reuse

How to Recycle Those Old VHS Tapes

jplatt — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 08:00:00 -0400

My wife and I are finally getting rid of most of our old VHS tapes. It's about time. I mean, we haven't plugged our VCR in for more than a year. Those old tapes were just sitting around gathering dust, and some of them can be re-used, while others can be recycled.

Our first trip was to the local library. Many of the older patrons in this town still use their VCRs quite heavily, as do the vacationers who have cabins here and haven't upgraded to DVD yet. Our library stocks a supply of video tapes for patrons, and also runs a very nice used book store which sells tapes for a few bucks each. So a few boxes of tapes went there.

Next stop was another nearby used bookstore, which also sells used VHS tapes. They took another box. (Did I mention that we had a lot of video tapes?)

Thrift stores could have also been an option. There are three within a few miles of our home, but the library and the used book store took so many, we didn't need to make another stop.

A few rarities (old horror movies and the like) went up on eBay or Amazon's Marketplace. There wasn't a huge market for these flicks, but collectors did pick up a few that weren't available on DVD.

That got rid of 99% of our pre-recorded tapes. But we also had several boxes of movies and TV shows that we had taped off the airwaves. You can't sell or give those things away, but we didn't want to chuck them in the trash, so it was time to look into recycling.

GreenDisk served our purposes pretty well. They'll take a 20 pound box for $6.95, and every additional pound costs just 30 cents. The price goes toward a shipping label, and you send them your video tapes (or anything from a whole list of products) for recycling.

There, problem solved! Give it a shot yourself. Free up some space, put old tapes to good re-use, and keep that trash out of the landfill in the process!

Support Green Charities by Buying or Selling on eBay

jplatt — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 09:00:00 -0400

Looking for a way to support a green charity, but you don't have much cash on hand? Try selling something on eBay and donating the proceeds to the enviro-charity of your choice.

eBay's Giving Works program lets any seller choose to donate 10-100% of the proceeds of their sales to any of 14,000 charities.

Green charities registered for Giving Works include all of the biggies: the World Wildlife Fund, Nature Conservancy, Greenpeace, the NRDC and many others.

There are a few restrictions and details that sellers need to know before they list their items:

A donation of at least $5.00 is required if your listing sells (so no selling $1 items)
The donation will be collected from the payment method you put on file for donation payments (so you'll get what's left over if you donate less than 100% to charity)
You still need to pay listing fees to sell your items on Giving Works, but you'll get a 30% fee credit if your item sells
MissionFish, a registered nonprofit, collects and distributes your donation. According to eBay, they "retain a small portion of each donation to help cover their costs."
Your donation earns you a tax deduction, and you'll get all the necessary paperwork to support that deduction

You can also take advantage of this program as a buyer. Just search the Giving Works site, or search their database to find a charity that you want to support and the auctions that support the chairty of your choice.

eBay says this site helps to support non-profits while also living up to the old environmental credo of "reduce, reuse, recycle." Give it a tree and see how much you can donate as a result!

Upgrading Your Cell Phone? Go Green with Refurbished Phones

jplatt — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 09:00:00 -0500

How often do you replace your cell phone? Every two years? Every year? More often than that? How many cell phones have you gone through in your life so far?

Think about all of those old phones you used to own. What happened to them? Did they end up being recycled, or did they become electronic waste that is poisoning our land and water?

Or... did they get refurbished and resold to a new owner, someone who got an extra six months or two years of life out of a device you didn't want any more?

Buying refurbished phones is a great idea. Not only is it green -- it's better to keep a device in use than to make and sell a brand new one -- but you can often save a lot of money by purchasing a pre-used cell phone. For example, AT&T is selling refurbished 8G iPhones for just $99 -- that's half price!

Okay, that AT&T deal is only if you get a two-year contract, but they're far from the only source for refurbished phones. Credo Mobile offers several models (some of which are free with two-year contracts), as do other cell phone companies.

So think about this next time you decide to replace your phone. Do you really need the newest, hottest device with all the bells and whistles, or will last month's model do just as well? Check with your cell phone provider to see if they have refurbs for sale, or Google "refurbished cell phones" to find dozens of sites selling refurbished phones online. (You might need to check with your carrier to make sure they can activate your new phone.)

A Blow to Cell Phone Recycling? Recycled Phones Found to Still Have Your Data

jplatt — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 09:00:00 -0500

Hundreds of thousands of new cell phones are sold every year. Most of them go to replace older phones, which can end up being donated, refurbished and resold, thereby keeping them out of landfills and extending their life cycles.

But now comes word that, in a study of 2,000 recycled phones, a shocking 99% of them still had some amount of private data stored in their memory. This even included personal data like passwords and private emails, according to Regenersis, the UK-based cell phone recycler, which conducted the random test on the phones it was recycling.

Now, if your cell phone is a golden oldie like mine, there's probably not a lot of data on it. But if you're been migrating to smarter phones, or if you use yours for any type of online services, this could be more of a problem in the long run.

There are a few steps you can do to help ensure that your data is safe when you donate or recycle your phone:

1. Remove the SIM card. (This contains a good chunk of your private data.)

2. Take the time to clear your memory of your contacts, bookmarks, photos and other data.

3. Reformat your cell phone yourself, wiping out all of the old data in the process.

4. Confirm that the company recycling your phone wipes out all data, and does it well. (I think it's important to note here that Regenersis does not seem to be one of those companies that wipes phones clean. They rely on the people doing the donating to do that, which is kind of weak.)

Here's an earlier post that offers more tips on recycling your old phones.

Eliminating Capitalism?

jkraft — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 08:16:42 -0400

Archaeologists from the future might think that the most valuable product from contemporary society is our garbage. The Egyptians and Incans horded gold in royal tombs, and we horde our plastic refuse in giant landfills! But what if we could literally turn our garbage into gold? What if we could create products, services and energy from the stuff we discard? 16 billion tons of annual waste in America could be put to work for us and for the earth.

Terracycle makes products out of garbage. Everything you can imagine—from old fax machines to soda bottles to moldy orange peels are re-blended, re-fashioned and made into home, garden and office goods.

Their first, and flagship product is Terracycle Plant Food™-- . a nutritious fertilizer. It’s made entirely from organic waste materials fed to worms. When the worms chow down, their, for lack of a better term, poo is then boiled, bubbled and treated to make a rich plant super-fuel. It’s packaged in soda bottles taken from schools and offices around the country—a perfect re-use. Instead of melting down and recycling the plastic bottles, they simply adapted their filling machines to accommodate multiple sized bottles. Terracycle is the only company in the US to do this, but they won’t be the last. Re-using old containers makes economic sense and extends the life of the original plastic. Since its inception in 2001, the company has been profitable, probably because they have cut out an entire side of the typical business balance sheet—no raw materials expense.

Along with plant pots made of the plastic from old electronics, school backpacks made of used juice-paks and trash cans made from crushed computers, Terracycle co-founders Co-founders Tom Szaky and Jon Beyer are developing a fire log made from 100% waste byproduct. In the production of bio-diesel, a lot of unutilized glycerin is collected, and it’s a fantastically combustible material that doesn’t produce particulate matter or other pollutants when it burns. Combined with wood chips and shredded milk cartons, and wrapped in old newspapers—this garbage will light up the night, producing 2-3 times more heat than traditional firewood.

Trash Crisis Brings Out the Garbage Police

scleaver — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 09:33:22 -0400

In the city of Whitehaven in northern England (almost at the Scotland border), Britons are balking at a government crackdown on trash. Earlier this year, for example, local bus driver Gareth Corkhill was fined $215 when he couldn't fully close the lid on his overflowing garbage can. His neighbors rallied behind him, protesting the fine, but they’re not the only city facing increasing scrutiny on trash day.

New garbage rules are spreading across Europe. Britain, especially, is in trash crisis with a poor recycling record, and ever-shrinking landfill space, according to a New York Times article. Now, governments in England and on the continent are enforcing strict rules to get residents to reduce, reuse, and recycle. Two ideas that governments are trying to enforce that you can adopt:

1. Put out garbage every other week: Many countries are collecting trash every other week, instead of every week, forcing people to limit their trash output.

2. Put less in landfills: Landfill space is running out, which is why Britain and Europe have been ordered to reduce landfill waste to 50% of the 1995 levels by 2015, or incur EU fines.

Those policies are being enforced today, but on the horizon are policies that make Britons pay according to the amount of garbage they produce, using a weight sensor inside every garbage bin to calculate each household’s bill. With what they see as the Big Brother of garbage looming, Britons are up in arms. What do you think? Should the government enforce trash policies? And which do you think will work?

Photo from Green Living Online.

REUSE REUSE REUSE RECYCLE! The NEW 4 R's!

edahmen — Mon, 26 May 2008 00:00:00 -0400

We all understand the importance of recycling, but there's an extra little step we can take with our recyclable materials on the way to the recycling bin to help reduce our waste even more! To master this new technique we must ask ourselves this question, “How can I use this item again before I recycle it?” The answer will have you reducing waste and getting organized at the same time!

Here are a few fun examples to help you get started!

Tea-boxes as drawer organizers?
I enjoy a yummy Yogi Tea every now and again. The boxes are recyclable, but I’ve discovered that by cutting off the top of the lid they fit snugly in my kitchen drawer and I can use them for organizing twisty ties and rubber bands. If they start to look old you break them down and put them in the recycle bin and replace it with a newer box.

Glass jars for my cleaning pastes?
You may not be used to green cleaning, but a lot of green cleaning methods involve making a paste out of baking soda and water, or oxygenated bleach cleanser and water. I find that reusing glass peanut butter or jam jars are great for this purpose.

Salad boxes for organizing outdoor party supplies?
Many organic salad mixes come in PETE plastic #6 boxes made from corn, like these from Earthbound Farm. While these can be recycled (though many cities won’t take #6’s) they work amazing as containers for organizing outdoor party supplies. I like to separate plastic utensils (that we will re-use, not dispose of!) into these boxes. It makes it easy for guests to find the utensil they need and it allows me to store them clean and separated during the winter. These boxes are lightweight and surprisingly durable, you can also use them for organizing anything from colored pencils to batteries.

Wine bottles in my toilet tank?
Ok, this one does sound funny! But a lot of people are getting wise to the fact that their toilet tanks use way more water than necessary. However, we can offset the water in our tank by putting an object inside that is dense enough to displace the water. Filling a wine bottle with water, sand or pebbles and placing in your toilet tank is a great way to re-purpose a recyclable wine bottle. You can also use recyclable plastic bottles for this as well. For more info on how to do this, click here!

Plastic bags in my purse?
The greener you are, the more you probably HATE the ubiquitous plastic bag. You try to BYO-bag as often as possible, but they just keep multiplying under the sink, don’t they? A little known fact is that plastic bags (when left alone) will breed, especially if left in dark areas. Be that as it may, it is impossible to deny the gazillion uses you can put them to before you recycle them. Here are a few of my favorites.

First, fold them into little triangles so they don’t take up more space than necessary. Instructions on how to do that are here.

For wet umbrellas, keep a triangle in your purse so that when you come into work/ a store/ the car from being out in the rain you can bag it and not worry about making a puddle. This won’t work for long handled umbrellas, but why you’d want to carry around a long handled umbrella is beyond me.

For packing cushion, wad them up and use them instead of bubble wrap or peanuts.

For travel, use them to separate socks and underwear or to store groups of soft items. Once items are in a bag, squeeze all the air out and it will save you space in your luggage. They will also keep your clothes clean in case something from that darn bath bag you had to check leaks!

For when you forget to BYO-bag. Keep a triangle in the bottom of every purse or bag you have. That way when you forget a reusable bag (or) just need an extra one you don’t have to take a new one from the store.

And that’s just the tip of the ice…bag!

Reduce, Reuse... FREECYCLE

jplatt — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0400

Let's say you have a bike you don't need. Or a pile of extra magazines sitting in your house. Or some clothes your children have outgrown. You could throw them out. You could recyle them. Or you could find someone else in your community who could put them to good use.

Enter Freecycle.org. This free, non-profit web service connects people who have extra stuff with others in their community who need that very same stuff.

More than 4 million people in 4,300 communities worldwide are already signed up to use Freecycle. Each participant subscribes to a an email list for their community. Users can post a description of an item they would like to recycle, or request an item someone else in the community might have.

I signed up for Freecyle a few weeks ago, and love reading the emails as they come in. Most of the posts in my part of Maine have been from individuals looking for or giving away clothes, home-improvement items, lawn tools and the like, but a few businesses have also been giving away their extra office supplies. (When I think about how much the companies I used to work for threw out on a daily basis, I wish I had known about Freecyle when it started four years ago.)

A simple email group might not seem like the most technologically advanced method to connect peoples' wants and needs, but it works, and the service keeps all kinds of perfectly useful goods from ending up in landfills. Give it a whirl. You might be able to help a neighbor in need, and you'll be helping the environment in the process.

Want to find out more about recycling?

Recycling Tips: Did You Know You Cannot Recycle Messy Pizza Boxes?

The Benefits of Recycling: Let’s Talk Trash

Recycling the Looking Glass: When Garbage and Art Collide

Top 10 Recycling Resources

Recycled Record Snack Tray

The Benefits of Recycling Cardboard

The Art of Garbage

Recycle Those Electronics!

Back to Basics—RRR

Picking Up Garbage TVs and Recycling as Art

Students Recycle and Reduce Garbage: Take It Or Leave It

Knight Rider Recycled—Reborn With Green Twist!

Recycling Your Garbage: Where Does it All Go?

Five Ways to Use eBay for Your Green Wedding

ckane — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 07:00:00 -0400

1. Your dress. eBay can be used to find not just your dress, but your bridesmaids' dresses, your flower girl's dress, the groom's suit, shoes, and accessories. And often, they are CHEAP! You can go vintage or modern here.

2. Vintage touches. Why buy new save-the-date postcards or magnets when you can find vintage postcards in lots on eBay? Look for them in batches themed to your wedding-- As I write this, I'm the lead bidder on a lot of 29 vintage postcards for Lake Tahoe, where our wedding will take place. (Auction ends today! Fingers crossed!) Or you could pick up a vintage cake topper, old vases for your floral centerpieces, etc.

3. Fabric. Don't buy new fabric for dresses, sashes, bridesmaid wraps, or for making/dressing up your wedding favors when eBay has plenty of remnant material, unused dead stock, or plain old fabric stashes that some old lady had packed away.

4. Gifts for the wedding party. Again, why buy new when you can give a cool vintage flask, jewelry, or whatever gifts specially suit your favorite guys and girls?

5. Ceremony and reception decor. Do a search under Wedding & Party Supplies for "used" or "like new" and you'll find garlands, cake plates, chair covers (if you care about such things; I don't think anyone will complain if you do without chair covers), and much more.

And that's just the beginning. Whatever it is you're looking for, you can set up saved searches on eBay, and you'll get automatic email notifications whenever your desired object is put up for auction. Now log on, do a search for wedding, bridal, organic, or whatever and get ready for the hours to melt away.

Image: '70s cake topper from eBay

Can You Make Overconsumption Look Good?

akronheim — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 01:00:00 -0400

I got an email with the subject line: "What does a pile of 426,000 cell phones (the number retired in the US everyday) look like?" I clicked on the link and was mesmerized by artist Chris Jordan. On his series "Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait" he wrote "Each image portrays a specific quantity of something: fifteen million sheets of office paper (five minutes of paper use); 106,000 aluminum cans (thirty seconds of can consumption) and so on. My hope is that images representing these quantities might have a different effect than the raw numbers alone, such as we find daily in articles and books. Statistics can feel abstract and anesthetizing, making it difficult to connect with and make meaning of 3.6 million SUV sales in one year, for example, or 2.3 million Americans in prison, or 410,000 paper cups used every fifteen minutes." From far away, the huge 5'x6' (or bigger) photographs don't look like anything except flat color, stone, landscape, or a model, but when you move closer, the pile of waste is shown. It's like an allegory of how disconnected we are from the problem of overconsumption (as discussed on the Living Ethically and Sustainably Web page) and we have to step closer to see how to fix it.

I sent the link to my friends around campus and they said that our very own Ithaca College Handwerker Gallery has the exhibit! I was so excited to spread the word! On the reaction wall at the exhibit some comments have been: "...cell phones from a distance seem like stone...they look natural from far away and then we pummel it with trash," "USA is home to 5% (or less) of world's population, but consumes 30% (or more) of the world's resources," "What hope or solution does this exhibit offer? How can we become less of a consumerist society?"

Just to start us off on the track to becoming a more sustainable society:

1. Reduce what you buy and use on a daily basis
2. Reuse - "Paper or Plastic?" How about Neither? (an organic bag that says "neither" to paper or plastic)
3. Recycle - recycle everything your town recycling plant can handle
4. Compost your food left overs
4. Redistribute - Donate to a thrift store near you, so someone else can use them and you can get a tax write-off!

There's many other things you can do, and most blogs on Riverwired.com can help you out. Chris Jordan just shoves it in our faces that we really need to make these changes ASAP because the waste is piling up faster and faster. I cannot imagine what I would do if I was personally in front of 410,000 paper cups. We should work on these lifestyle changes together to make Chris Jordan's art a little smaller and our planet a little cleaner.