reduce waste

Donate Your Old Computer Equipment to A Good Cause

jplatt — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 09:00:00 -0400

Got any old computer equipment lying around? You could recycle it (see the Green Tech archives for plenty of stories about how), or you could put it in the hands of someone who will get some good use out of it.

That's the idea behind Computers With Causes, a charity that accepts old computers from individuals and businesses, refurbishes them, and gives them to people or organizations who need them.

This reduces e-waste, cuts down on clutter, and puts perfectly good electronics back to work where they can help change the world for the people or groups who receive them.

According to their website, "Computers with causes evaluates each and every donation on a case by case basis. Whenever financially beneficial, computers with causes will repair, refurbish, and properly prepare donated property for placement into an educational environment or other cause we support. The ultimate goal being to maximize the benefit of your donations both financially and through educational purposes to the communities in which we live."

Functioning computers will be put back to use in the community (say, for education purposes, use in foster homes, or for disabled veterans or other needy Americans). Non-fuctioning computers can even be useful, as they'll get donated to schools to help teach computer repair.

Anything Computers With Causes receives that can't be used gets recycled, using what they call a "zero landfill" process.

Donations earn you tax deductions, and some donations can even earn you a free vacation!

So if you've got an extra computer lying around, give Computers With Causes a shot. You'll benefit, the earth will benefit, and so will your community.

Greener DVD Perfect for Business & Direct Mail

jplatt — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 06:00:00 -0500

Businesses use giveaway DVDs all the time to promote their products and services. But truth be told, everyone knows that a vast majority of these DVDs are going to end up in the garbage. What's a responsible marketer to do?

A company called CD Digital Card has a solution: their new Flex DVD Replication service. Their patent-pending new DVDs use half as much plastic as regular DVDs, and can be "flexed" to a pretty dramatic degree without breaking. The disks have the same data capacity as regular DVDs, but are "designed with an environmentally friendly chemical composition" (although they don't go into many details about what's actually different).

Since the disks weigh less and can be bent, they don't need as much protection, and can be mailed with less packaging, which is always good news for our landfills. It also reduces postage costs, which is good news for companies in tough economic times.

Until all data is digital, it's smart thinking like this that will make a difference.

Support Green Charities by Recycling Your Empty Toner Cartridges

jplatt — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 10:47:53 -0400

ARGH! Another toner cartridge just went dry in my printer. Time to buy a new one -- and time to recycle the old one.

You definitely don't want to dump your old inkjet cartridges in the garbage. Even when they're out of ink, they're still full of toxic chemicals which can leach into the ground and pollute our land and water.

But how do you recycle an inkjet or laser-printer cartridge?

First step, check with your local retailer. Stores like Staples and Best Buy collect toner cartridges for free.

Next step, check with your local charities or community groups. Many collect cartridges, which they then turn in for cash, which helps fund their local efforts.

Next, go online, and see if you can donate your cartridges to support a cause. Recycle4Charity.com will take your used cartridges and cell phones and make a donation to groups like Habitat for Humanity or Helen Keller Worldwide. Empties4Cash.com lets you select from charities like Big Cat Rescue and The Wildcat Sanctuary.

Finally, go online and sell your used cartridges for cash. Recycle4Dollars.com is just one of the sites that will pay you a few dollars for every cartridge you send in.

So don't let those used-up inkjet and toner cartridges sit around in your house or in a landfill. Recycle them, and do some good in the process!

Five Green-Tech Ways to Use Less Paper

jplatt — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 11:00:00 -0400

Are you using too much paper in your job? According to reduce.org, the average office worker uses a shocking 10,000 pages of per ever year. Averaged out to 200 work days, that's 50 sheets of paper every single day!

But don't worry, there are several easy things you can do -- both as an individual and on a company level -- to reduce that pile of paper, which will improve your environmental footprint and save money.

1. Work digitally -- You don't always need to print things out. Share documents electronically and try using collaborative software like Google Docs.

2. Print to PDF -- Think before you print. Do you really need a paper copy of that web page? Or will a saved digital file work better? I use a free program called PDF Creator that uses the "print" feature in any of my programs to generate a PDF of any document.

3. Go Green -- Have your company install the enterprise version of GreenPrint World. This program (which costs $70 per user on your site, with volume discounts available) examines every print job and lets you decide what elements to print and which ones to skip (say, photographs, or the legal disclaimers at the bottom of a web page). It keeps track of how many pages you don't print, allowing you to "track your impact" (how much paper you have used, or how much ink you have saved) and monitor your overall printing habits.

(By the way, individuals can download a free version of GreenPrint World, so you don't necessarily have to wait for your company to do this for you.)

4. Print on both sides -- Many printers can automatically handle duplex printing, and you should be able to change your print defaults (either individually or system-wide) to always print documents on both sides of a piece of paper.

5. Kill the fax -- Why is this technology still in use? Electronic documents are more flexible, easier to send and easier to read than faxes. If you absolutely have to send or receive faxes, use an online service to get rid of your fax machine. You'll use less paper and less energy in the process.

Give these tips a try and see how quickly you cut your paper use. Even a 50% reduction saves 5,000 sheets a year, so what do you have to lose?

The World's Greenest Garbage Can

jplatt — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 11:00:00 -0400

Did you know that the average garbage truck gets just 2.8 miles to the gallon of diesel fuel? It's true. In fact, garbage trucks get the worst fuel economy of any type of commercial vehicle.

Why such bad gas mileage? Well, garbage trucks are big, fleets tend to be pretty old, and their drivers have to make stops every few hundred feet while keeping engines running the whole time.

With this in mind, and with fuel prices soaring, it makes sense for municipalities, universities and businesses with large campuses to find ways to cut their garbage collection costs. The BigBelly Solar Compactor can help.

No bigger than any other outdoor garbage receptacle, the BigBelly uses the sun's rays to power an internal compactor which crushes its content, allowing it to hold five times as much as your average garbage can. This means it doesn't need to be emptied as often, which saves fuel costs, cuts labor costs, and reduces a whole lot of greenhouses gases in the process.

The BigBelly Solar Compactor costs $4,000 -- but BigBelly says the device can pay for itself in just a year and a half. And that's not trash-talk.

Save Paper, Ink with Free Software

jplatt — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 01:00:00 -0400

How many times have you gone to print a document or web page and ended up with one or more useless pages at the end of your print job? What a waste of paper and ink! Well, there is a solution, and it's not only easy -- it's free.

GreenPrint World is a free program you can download and use to help put a stop to those unwanted printed pages. The program analyzes your print job, then lets you decide what elements to print and which ones to skip (say, photographs, or the legal disclaimers at the bottom of a web page). It keeps track of how many pages you don't print, allowing you to "track your impact" (how much paper you have used, or how much ink you have saved) and monitor your overall printing habits.

You can also use GreenPrint World to generate PDFs of any document, allowing you to keep a digital copy of a web page instead of printing it at all.

Available since 2006, this new version of GreenPrint is now free for the first time, although it includes less features than the $35 Premium edition, and is supported by advertising, which appears fairly unobtrusively on the program's interface while your print job is being analyzed to see how much paper you can save.

By releasing this free version of its program, GreenPrint Technologies has announced that they hope to save "100 million trees and reduce greenhouse gases by 300 million tons globally." Pretty lofty goals -- and ones worth applauding.

GreenTech 101: RoHS Helps Reduce Hazardous Waste

jplatt — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 09:00:00 -0500

Every product that claims to be green seems to come with a half-dozen logos on the package to back up their eco-claims. But what do they all mean? Well don't worry, we're going to tell you.

Today we're focusing on the RoHS logo. RoHS is an abbreviation for the Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive, a European Union regulation more officially known as the "Directive on the restriction of the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment 2002/95/EC." (You can see why they use "RoHS.")

As part of a bigger strategy to reduce e-waste, RoHS regulations restrict the use of six hazardous materials -- including lead, mercury, cadmium, and two types of flame retardants -- in the manufacture of electronics and electrical equipment.

Devices affected by RoHS regulations include all manner of computing equipment, household appliances, telecommunications equipment (like cell phones), lamps and light bulbs, and even toys.

How this affects you:

Devices made by European companies, or made to be sold in the EU, must comply wiht RoHS regulations. That means they need to keep their levels of toxic chemicals to certain accepted minimums, although it does not guarantee that those substances will not be present at all. But devices that are compliant with RoHS regulations are more likely to be safer -- and easier to recycle -- in the long run.

So look for the RoHS logo or information on RoHS compliance. It will help you make the decision on which products are safer for the environment, and which ones are best to buy.