Spring Recycling

The other day, a friend was telling me how she'd joined a group online called Messies Anonymous to help her get better organized and become, well, less messy. As she was describing the qualities of a Messy Person, I realized, "Oh, my gosh! That's me!"

Case in point:


This is my bedroom closet. It's supposed to be a walk-in closet, but we can't walk into it because because of all the crap on the floor. We haven't been able to walk into it for, oh, four or five months now. Maybe longer. I forget.

You see, I have this little problem where I know something can be recycled, so I don't throw it away. But then I never recycle it. It just sits around our house for months and months, causing clutter and getting in the way. I swear I didn't have this problem before I went green. Going green has turned me into a packrat!

Spring is often thought of as the season where you throw open the shutters, dig out the cleaning supplies, and deep clean. Well I've decided that this year's spring cleaning for me needs to be all about the recycling.

In that closet pictured above, I have a phone, two laptops, two cameras, a lamp, a wheat grinder, some metal containers, a printer, and a scanner. I need to sell the laptops, put the printer on Freecycle, and see if my husband can fix the scanner. The phone, lamp, wheat grinder, and metal containers can all be recycled at my local recycling drop-off location. I'm pretty sure I can recycle cameras...must research.

In another corner of my bedroom, I have this pile of boxes that's headed for the recycling bin.

I scrounged up all this from under our sinks. The caps are headed for Aveda and the toothbrushes for Whole Food's Gimme 5 bin. To recycle the toothpaste tubes, I need to remove the top plastic part, and then it can go in my regular recycling bin. One of the reasons we use Tom's of Maine toothpaste is because it comes in an aluminum tube rather than plastic.


Last but not least, I've got this monstrous pile of clothing that must be sorted. It's all stuff we've outgrown, stained, or ripped beyond repair. Clothing with fabric I like will be cut up and saved for future sewing projects. (I have high hopes that I'll get to that some day.) The rest will be taken to Goodwill.

All right, I'm off to do some recycling.

How's your spring cleaning going?

____________________

You have hereby been challenged to go green in a year without going broke! Check out the last challenge, or view the whole list of Challengicious Mondays. Sign up for my RSS feed, follow me on Twitter, and join my "Go Green without Going Broke" group on Facebook!

• This post was shared at Works for Me Wednesday
  

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How to Recycle Everything

I say "recycle everything" a little bit tongue in cheek because obviously, it's not possible to recycle everything. The goal is simply to switch your mindset from "throw away" to "reduce, repair, and reuse" and when all else fails...recycle.

Step One: Check with your local waste collection to find out how to participate in your local recycling program.

Step Two: Start a composting bin if your city doesn't have compost collection. Composting is short term for recycling food waste.

Step Three: Find out what other waste collection services your area has. For example, my city has a yard waste drop-off site (and yard waste collection at certain times of the year) and multi-material drop-off sites that take scrap metal, e-waste, tires, and appliances.

Step Four: Look for ways to recycle everything else. Here are some that I've learned about:

#5 plastics

• With their Gimme 5 program, Preserve has partnered with Organic Valley and Stoneyfield Farms to collect #5 plastics, which are not collected by most city recycling programs. Gimme 5 bins are set up at select Whole Foods stores, or you can mail your #5 plastics to Preserve. Also collected through this program: Preserve toothbrushes, other Preserve products, and Brita pitcher filters.

Air bag shipping material

• If made by Ameri-pak, you can mail the air bags back to them to be recycled. They also accept bubble wrap and polyethylene foam.
  

Athletic shoes

• Nike has a Reuse-A-Shoe program where they collect old athletic shoes and turn the soles into surface material for playgrounds and basketball courts. You can find a drop off location by visiting their site, or mail your shoes directly to a Nike Recycling Center. They can be any athletic shoes, not just Nikes.

Baby products

• If your old baby products are unusable or have expired (yes, car seats have expiration dates!), ship them to Baby Gear, which will disassemble them and make sure all parts are recycled properly.
  

Bottle caps

• Most recycling centers do not accept the caps, and if a cap is left on the bottle, they throw the whole bottle out. But now Aveda has started collecting bottle caps! They accept any rigid cap made from polypropylene plastic (if you can bend it with your bare hands, it's not the right kind), and they recycle the caps into Aveda packaging. Just take the caps into an Aveda store.

Brita pitcher filters

• These are accepted in Preserve's Gimme 5 program. See #5 plastics above.
  

CDs, DVDs, diskettes, video tapes, cords, cables, hard drives, etc.

• For a small fee, Greendisk will send you a box to collect your computer related waste.
  

Cell phones, PDAs, and pagers

• CollectiveGood collects cell phones, PDAs, and pagers. Devices that are still in working condition are put back into reuse; devices that are broken are taken apart, the usable parts are collected, and everything else is recycled in an environmentally responsible manner. They also recently launched a program to collect used electronics. You can trade in your old computers, printers, and gaming consoles for money, or donate the value to the charity of your choice.
  

Clothing

• Even threadbare clothing can be donated to Goodwill, which turns them into rags or recycles the fibers into other materials.

Computers and small electronics

• You can find a list of computer and small electronics recyclers at e-Stewards.org.
  

Drink pouches

• TerraCycle collects drink pouches, cookie wrappers, energy bar wrappers, and yogurt cups and turns them into bags, backpacks, and planters. The catch is that you have to find someone or someplace that is collecting them.

Eyeglasses

• The Lions Club and the Give the Gift of Sight Foundation have partnered to collect used eyeglasses, which they clean, repair, and distribute to needy people. You can find a Lions recycling center here.

Glue bottles and sticks

• Set up an Elmer's Glue Crew Recycling Program at your local school.
  

Hangers

• Donate them to a dry cleaner or thrift store.

Home improvement goods

• Donate your old furniture, home accessories, building materials, and appliances to a Habitat for Humanity ReStore.
  

Ink cartridges

• Most office supply stores will recycle your old ink cartridges, and many give you a discount on your next purchase if you bring back the old one.

Jeans

• Watch out for universities and retailers collecting used jeans for the Cotton, from Blue to Green campaign, which turns jeans into insulation.
  

Packing peanuts

• Shipping stores such as The UPS Store will usually take back packing peanuts and reuse them.

Plastic bags

• Return them to the grocery store - preferably the grocery store where you got them because different stores use different types of plastic to make their bags.

Polystyrene packaging materials

• The Alliance of Foam Packaging Recyclers has established several recycling drop-off locations, or you can mail them the packaging.
  

School supplies

• ILoveSchools.com matches teachers with donors of equipment, supplies, and materials. Examples include computer equipment/software, TVs, VCRs, musical instruments, school supplies, sports equipment, and toys.

Wine and champagne corks (not plastic stoppers)

• Mail them to Yemm & Hart, which will turn them into tiles.

Anything else I should add to the list?

____________________

You have hereby been challenged to go green in a year without going broke! Check out the last challenge, or view the whole list of Challengicious Mondays. Sign up for my RSS feed, follow me on Twitter, and join my "Go Green without Going Broke" group on Facebook!

• This post was shared at All Things Eco.
  

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Challengicious Monday: Recycle Everything

Mondays are challengicious at The Conscious Shopper. Here's your next trash-related challenge:

Recycle Everything

To complete this challenge, you can...

BABY STEPS

• Participate in your local recycling program. Check with your local waste collection to find out how to participate, and remember to find out what can and cannot be recycled in your area.
  

JOGGING STRIDE

• Buy recycled products. Complete the loop by looking for products with recycled content whenever possible.
  

MARATHON RUNNER

• Recycle everything. Before you throw anything in the trash, ask yourself, "Could this be recycled? How?" Besides your city's recycling collection, many cities have additional recycling stations that collect yard waste, scrap metal, electronics, and appliances. Plus, numerous companies and organizations throughout the country have set up additional recycling programs. Tomorrow, I'll provide you a list of some of the programs I know about.

As is the case with many of these challenges, I'm somewhere between Jogging Stride and Marathon Runner. I have good intentions to recycle beyond my city's collection, but too often, those good intentions end up being a pile of clutter that never goes away. (The floor of my closet is currently covered in electronics that I need to recycle. It's a walk in closet, but you can't actually walk into it right now. Luckily, I married the right man, who puts up with my crap with very little complaint.)

For more information on recycling, check out:

• Plastics You Might Not Have Known Could Be Recycled
• Quick Post on Recycling
• Quick Tip: Rinsing Cans for Recycling

Will you take the challenge?

____________________

You have hereby been challenged to go green in a year without going broke! Check out the last challenge, or view the whole list of Challengicious Mondays. Sign up for my RSS feed, follow me on Twitter, and join my "Go Green without Going Broke" group on Facebook!

• Photo by cogdogblog
  

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A Peek into My Trashcan

I spent the afternoon digging through my trash. On the one hand, it was pretty fascinating since, like most people, we toss things in the trash without a second thought and promptly forget what's in there. On the other hand, it stunk.

I tried to make a conscious effort this week not to purposely censor my trash just because I knew I'd be showing everyone, and I thought our trash was looking pretty good. Then I woke up on Saturday morning, walked into the kitchen, and said, "Oh, crap."

You see, my husband hosted a poker party on Friday night, and several things found their way into my house that wouldn't normally be there. Like a Velveeta cheese package. And beer bottles. There were also two tortilla chip bags, a styrofoam cup, and some cans of Monster, which wouldn't normally be in our trash but still manage to find their way in on occasion.

We also didn't get a CSA pick-up this week, which unfortunately meant we ate a lot fewer vegetables. I think our food scraps are normally twice what is pictured here, and it's definitely more than our worms can handle - especially during the winter when they don't eat as much.

A Week's Worth of Trash

Disposables:

• diapers
• toilet paper (used as facial tissue)
• food scraps
• milk lids
• random scraps of paper
• plastic packaging
• 2 superglue dispensers
• 1 nightlight bulb
• clementine box
• 3 cereal bags
• 1 cheese package
• 1 sugar bag
• 1 tortilla bag
  
• 2 tortilla chip bags
• 1 velveeta cheese wrapper
  
• styrofoam cup with lid and straw
• cocoa tub
• broken belt
• tie from sweatpants
• broken sunglasses
• dried-out marker
• random craft pieces

Recyclables (not pictured):

• 2 milk jugs
• 3 soymilk containers
• 3 fruit cans
• 1 olive can
• 1 tomato can
• several beer bottles
• several Monster cans
  
• 3 cereal boxes
• 1 velveeta cheese box
• random pieces of paper from First Son's school, our art projects, and junk mail.
  

Compostables (not pictured - fed to worms)

• 3 yogurt containers of carrot peels, apple cores, sandwich crusts, and other miscellaneous food scraps
  

A few notes about some of the items:

Diapers: We use cloth during the day and disposables at night because my kids get terrible rashes when we try cloth at night. The babe that's in diapers now has about six more months, I think, until we'll be done with diapers for good.

Random scraps of paper: This included colored paper (which our recycling doesn't accept), nonrecyclabe Christmas and birthday cards, and various other bits that somehow got dirty or oily.

Broken sunglasses: Second Son got these from the doctor. They broke the next day.

Milk jugs: Normally we buy milk in returnable glass bottles, but Whole Foods was out of stock last week.


Brainstorming Solutions

• Diapers: Try cloth at night one more time. If that doesn't work, prepare to potty train.
• Toilet paper: Make handkerchiefs.
• Food scraps: Start another worm bin or try traditional composting.
• Random scraps of paper: Try harder not to get paper dirty, making it unrecyclable.
• Plastic packaging: Be more mindful of the packaging on products I buy.
• Cereal bags and boxes, tortilla bag, tortilla chip bags: Make food from scratch.
• Sugar bag, cocoa container: Check the bulk bins.
• Food cans: Can at home in glass jars.

Now I have a plan of action for reducing my trash.

How is your trash exploration going? Did you keep track of your trash for a week?

If you took pictures of your trash, you can add them to the Photos page over at the "Go Green without Going Broke" group on Facebook.

____________________

You have hereby been challenged to go green in a year without going broke! Check out the latest challenge, or view the whole list of Challengicious Mondays here.

Like what you see? Sign up for my RSS feed, follow me on Twitter, and join my "Go Green without Going Broke" group on Facebook! You can also find me over at The Green Phone Booth.

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Three Reasons to Care What's in Your Trash Can

1) Trash is a waste of money. You pay for the packaging your food and other products come in. Then you immediately throw that packaging away. And you pay for the garbage bag you put it in, and then you pay for someone to come take those garbage bags away. Everything about trash is a waste of money.

2) Your trash is the window to your soul. What would someone discover about you by looking in your trashcan?

3) Trash is taking over our oceans. There's a spot in the Pacific ocean where so much plastic has accumulated, they call it the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It's an island of plastic the size of Texas, where plastic is choking out all the sea life.




Who cares about trash?

:: Fake Plastic Fish writes about one specific aspect of our trash: plastic. You should also check out the other plastic free bloggers and her plastic free posse listed on her site here, and take her Show Us Your Plastic Trash challenge.

:: My Zero Waste helps people reduce the amount of trash they produce.

:: The Story of Stuff describes the sale, use, and disposal of all of our stuff.

:: Catalog Choice helps you reduce your junk mail.

:: Earth911 tells you everything you could possibly want to know about recycling - including where to recycle.

:: Garbage Land by Elizabeth Royte describes the intriguing journey of trash from your own bin to the landfill.

Why do you care?

____________________

You have hereby been challenged to go green in a year without going broke! Check out the latest challenge, or view the whole list of Challengicious Mondays here.

Like what you see? Sign up for my RSS feed, follow me on Twitter, and join my "Go Green without Going Broke" group on Facebook! You can also find me over at The Green Phone Booth.

• Photos from http://algalita.org/

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Spotlight on Raleigh: Recycling Facilities

My husband and I have moved five times in the seven years of our marriage. Usually, there comes a point in the moving process where I shout, "To heck with this!" and start throwing away anything in sight. This time, though, I am happy to say that I resisted temptation and did my best to dispose of things responsibly.

And that gave me a chance to get to know two of Raleigh's recycling drop off locations:


Swap Shop

Location: 900 N. New Hope Road in Raleigh

Description: The Swap Shop is located at the Yard Waste Center. It's a couple of shacks off to the side where you can drop off working, usable goods and take anything that was left there by someone else. Everything is free. Visit the City of Raleigh's website to find out what's acceptable to leave at the Swap Shop.

My Experience: I found some great treasures at the Swap Shop: an old but functioning camera that I gave to my delighted First Son and a couple sets of headphones, also donated to the boys. I left behind some mismatched dishes sets and some baby clothes, and I hope they've found a good home.

The only disadvantage of the Swap Shop is that it's kind of out of the way for most Raleigh residents. But if you check in anytime you have to take a load out to the yard waste center, you could get some awesome finds.


Multi Material Recycling Facilities

Locations: 9029 Deponie Drive in Raleigh and 6130 Old Smithfield Road in Apex

Description: These are the places to take any recyclable materials that aren't accepted in your green bin. In fact, you might be surprised at all the things that can be taken to the multi material recycling facilities. It's really awesome, so I hope they're recycling responsibly.

My Experience: I visited the North Wake Multi-Material Recycling Facility since it was the closest to me. It was a little confusing to figure out where to put things, but the workers were friendly and helpful. I left a broken CD player, a broken box fan, and a few other broken items that I can't remember now. Third Son went on a destruction spree right before we moved. :(


If you hadn't heard of these facilities before, I hope you'll take advantage of them in the future!

Photo from the City of Raleigh's webpage


Related Posts:

• Spotlight on Raleigh: Children's Consignment Stores
• Spotlight on Raleigh: Finding Local Food's in the Triangle
• Spotlight on Raleigh: Community Gardens, Just Getting Started
  

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I Need...A New Laptop

I'm dreaming about getting a new laptop, but since I've decided to stick it out with our seven-year-old desktop for at least a few months, this is a post with more questions than answers. The environmental impact of our endlessly upgrading technology is a topic I'm just beginning to take a peek at, and the more I learn, the more overwhelmed I feel as a consumer.

Here are just a few problems with laptops:

Short Lifetime

While researching this post, I stumbled upon this "eco-claim" from the XO Laptop by One Laptop Per Child: "The laptop lifetime is 5 years or 2.5 times longer than a typical laptop."

That means that the typical lifetime of a laptop is only two years!

I can attest to that statistic from experience. My defunct laptop was an Asus Eee PC, and I loved that it was compact and highly portable, but it died after a year and a half. Before that, I had a Dell that lasted for a year before becoming a permanent dust-collector in my closet. My husband, a software engineer, says he's never had a laptop last longer than three years.

An average lifetime of only two years seems utterly ridiculous for a product that can carry such a high price tag. Especially considering all of the toxic substances it can contain...

Harmful Substances

Laptops contain a number of harmful substances, including the following:

• lead
  
• mercury
• cadmium
• PVC
• brominated flame retardants
  

Not to mention that laptops contain valuable metals such as copper and gold.

Disposal

With all the hazardous substances that laptops may be harboring, tossing dead laptops into a landfill seems like an obvious no-no. But recycling a laptop may not be much better.

Much of the e-waste in this country is sent to developing nations with lower environmental standards, such as China and India. There, poor workers dismantle computers, laptops, cell phones, and other types of electronic waste without proper equipment or protection, exposing themselves, the land, and the water to highly toxic substances.


My Perfect Laptop

In my dreams, laptops would be designed without all those harmful materials. They would be easily disassembled so the valuable materials they are made of can be recycled. They would be easy to repair and would boast a long lifespan. They would be energy efficient. And it would be awesome if they could come in minimal (but recyclable) packaging.

Turns out, I'm not the only person who has dreamed up that type of laptop. The Green Electronics Council has developed a program called EPEAT that assesses laptops and computers according to their environmental impact and assigns them either a Gold, Silver, or Bronze rating. Consumers can use these ratings to find eco-friendly computers that fit their needs.

However, after browsing through their database, it seems like the laptops that have earned a Gold rating are also the ones that are most expensive. My Asus Eee, for instance, only received a Silver rating, but it also only costs $400. It makes me cringe to think of spending $1500-$2000 on a laptop that will die after two years, Gold rating or not.


Repair or Buy New?

The other option is repairing. I now have two laptops that could be repaired instead of buying a new one, but with each one, the cost to repair feels prohibitive compared to the cost of a new, better product. Most of the time, repairing seems like the perfect environmental choice, but if it means I'll be stuck with an inferior product when I could have upgraded to something better for almost the same price, I have trouble feeling happy about choosing repair over new.

This is a case where my inner tightwad and my inner environmentalist are at war. Luckily, I still have my old desktop to keep me satisfied for a few months while I decide what to do.


What do you think is the best option?

Photo by manbeastextraordinaire


Related Posts:

• Quick Post on Recycling
• Plastics You Might Not Have Known Could Be Recycled
• Clean, Green, and Fair for Everyone

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Weekend Ramblings: Waste Disposal

Being a stay-at-home mom has many benefits, but intellectual stimulation is not one of them. I spend two to three hours a day cooking and cleaning and an hour or more driving or walking - in other words, a lot of time where my mind is left to solitary wandering.

Sometimes I wish I had some feedback to my wandering thoughts, so I thought I'd occasionally start doing some rambling on the weekends, just to get the thoughts out there to someone besides my husband and maybe provoke some conversation as well.

I would love to hear your comments, but I don't like being told I'm being an idiot, even if I am. So please keep your comments respectful.

This week, I was thinking about JessTrev's suggestion that the government should offer tax incentives for conscientious waste disposal, and also an article I read that said San Francisco was going to start fining people for not recycling.

It reminded me of a debate class I took in college where I debated about waste disposal. My argument was that a program should be implemented in Kentucky (where I was living at the time) allowing people a certain number of trash bags a week, and if they went over that amount, they should be fined. This kind of system would encourage people both to recycle and to use less in general.

But I lost the debate because all of my evidence to support my argument came from case studies and examples in California rather than Kentucky, and according to my professor, if you say the program should be implemented in Kentucky, you have to show evidence that it would work in Kentucky. Personally, I thought that was totally stupid because no one had ever proposed it in Kentucky so of course there were no studies showing how it would work there. But anyway...

Thinking about all of these things, I had the following thoughts:

• What if we were responsible for disposing of all of our waste? If something could be recycled, you would be rewarded for disposing of it, or maybe you wouldn't get anything, but if you had to landfill it, you would be fined.

• Would that kind of system encourage people to buy more responsible and quality products, since they wouldn't want to pay a fine?

• Or would people just end up illegally dumping a lot of things (which was one of the arguments of the other side in my debate class)?

• Would knowing that they were responsible for disposal encourage people to buy less in general?

• If people were responsible for the dispoal of their own products, how would that influence the marketplace?

• Should the responsibility for waste disposal lie with consumers or producers?

• If producers were responsible for waste disposal, would they just end up cutting corners, sending things to countries where there are less strict laws?

So these are thoughts I was having this week...Any comments?

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Quick Tip: Rinsing Cans for Recycling

This is just a quick simple post to answer a question from my mom, but I thought the answer might be helpful to others too.

She asked:

Your sister's family is recycling like crazy. You'd be proud of them. Is it really necessary to take the paper off aluminum cans and rinse them out? You waste a lot of water rinsing them out and that seems like a big waste itself.

The guidelines for recycling differ from city to city, so it's important to check with your own city's waste management. But...

In my area, you do not need to take the paper off the cans, but if you wanted to go to the trouble, you could probably recycle the label with your paper as long as it wasn't wet or contaminated with food.

My city's recycling program does request that you rinse out cans, but since that wastes water, they recommend filling one can with water, pouring the dirty water into the next can, and so on until all of your cans are rinsed. The cans only need to be rinsed, not spotless.

I use that method for rinsing out our breakfast dishes (crusty oatmeal is sometimes too great of a challenge for our dishwasher). But to rinse out cans, I save them until the end of the day and rinse them out in the dirty dish water after I've washed the rest of my dishes. This method works for me because it gets the cans cleaner - we keep our recycling under the kitchen sink and only take it out when it's full (which could take a couple weeks).

So that's my answer, Mom.

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Quick Post on Recycling

I try not to blog on Friday nights because I would rather spend that time with my husband, but he's out getting us ice cream, and I haven't had much time to blog this week. So I'm going to get this out quick while I'm thinking about it...

On my recent post about recycling plastics, Emily noted that Ikea has recycling stations for batteries, plastic grocery sacks, and compact fluorescent lightbulbs. That reminded me of a few other things about recycling that I think are important. Not related to plastics, but since we're on the subject of recycling...

1. Household Hazardous Waste:

The reason Ikea collects compact fluorescent lightbulbs is they contain mercury, which makes them hazardous waste. There are many other common household items on the hazardous waste list. These items should not be thrown in the regular trash because they can leach harmful chemicals into our land and water. When I looked at the list of household hazardous waste a couple years ago, I was like, "Crap! I've been throwing that out for years!" So make sure you know what's on the list and how to dispose of it by visiting your city's waste management or recycling website. Here are some examples of household hazardous waste:

• automobile fluids / antifreeze
• batteries
• cooking oil / motor oil
• fire extinguishers (dry chemical)
• fluorescent light bulbs
• fuel oil / lighter fluid / kerosene
• household cleaners /chemicals
• mercury thermometers
• paints / lacquers / polishes
• pesticides / herbicides / poisons
• photographic chemicals
• solvents / thinners / wood preservatives

2. Electronics and Appliances

Many electronics and appliances also contain toxic substances and should not be thrown into a landfill. If the items are not reusable and could not be donated, you should check your city's waste management or recycling website for instructions on how to discard those items. In Raleigh, you can recycle any electronics with a cord by taking them to one of the Multi-Material Recycling Facilities. This is especially important to know with the switch to digital for televisions. Don't throw your TV in the trash!

3. Know Your Recycling Program

Not every area recycles the same things, so make sure you know what's recyclable in your area by checking your city's waste management or recycling website. When I first moved to Raleigh, I wanted some clarification on what was recyclable, so I emailed my local waste reduction specialist, and she replied, "We always are happy to clarify rather than get items we cannot accept." The reason is that one non-recyclable item that goes unnoticed at the recycling center can ruin a whole batch of otherwise recyclable items. So please, please make sure you're only tossing things into your recycling bin that can actually be recycled in your area. In Raleigh, that means no bottle caps, no yogurt tubs, no pizza boxes, no paper towels...This is one of my pet peeves...


To summarize...check your city's waste management or recycling website!

(Okay, I didn't quite make it. My husband's been home about five minutes now...)

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Plastics You Might Not Have Known Could Be Recycled

Trying to green up my personal care products the past few months has included an attempt to reduce my plastic consumption. But plastics are everywhere, and sometimes you just can't avoid buying plastic.

So what to do?...


Now, I want to make it completely clear that recycling is not the solution for the plastic problem. Recycling plastics is down-cycling, meaning that a plastic bottle is made into plastic lumber, not a new plastic bottle. Plus, recycling plastic is difficult, especially if different types of plastics are mixed.

So don't buy something thinking, "I can just recycle this." Reduce your plastic consumption first. Reuse and repair when you can, and recycle last.

Both recycling programs that I have participated in (in Silver Spring, MD and here in Raleigh) have only taken plastic bottles with a narrow neck. That is a very small category of plastics, so what do we do with all the rest of the plastic that enters our homes?

Here are some ways to reuse and recycle plastic that you might not have known about:

• With their new Gimme 5 program, Preserve has partnered with Organic Valley and Stoneyfield Farms to collect #5 plastics, which are not collected by most city recycling programs. Gimme 5 bins are set up at select Whole Foods stores, or you can mail your #5 plastics to Preserve. Also collected through this program: Preserve toothbrushes, other Preserve products, and Brita pitcher filters.

• Are you one of those people who leaves the cap on the bottle when you throw it in the recycling bin? I hope not! Most recycling centers do not accept the caps, and if a cap is left on the bottle, they throw the whole bottle out. But now Aveda has started collecting bottle caps! They accept any rigid cap made from polypropylene plastic (if you can bend it with your bare hands, it's not the right kind), and they recycle the caps into Aveda packaging. Just take the caps into an Aveda store.

• Shipping stores such as The UPS Store will usually take back packing peanuts and reuse them.

• TerraCycle collects drink pouches, cookie wrappers, energy bar wrappers, and yogurt cups and turns them into bags, backpacks, and planters. The catch is that you have to find someone or someplace that is collecting them.

• I'm not completely sure if shoes contain plastic, but Nike has a Reuse-A-Shoe program where they collect old athletic shoes and turn the soles into surface material for playgrounds and basketball courts. You can find a drop off location by visiting their site, or mail your shoes directly to a Nike Recycling Center. They can be any athletic shoes, not just Nikes.

• The Lions Club and the Give the Gift of Sight Foundation have partnered to collect used eyeglasses, which they clean, repair, and distribute to needy people. You can find a Lions recycling center here.

• CollectiveGood collects cell phones, PDAs, and pagers. Devices that are still in working condition are put back into reuse; devices that are broken are taken apart, the usable parts are collected, and everything else is recycled in an environmentally responsible manner. They also recently launched a program to collect used electronics. You can trade in your old computers, printers, and gaming consoles for money, or donate the value to the charity of your choice.

• For a small fee, Greendisk will send you a box to collect your computer related waste: CDs, DVDs, diskettes, video tapes, cords, cables, hard drives, etc.

• Most office supply stores will recycle your old ink cartridges, and many give you a discount on your next purchase if you bring back the old one.

• You can find a list of other computer and small electronics recyclers at e-Stewards.org.

• ILoveSchools.com matches teachers with donors of equipment, supplies, and materials. Examples include computer equipment/software, TVs, VCRs, musical instruments, school supplies, sports equipment, and toys.

As a final note, I have to add that you can never underestimate the desirability of your junk. Before you throw anything in the trash, consider if someone else might want it. You'd be surprised how much of your trash could be someone else's treasure!

I would love to add to this list! Anyone else know of ways to recycle those difficult-to-recycle plastics?

Photo by cogdogblog

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