Don't throw away your old television set

The day my mom has been dreaded has arrived. Television broadcasts are going all digital. My brother took care of getting her a conversion box, but she still has been a little concerned about it all.

I was going to write a post about how to properly dispose of your old television set if you're deciding to go the route of buying a new TV instead of just a conversion box, but as I was checking my RSS feeder this morning, I saw that our friend Adam Shake from Twilight Earth has already done it. So why reinvent the wheel.

The gist of it is to make sure the TV gets e-cycled (electronic recycling) instead of tossed in the trash. There's a lot of good, reusable materials in old televisions that don't need to end up in landfills. You can hop on over to Adam's post TVs Go All Digital Today - Don't Toss Your Old One - eCycle Instead for the details.

Image: Daily Invention

Video: How single stream recycling works (with an unexpected guest appearance by me)

A while back I wrote about the fact that my town was going to single stream recycling. Paper, glass, and metals are co-mingled in one container and they get sorted later at a facility. I found this video from ZapRoot on YouTube that shows how it works once it gets to the recycling center. 

I had already decided I was going to post the video here when I got a big surprise. Right around the 1:30 mark, I show up behind the woman who is talking. There is an older post of mine from Sustainablog titled Shouldn't Every Day Be America Recycles Day by Now? that is on the screen behind her. Funny.

The part about recycling ends halfway through the video and then some other random weird stuff comes up. You can continue to watch if you want, but the part I'm interested in having you see is in the first half.

Shred Stop: One of those smack your head against the walls, why didn't I think of this ideas

I hate to shred papers. They pile up for months before I do it and then I employ my kids to do it which inevitably ends up with shredded paper all over the house by the time it's done. And, we've gone through a few home shredders with burnt out motors - what a waste.

Someone has come up with a brilliant idea - The Shred Stop. It's a machine that will be put in grocery stores that will shred your papers (even the ones with staples in them!), credit cards, disks, and more for $2/minute. I just read about this on the Ecopreneurist blog, and I thought, what a brilliant idea!

Think about it. Most of us let the "to be shredded pile" pile up for months to the point where it takes a couple of hours to do it all. Then you've got to dump the trashcans full of shredded paper into some other throw away container. That's always a huge hassle and mess. You've got to make sure it gets recycled, too.

OR for $2/minute (it's supposed to take 6 minutes to shred an entire file box full of papers), you can have it done quickly and someone else deals with the mess and the recycling. Yes, the paper materials in the Shred Stop get recycled.

Some people might not want to spend the money on something they could do for themselves for free, but I think this would be well worth my money because it would save me time and aggravation.

Right now, there is one Shred Stop being tested in Washington State, but according to their website, they hope to expand rapidly. You can put your zip code in here to let them know you are interested in having one in your area. If you live near me, please go there and put your zip code in even if you're not that interested because I want one. Come on, think of all that I do for you ; )

Image: Ecopreneurist.com (which I'm sure was originally from the Shred Stop site!)

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.

Green term of the week: pre and post consumer waste

Last week, I wrote a tiny little rant about my 100% recycled tissues being made from 80% post-consumer waste, and I wondered what the other 20% was recycled from. Despairing from the Suitably Despairing blog, wrote in the comment section that the other 20% probably came from pre-consumer waste. What's the difference?

Post-consumer waste is from products that have been used and then put back into the recycling stream. As far as paper products go, this could be newspapers, magazines, junk mail - any paper that has been used.

Pre-consumer waste is reintroduction of manufacturing scrap back into the manufacturing process. When paper gets trimmed during the manufacturing process, the ends that are cut off can be recycled and made into new paper products.

So my 100% recycled tissues came from 80% used recycled materials (but hopefully not used tissues) and most likely the other 20% was recycled manufacturing scraps. That makes sense.

The terms post-consumer and pre-consumer waste don't just refer to paper products. Any products that are made from recycled materials can contain both types of waste.

Things that keep me up at night

I bought tissues tonight at Trader Joe's. They're 100% recycled, made from 80% post-consumer content. How does that work? What is the other 20% recycled from? Paper that hadn't been used yet? Why did that need to be recycled?

Maybe I don't understand fully. If I'm thinking about this wrong, feel free to set me straight.

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.

10 Easy ways to be more sustainable with your purging

My hallway is piled up with stuff that has to go. It doesn't matter how many times I purge, it seems there is always unused stuff around my house. Considering that I've become much less of a consumer in the past two years, it's really a mystery where it all comes from. The easiest thing to do would be to dump it all at the curb and let the trash men take it away, but when things are still useful, that should never be done. 

So what can you do with your stuff that needs to go?

1. Give it to someone you know needs it. I give the clothes that are too small for my boys to a friend who has two smaller boys. If there is anything else I have that I want to get rid of that I know someone specific might find useful, I ask if they want it. 
   
2. Sell it on e-bay or Craigslist. 
   
3. Put it up for grabs to someone nearby to come pick up on freecycle.
   
4. Donate to Goodwill, Purple Heart or some other charity.
5. E-mail everyone on your list and ask if anyone wants it. A friend of ours did this with a futon, and now our boys have a futon in their basement playroom.
6. Trade it in. There are places that will take books, cd's, dvd's, video games, etc. as trade-in's for credit on other books, cd's... Some will even give you cash for them.
7. Video tapes, old cassette tapes, cd's, dvd's, and even old floppy disks can be donated to ACT.
8. Hold a yard sale.
9. If you have a lot of books you are getting rid of, donate them to a local library that holds a library book sale. 
10. Recycle everything possible that you can't find new homes for.

10 Easy ways to be more sustainable with your mail

Mail. It comes six days a week, and I throw 75% of it out immediately. I've got less to throw out now than I did in the past, however. There are some things you receive in the mail that you are never going to be able to avoid, but many of the things you do receive can be managed. Here are ten easy ways to curb the amount of mail that comes into your box and the paper waste that you generate.

1. Get paperless bank statements. Most banks will now e-mail you your monthly statements instead of sending them in the mail. If you want to make sure that you keep track of everything, you will need some sort of banking software that will allow you to download those statements.
2. Go paperless with your monthly bills. The phone bill, the electric bill, your insurance bills, your credit card bill - many of them can now be sent to your e-mail and then paid online. Not only does this keep paper from coming into your house, it saves you money in stamps.
3. Get rid of unwanted catalogs by going to Catalog Choice and opting out of individual catalogs.
   
4. Contact non-profit organizations that send you requests for donations (the ones you don't donate to) and ask them to remove your name and address from their mailing list.
5. Don't renew magazines that you never read.
6. Visit DMAchoice.org to get off of many direct marketing lists.
7. Go to privacyrights.org to find out how to opt out of all sorts of mailings such as credit card offers, flyers, advertising supplements, and sweepstakes.
8. Send e-vites for casual get-togethers instead of mailing formal invitations. 
9. Save the return envelops from mailings you do receive to use for things like making grocery lists on and sending money into school with your kids.
10. Recycle all unwanted mail. Anything with sensitive information on it should be shredded first then recycled.

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.

10 Easy Ways to Be More Sustainable in Your Home Office

We have two separate offices in our house. One for me and one for my husband because we both work from home. Physically, we could both fit in his office on the third floor, but it would be very disruptive to have us both in the same space. Plus, I'm a big ol' slob and he's not, so my mess would drive him insane. It often drives me insane.

Anyway, I try to be as environmentally responsible in my office as I can be, and I encourage my husband to do the same. Here are ten easy things that can be done that can make your home office more sustainable.

1. Plug your computer, printer, speakers and anything else that goes together into one power strip with an off button. When not in use, just touch one button and you turn them all off, saving energy.
2. Keep a recycling bin for papers right next to your trash can.
3. Before papers hit the recycling bin - use both sides. I print a lot because I'm not very good at proofreading off a screen. I use the backs of papers (particularly the papers that get sent home from my boys' school) to print on because after proofreading, the papers just get put in the recycling bin.
4. Buy the best recycled paper you can afford. 100% recycled paper is expensive, but paper with 30% post consumer content doesn't cost much more than virgin paper.
5. Change the lightbulbs in your office to CFL's or better yet, LED's.
6. Recycle your ink cartridges. Send them back to the manufacturer, donate them to a cause that is collecting them as a fundraiser, or drop them off at many office supply stores.
   
7. Make sure that you properly dispose of e-waste (electronic waste). Electronic equipment that ends up in landfills wreaks havoc on the environment. Most counties have special e-waste collection days, many manufacturers are beginning to take back products, and still useful electronics should find new homes.
8. Be wise with your office supplies. Reuse folders, save the rubberbands that come wrapped around flowers or newspapers to use in your office, live with a manual pencil sharpener instead of one that needs batteries or electricity. Every little bit helps.
9. When you need a new piece of office furniture, try buying used first. Go to yard sales, a thrift store, or Craigslist. Or try Freecycle and perhaps you can get what you need for free. You may even want to try e-mailing friends and family to see if they have anything sitting unused that they would be willing to part with.
10. Think about putting a plant in your office. Unless you've been able to go out and purchase all new eco-friendly furniture, carpeting, and paint for your walls, your office is probably full of toxins from carpets, the glue that holds together your particle board second hand bookshelf, even the ink from your printer. Care2 has a list of plants, such as English Ivy and Peace Lillies, that help remove bad stuff from the air.

Take Some Time to Cancel Your Catalogs Today with Catalog Choice

I don't know how many times I've mentioned Catalog Choice on this blog, but they are worth mentioning yet again. Last year, I spent quite a bit of time calling catalog companies to cancel over 40 catalogs. Shortly after I did that, Catalog Choice popped up and it would have made my job so much easier.

Despite having cancelled over 40 catalogs last fall, I've got a stack of holiday catalogs piled up that I just cancelled from Catalog Choice's website. Some of them I have never received before. Others of them, I was sure I cancelled. But those resourceful marketing people must have done their homework because of the ones I know I cancelled, they now have arrived in my mailbox under my husband's name.  Aren't they clever. 

Chances are you've got a pile of catalogs that you've received in the past month. And chances are you'll receive two or three more of the same exact catalog before December 25th. Oh, the cover might be different, and the items on the pages shifted a bit, but essentially, they'll be the same exact catalog. It's crazy. All that paper. All those trees. All that water. And the poor mail carriers who have to break their backs delivering them. 

I urge you to take a pile of your catalogs today and spend five minutes on the website canceling them. You'll probably receive one (possibly two) more of each before the cancellation makes it through, but come next holiday season, you'll have a much smaller pile.

Oh, and make sure your catalogs get recycled. I know you already know that, but I'm reminding you anyway.

Remember - Paper Has Two Sides, Use Them Both

A week and a half of school has gone by and already the paper is piling up. My kids are coming home with all sorts of papers that are used on only one side (and both kids came home with a thick student handbook. Isn't there some way, in a school of about 350 kids, they can figure out how to send only one per family?)

I figure now is a good time to remind everyone to not throw their papers into the recycling bin until both sides have been used. Here are ideas for reusing paper. I'm sure I'm repeating myself from a past post, but it bears repeating.

• Use it in your printer. So many many announcements come home from school on nice printer/copier paper with only one side used. Flip it over and use it in your printer when you need to print out something that doesn't need to be professional. Things like recipes, articles you'd like to read, something you wrote that needs to be proofread don't need pristine paper. 
  
• Cut it into fourths and make note paper to write phone messages or other notes on.
  
• Write your grocery lists on it.
  
• Send hand written notes to your kids' teachers on it.
• Draw on it.
• Paint on it.

Once both sides of the paper have been used, and you're done with it, then put it in the recycling bin.

In addition to papers that come home from school, be mindful of papers you get in the mail, papers that come from your church or other community type groups, and paper from when you're purging your filing cabinet. If the papers from the filing cabinet don't have sensitive information on them (which you should then shred before recycling), you can use the other side before recycling.

What other sources of paper or ideas for reusing the blank side of paper can you think of?

Off topic question. How many of you know it's "bears repeating" instead of "bares repeating?" I had to look that one up!

The Greenwashed Thing That Came From the Newspaper

This was a post just waiting to happen. My neighbor asked if I wanted a book cover that had come in her newspaper for one of the boys' schoolbooks. I don't buy book covers, I use paper bags. But I said sure because it was free, and she would have just put it in the recycle bin if I hadn't taken it anyway.

Well, it was a GREEN book cover. There were tips for going green written all over it. You know who sponsored the book cover and put it in the newspaper? One of the local malls. On the side of the book cover is a perforated section of coupons for stuff in the mall - fast food, clothes, shoes, jewelry. 

At the bottom corner of the book cover is says "Please recycle this cover at the end of the school year." But you know what? No where on the book cover does it say it is made from recycled paper.

That mall really has a good greenwashing, I mean marketing, department.

Recycling Plastic Gift Cards (and Other Plastic Cards)

What do you do with a gift card when it's been used? Throw it in the trash? Even if you hand it to the cashier when you've used it at a store, most likely she throws it in the trash, too. They are so small that it doesn't seem like that big a deal, right? But, like all the rest of our trash, it adds up.

According to the Earthworks website, "over 75 million pounds of PVC material from plastic cards enters our waste stream every year." That's astounding! Another astounding statistic - "10 billion new gift cards are placed into circulation each year." Earthworks is a company that recycles plastic gift cards and other plastic cards into new sheets of plastic to make new gift cards or other materials.

It's not just gift cards that Earthworks can recycle - driver's licenses, student i.d. cards, library cards, credit cards, hotel card keys and shopper loyalty cards can all be recycled, too. I would hope that these cards with their sensitive information would be shredded before being sent to the facility, but there is no mention of that on the website. 

Although there is information for consumers on their site, there is no specific mailing address to send in your cards. There is contact information, though.

The site also has a page urging retailers to collect used cards and have them recycled. Just think about all those Target and Toys R Us cards that get used in the month after Christmas. If just those two retailers alone collected and recycled their cards I bet millions of pounds of cards would not end up in the trash.

Recycling Yogurt Containers - What are the Options?

Yogurt containers are one of those items that are technically recyclable, but finding where to do so is often difficult. If you look on the bottom of most yogurt containers, you'll see that there is a #5 inside the recycling symbol.

First of all a word about #5 plastic, which is actually polypropylene, from the National Geographic Green Guide

Based on current knowledge, polypropylene is one of the safer plastics. It is not known to leach any chemicals that are suspected of causing cancer or disrupting the hormones, and it's not made with chlorine and so doesn't produce dioxin when it's made or incinerated. One of the main problems with giving any plastic a blanket "safe" recommendation is that not enough health and safety research has been conducted on chemicals that leach.

Most residential curbside recycling programs don't accept #5 plastics. The majority of them only accept #'s 1 & 2. So while technically #5 is recyclable, finding a place that will accept plastics made from it for recycling is very difficult.

So what can you do with your yogurt containers and other #5 food containers? Here are some options.

Stoneyfield Farm containers - There is an explanation on their site as to why they choose to use #5 instead of #2. It's worth a read. They realize that it's not an easily recyclable item so they offer to accept them back and recycle them for you. From their site:

if #5 plastic recycling isn't available in your community, and you can't tolerate the idea of not recycling them, you are welcome to return your CLEAN Stonyfield Farm cups and lids to us, and we'll be sure they'll get recycled.

I think that's really great.

TerraCycle - This company collects Stoneyfield Farm yogurt containers (only Stoneyfield Farm) from organizations and upcycles them. Right now there is a waiting list to get into the program, but if you know a lot of people who eat this type of yogurt, you might want to get on the waiting list.

These are really the only two recycling programs I found out there if your community recycling program doesn't take the yogurt cups. However, there are plenty of ways to reuse yogurt cups at least one more time before they hit the trash.

1. Drinking cups - One creative mom at tipnut.com washes the yogurt cups with lids, cuts an X in the lid and uses them as disposable drinking cups with straws. I also grabbed a whole stack of them once (without lids) and a container of ice water to take to the park with my boys and their friends. I had enough cups for them all to drink from and other kids who came along and asked if they could have some, too.
2. Paint cups - When the boys and I do some painting, I use the washed out yogurt cups to hold the paint and as cups for the water for the brushes.
3. Containers to start seedlings. We started all of our seedlings for our garden this year in yogurt cups. We poked holes with a small screwdriver in the bottom, filled them with organic soil, and planted our tomatoes and herbs in them.
4. Snack cups - Yogurt containers make great snack cups for goldfish, pretzels or dry cereal.
5. Candle molds - Soy candle kits can be purchased at craft stores, and you can make your own candles using the cups as molds. Hint: If you buy uncolored candle wax, you can melt crayon pieces and ad it to the wax to give the candles color.

There are probably dozen of other craft type projects you can do with yogurt containers with your kids, but the problem I see with doing craft projects as a way to recycle things is that eventually the craft projects end up in the trash, too, or you'll be up to your knee caps in kids' crafts.

What do you do with your yogurt cups?

Read More:

How to Recycle Old Video Cassettes and Floppy Disks

How to Recycle Denim

Green Back to School Shopping Deal Alert

I sat at the pool with my friend Penny the other night and she said she was already bemoaning the fact that summer is almost over. I tried to reassure her that we've got half of summer still ahead of us, but it didn't do much good.

Then today, I got the circulars in the mail and sure enough - BACK TO SCHOOL all over the place. I put all of them in the recycle bin but one of my local grocery stores' circular. In the circular I found a fabulous green back to school deal.

If you live anywhere near a Pathmark store on the east coast, they have marble composition books (3/$2) and 70 sheet notebooks (6/$1) from Green Way. They are made from 100% recycled paper. 

I don't recommend driving far to a store for one or two items just because they are on sale, but if you shop there anyway or happen to pass near one, stop by and stock up for the school year. I will be.

I am still of the firm belief that my boys and I (and my friend Penny) have half the summer before us, but I'm not going to pass up a deal like this.