, you can go to Wireless Recycling, and give them the manufacturer and model of your old cell phone along with your e-mail address. They will then e-mail you the instructions to safely erase all personal data from your phone.

Recycle Your Christmas Cards and Help a Good Cause

Yesterday, I wrote about a company that will accept your old and broken strands of Christmas lights for recycling. Today, I bring you St. Jude's Ranch for Children that has a program that accepts all types of greeting cards, including Christmas cards, for their recycling program.

Now through Feb. 28, 2009, they are accepting donations of cards that will be turned into new cards and sold to raise funds for the ranch that "rescues abused, abandoned and neglected children of all races and faiths from the vicious cycle of child abuse."

The children participate in the recycling program.

The children participate in making the new recycled cards by removing the front and attaching a new back made with recycled paper. The new card is a beautiful, “green” card made by the children and volunteers. The benefits are two-fold: customers receive "green" holiday cards for use and the children receive payment for their work and learn the benefits and importance of "going green".

Unlike yesterday, where I defended my willingness to donate my strands of lights to a for-profit company that would make money from them, there is no need to defend contributing to this program. 

Cards can be sent to:

St. Jude's Ranch for Children
Card Recycling Program
100 St. Jude's Street
Boulder City, NV 89005

For more information on St. Jude Ranch for Childen, please visit their website. There are many other ways that you can contribute to this refuge for children like the Campbells Labels program and the General Mills Box Top program.

Recycling Christmas Lights

Good Morning. I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays. We've got a few days break until New Year's hits, so I'm back at work. The boys, however, are not back at school. I feel so blessed that I can work from home and accommodate their schedules. I like it when they are off. The morning get ready for school routine is my least favorite thing of any regular day.

If you drove past my house this holiday season, there would have been a lack of cheer going on outside. Our pre-lighted garland that we've had for years bit the dust. My husband and I talked about going out and buying new, but in the end, we decided we'd hold off for this year. We'd wait until the after Christmas sales and then buy some LED lights. We still had a wreath on the door and candles in the windows, and you could see the lighted tree through the windows so we didn't look like complete humbugs.

The biggest problem was the disposal of the old stuff. That was solved  when I found a recycling program for strands of incandescent lights on holidayleds.com. 

When we receive your lights for recycling we will remove them from the package and recycle the box. The lights will be processed and any material that cannot be recycled (i.e. loose bulbs)is discarded. Once we have collected a substantial number of sets we take them to a 3rd party recycling facility located in Jackson, MI. The recycling company puts the lights through a commercial shredder, which chops the lights up into little pieces. The pieces are then further processed and sorted into the various components that make up the lights (pvc, glass, copper.) The materials are separated and transported to a region center for further processing. In some cases, the pvc cannot be recycled.

They will also send you a 15% off coupon for the LED lights they sell on their site. I know that this company is making out on this deal. I'm sure they sell the lights that they are sent to the 3rd party recycling plant. And of course, the coupon is to encourage you to buy from them. But I'm okay with that.

I also like that they ask that your lights be sent without any packing materials (the lights are already broken), in a recyclable box, and in the smallest box possible. All of this makes the least environmental impact when shipping the items

If I want to do things like hang holiday lights outside my home, then I need to be responsible with their disposal. I could collect old strings of light myself from others until I had enough to sell for a profit. But I'm not going to do that. Holidayleds.com will do it so I'm willing to spend a little postage to send the old stuff to them and if they make a few cents on it, so what? Allowing them to make a few cents is much better than throwing them in a landfill.

So, I'll be extricating the old strings of light from the garland and sending it away to be recycled. The garland is still useful, so I'll keep that and put the new LED lights on it next year. 

Yep, it's more work than just tossing the whole thing in the trash and buying new pre-lit garland. Oh well. Sometimes doing the right thing takes a little effort.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: Packing and Shipping Materials

Just about now during the holidays, if you shop online, you're being inundated with boxes full of gifts. But those boxes probably contain more packing materials than gifts. It's amazing the over packaging that some companies do.

What do you do with all of those packing and shipping materials that end up piled high in the dining room? There is on thing you shouldn't do with them. Throw them away. There are lots of ways to avoid them becoming landfill.

Reduce

You have no control over how a package that is shipped to you is packed. But you do have control over the packages you ship. Try to find appropriate sized boxes so you don't have to put more filler than needed in. You'll save money, and you'll save some greenhouse gasses? How?

It may seem miniscule, but every little bit of extra weight in a package means that the vehicles used to haul it needs to use more fuel. If you make your package as light as possible, and others take the same measures, fuel will be saved.

Another way to reduce when it comes to shipping is to ship directly to the recipient. Do you order gifts online for friends and relatives you live far away, have them shipped to your home, wrap them, and then re-ship them to the recipients? You're doubling the carbon footprint of that packages travels. 

If the company you order from offers gift wrapping, let them wrap it and send it directly. Or, if you're buying for kids who live far away, let their parents know you are sending some gifts and ask if they wouldn't mind wrapping them for you once you arrive. My in-laws do this frequently. 

Reuse

Packing and shipping materials can be reused over and over. I have a spot in my basement where I have broken down boxes, bubble wrap, air pillows, etc from items that have been shipped to me. When I need to ship something I never need to buy anything new (except packing tape once in a while).

What if you don't have the room to store these materials or you end up with more than you will ever use? Giving it away is easy.

Many packing/shipping stores will take things like packing peanuts, air pillows, and other fillers. They won't pay you for them, but it's worth it to donate them to keep them out of landfills.

If you have any friends who are ebay sellers, they will probably happily take these materials off your hands.

Another way to give these things away is to list them on Craigslist or to Freecycle them. If you have a collection of packing/shipping materials there is someone out there who wants them, and that someone is checking these places to see who has them. 

Last year, as the boxes came in with online purchases, I threw them all in the downstairs shower (we never use it - it's more like a closet). After the holidays, I put it all together and listed it on Freecycle. Within a couple of hours, someone had come to my house and collected it all. It felt really good to know that all of this stuff was going to get reused at least one more time.

Recycle

If any of these items truly are unusable, say a box has just gotten to beaten up to reuse, make sure it hits the recycling bin and not the trash can.

It's tempting during the busy holidays to just get these shipping/packing materials out of our way by sending them out for the trash men to pick up. It takes extra effort to make sure they end up being used and reused and disposed of responsibly. So decide now to be make a commitment to being responsible with them so you won't be tempted to put those evil packing peanuts in the trash can.

How to Recycle Old Video Cassettes and Floppy Disks

I just came across a really great place to donate your old video cassettes and floppy disks to so they can be recycled. It's a  program called ACT (Alternative Community Training). They take donations of these items and have their employees erase the data on them so they can be reused again. Their employees are people with disabilities who are able to have a job because of the ACT programs.

See how good this is. You can donate your items to a place where you know they will be recycled and you'll be helping to provide jobs to a population that has difficulty finding jobs. It's doing good and doing good. Gotta love it.

To learn how to donate, click on this link here. It looks like they also take cd's, dvd's, and old cassette tapes. Oh, and you're donations are tax deductible. The tax deduction should be able to offset the price of sending the items and then some. Sweet.

Ideas for Recycling and Resuing Polystyrene (a.k.a. styrofoam)

One of my early blog posts on this site was a rant against packing peanuts. It's not even their unenvironmentalness that I hate the most. It's the fact that they get statically charged somehow and stick to everything and fly in the air when I'm trying to dispose of them. It's like they are taunting me. They're saying, "You can't get rid of me that easily."

It's the truth, isn't it? You can't get rid of packing peanuts or anything else made of polystyrene easily. Polystyrene is the actual name for the stuff that most of us refer to as styrofoam. Styrofoam is actually a trademark from Dow and true Styrofoam, while a type of polystyrene, is different from the polystyrene that we see in "styrofoam" cups or packing peanuts.

I've been reading about various methods that are used in Europe that melt polystyrene down and turn it into other things, but here in the U.S., anything like that isn't available yet - at least to the general population. Those of us who bring polystyrene products into our homes in the form of packing peanuts, packing blocks, egg cartons, take-out containers, coffee cups, etc. have a very difficult time disposing them unless we just throw them in the trash.

Why is recycling it not an easy option? From what I can determine, it' s mainly because it's so cheap to make and so lightweight for its size that transporting it to be recycled is cost-prohibitive.

So what are our options?

Reuse or give away the packing materials. The peanuts, the big blocks (along with other packing things like wadded up paper or air pillows) are very reusable. You can save them to reuse yourself, donate them to a shipping center or Freecycle them. There are plenty of e-bay sellers out there who would be happy to take them off your hands.

Take or mail your polystyrene to Alliance of Foam Packaging Recyclers. If you go to this website you can find the recycling centers that accept polystyrene and if there isn't one near you, you can mail it. Because it's so expensive to transport, curbside recycling of this type of material is not going to be coming to your town any time soon. If you're really serious about having it recycled, this is an option.

And that's about it. I wish I had some more options for you. Sure you can use some of it for kids' crafts or use the egg cartons to start seedlings. But, for the most part, there isn't much that can be done about the stuff.

So my best suggestion is to use as little of it as possible.

• Don't frequent restaurants and fast food joints that use them to serve their food.
• Take your own reusable coffee mugs to places that use them for their coffee.
• Buy your eggs in cardboard cartons or easily recyclable plastic cartons (generally a plastic with a #1 or #2 on it).
• Ask shop owners who do use it to consider switching to something more earth friendly.
• Ask your butcher to wrap your meat in butcher paper instead of buying it on a polystyrene tray.

If you've got any great suggestions, please share them.