freecycle

Green Moving Tips to Try or DIY

ckane — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0400

Anyone who has moved knows there's no better time to get rid of the ridiculous amount of stuff you have accumulated before you move. Trust us.

TRY: You've heard about it before, but oh, just sign up already: freecycle lets you give away your unwanted items to people who do want them. Then you can also use this free service in your new home to snag patio furniture, planters, what have you.

DIY: Throw an old-fashioned yard sale—it's one of the most established forms of recycling, and it’s one that pays. Donate everything that doesn’t sell to Goodwill, Salvation Army, or charity shops.

PACKING:

TRY: Earth Friendly Moving: This is a service that allows you to rent their boxes (they use the "Recopak, pictured) so you don’t have to buy new ones--they call it "do it yourself."

DIY: But this is even more do-it-yourself: There’s no reason to buy new boxes from your moving company when businesses all around you are throwing them away. Go into local liquor stores, convenience stores, and supermarkets to find out what day of the week they get rid of their boxes; then let them know you’ll come in that day to pick them up. Liquor stores may also be able to provide you with sturdy wooden wine crates, which are great for packing breakables like dishes and (duh) wine. Plastic bubble wrap? Hopefully you’ve saved the stuff that comes to you around other items, and you can reserve it for your most delicate breakables. Use your sheets, towels, and blankets to pad furniture and breakables. All those plastic bags you’re hoarding to reuse make great cushioning for inside boxes. Newspapers are another readily available, not to mention recyclable packing material. Pad the bottom of your box in a jiffy by twisting a double sheet of paper and laying it diagonally across the bottom, then put another one across the opposite diagonal, making an X.

MOVING/TRUCK RENTAL COMPANIES

Try: Go Green Moving Solutions, which uses low-emisson biodiesel trucks and recycled cotton moving pads, among other innovations.It's a Southern California company, but hopefully more like this will be springing up.
DIY: A flawed solution, maybe: carbon offsets, the kind that improve your new home: plant some trees!

Building A Reclaimed House - Where To Find Used Materials

jchait — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 02:15:07 -0400

Building a homes with a lot of reclaimed materials sounds cool - if you can find the goods. Luckily, locating material for reuse in home remodeling or home builidng is not that difficult. What's hard is the time it takes to find the right materials for your home projects - be it building anew, or simply adding on to an already standing home. There's a lot to choose from in relation to reclamied materials, so make an initial plan about the items you need, i.e. "Door" and be flexible with your imagination.

Now where to look...

1. Habitat ReStores: ReStores are shops that sell nice quality used building supplies and other home project materials. Their prices are higher up on the resale market but much lower than supplies you'd buy new. Proceeds from ReStores help build Habitat houses within a given community, which is a bonus of shopping there. I love the ReStore shops I've been in. The materials are usually very high quality and unique.

2. The Building Materials Reuse Association (BMRA): sThis non-profit is an educational resource for those interested in deconstruction and the reuse plus recycling of recovered building materials. They offer a handy directory of reuse stores at their website.

3. Deconstruction companies: You can contact companies locally and learn about sales they may be having of salvaged building materials.

4. The Reclaimed Wood Council: This organization can giveyou all the basics about reclaimed wood and hook you up with real reclaimed wood specilaity companies.

5. Your basic salvage shop, thrift store, antique dealer, garage sale, and more: Any place that sells used goods has the potential to sell something you might want to use for your house. These places won't of course sell floor planks or a ton of scrap metal, but they may very well have cubboards, sinks, tubs, and more up for grabs. Just be careful of quality at places like these.

6. Cheap stuff: Online resources like Freecycle and Craigslist have made it super cheap to find almost anything you need. One issue here is quality and another is safety. Never allow folks to bring a "deal" to your home. Meet up in public, with a pal tagging along. However, you can score some pretty decent stuff.

7. Free stuff!: Dumpster diving, asking friends, looking around a junk yard and colleges with building programs all may offer free and usable goods. Some junk yards charge for items some don't you'll have to check around. The downside waiting around and searching for the perfect product of course takes a lot of time. The up side; well, it is free.

There are plenty of other places you can score reused or recycled materials for home building purposes. I'm sure this is a topic we'll re-visit.

Ever Tried a Dumpster Dive?

Julia — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Ever gone for a good dumpster dive? No? Well get to it! This is the most fun activity that my Environmental Society participates in. We wrap ourselves in trash bags and go to a variety of dumpsters all over campus to collect all the goods we can find. On our most recent expedition, we found two pairs of name-brand jeans, a sweet jacket, and an entire college care package from some kid’s Aunt Sharon, filled with gummy worms, Oreos, homemade cookies- the works. Why this seemingly inconsiderate dude ditched the thoughtful present, we ne’er will know. Sigh. But, as they say, what’s one man’s trash is another’s treasure, and, boy, did we appreciate it.

On the weekends I will also go around and collect cans and bottles that are redeemable in New York State. There’s a little note above the bar code that specifies what state the product is redeemable in and for how much. If you live in Maine or Hawaii, you can pretty much redeem anything. It always makes me want to live there. ANYWAY, you simply bring the empty containers to a redemption center (some grocery stores will also redeem them), and then you get money back. It’s excellent.

Don’t forget gloves when you embark upon your dumpster diving adventure, though. You never know what you’ll find in there.

I was recently reading about a Zen Buddhist Temple in Michigan where dumpster diving has become a fundraising activity. One of the temple’s monks explained that “Dumpster diving is actually a modern variant of an ancient tradition by which Buddhist ‘patched-robe monks’ and nuns reclaimed clothing, sometimes from corpses, and would repair garments repeatedly to extend their life as much as possible. Just taking care of a set of clothing to make it last a long time has a spiritual aspect to it.” The items are then sold in a yard sale for cash. Pretty resourceful, eh?

Lastly, be sure to check out Freecycle, which is run through Yahoo Groups. You can enter in your town and find all sorts of wonderful posts from people who just want to give away free things. You can also post some of your own items. I just got a blender and my roommate put up her hedgehog. As you can see, the possibilities are endless!

This is modern day freeganism. It’s incredible. Recycling our items is just another simple way to contribute to the environmental cause. In fact, it couldn’t be easier.

So settle your pride and dive in! You never know what you might find…