Things You Can Recycle to keep New Hampshire Green
I am a big fan of buying and selling items on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist. Many police stations have designated safe area monitored by them so you can meet people to trade your goods. Instead of throwing things away there is always someone willing to take it or buy or sell cheaply. It helps everyone really.
Appliances: Goodwill accepts working appliances, www.goodwill.org, or you can contact the Steel Recycling Institute to recycle them. 800-YES-1-CAN, www.recycle-steel.org.
Donating furniture and recycling appliances is something many sellers do when they're moving, downsizing, or decluttering. What they may not know is that these actions are actually very sustainable and great for cutting down waste. I am always asked to help get rid of contents--sometimes I am given things. Since landfills continue to fill up at a staggering pace, here is this sustainability disposal guide to help you know how you can re-use/recycle or donate furnishings and electronics to declutter their homes.
Sustainability Guide for Recycling & Donating Furniture and Appliances
Batteries: Rechargeables and single-use: Battery Solutions, 734/467-9110, www.batteryrecycling.com. The Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation (RBRC) is an industry funded group promoting battery recycling as well. Many Radio Shack stores recycle batteries.
Cardboard boxes: Contact local nonprofits and women's shelters to see if they can use them. Or, offer up used cardboard boxes at your local Freecycle.org list serv or on Craigslist.org for others who may need them for moving or storage. If your workplace collects at least 100 boxes or more each month, UsedCardboardBoxes.com accepts them for resale.
On a side note, here are 80 creative uses for old newspapers.
CDs/DVDs/Game Disks: Send scratched music or computer CDs, DVDs, and PlayStation or Nintendo video game disks to AuralTech for refinishing, and they'll work like new: 888/454-3223, www.auraltech.com.
Clothes: We know you can find great deals at Goodwill. I have gotten some great deals. Shirts Donate wearable women's business clothing to Dress for Success, which gives them to low-income women as they search for jobs, 212-532-1922, www.dressforsuccess.org. Offer unwearable clothes and towels to local animal boarding and shelter facilities, which often use them as pet bedding. Consider holding a clothes swap at your office, school, faith congregation or community center. Swap clothes with friends and colleagues, and save money on a new fall wardrobe and back-to-school clothes.
Compact fluorescent bulbs: Take them to your local IKEA store for recycling: www.ikea.com. Of course you may be tempted to buy great stuff cheap while you are there.Â
Compostable bio-plastics: You probably won't be able to compost these in your home compost bin or pile. Find a municipal composter to take them to at www.findacomposter.com.
Computers and electronics: Find the most responsible recyclers, local and national, at https://www.ban.org/about-us.
EPA "Plug-in To eCycling" gives extensive list of web links for computer and digital equipment recycling. Nearly every peripheral requires batteries, a hazardous waste unless you know what to do with them. What about your old cel phone? Can someone else find a use for your old monitor, computer or printer? Find out here. https://www.epa.gov/recycle
Exercise videos: Swap them with others at www.videofitness.com.Of course you can always go down anystreet and find people giving away exercise bike, or treadmill.
Eyeglasses: Your local Lion's Club or eye care chain may collect these. Lenses Glasses are reground and given to people in need.
Foam packing: Your local pack-and-ship store will likely accept foam peanuts for reuse. Or, call the Plastic Loose Fill Producers Council to find a drop-off site: 800/828-2214. For places to drop off foam blocks for recycling, contact the Alliance of Foam Packaging Recyclers, 410/451-8340, www.epspackaging.org/info.html
Ink/toner cartridges: Recycleplace.com pays $1/each. You can also go to Staples and they may give you up to $3 credit for each cartridge.
Miscellaneous: Get your unwanted items into the hands of people
who can use them. Offer them up on your local Freecycle.org or Craigslist.org lists erv, or try giving them away at Throwplace.com or giving or selling them at iReuse.com. iReuse.com will also help you find a recycler, if possible, when your items have reached the end of their useful lifecycle.
Oil: Find Used Motor Oil Hotlines for each state: 202-682-8000,www.recycleoil.org.
Phones: Donate cell phones: Collective Good will refurbish your phone and sell Cellphoneit to someone in a developing country: 770/856-9021, www.collectivegood. com. Call to Protect reprograms cell phones to dial 911 and gives them to domestic violence victims:www.donateaphone.com. Recycle single-line phones: Reclamere,814/386-2927, www.reclamere.com.
Sports equipment: Resell or trade it at your local Play It Again Sports outlet, 800/476-9249, www.playitagainsports.com.
"Technotrash" : Here is one place to recycle all of your technology related garbage. Here you can easily recycle all of your CDs (remember all of those AOL discs), plastic jewel cases, DVDs, audio and video tapes (VHS and cassette--remember those?), cell phones, pagers (really old), rechargeable and single-use batteries, PDAs, and ink/toner cartridges with GreenDisk'sTechnotrash program. For a small fee, GreenDisk will send you a cardboard box in which you can ship them up to 70 pounds of any of the above. Your fee covers the box as well as shipping and recycling fees.800/305-GREENDISK, www.greendisk.com.
Tennis shoes: Nike's Reuse-a-Shoe program turns old shoes into playground and athletic flooring. www.nikereuseashoe.com. One World Running will send still-wearable shoes to athletes in need in Africa, Latin America, and Haiti. www.oneworldrunning.com.
Toothbrushes and razors: Buy a recycled plastic toothbrush or razor from ToothbrushRecycline , and the company will take it back to be recycled again into plastic lumber. Recycline products are made from used Stonyfield Farms' yogurt cups. 888/(888)354-7296, www.recycline.com . 20. Tyvek envelopes: Quantities less than 25: Send to Tyvek Recycling Specialist, 5401 Jefferson Davis Hwy., Spot 197, Room 231, Richmond, VA 23234. Quantities larger than 25, call 866/33-TYVEK.
Wedding and Bridesmaids' Dresses Nearly New Bridal (https://www.nearlynewbridal.com) contains a large collection of ads by people who want to both buy and sell wedding dresses, bridesmaids' dresses, tuxedos and flowergirls' dresses.
Donate used wedding dresses to www.makingmemories.org which uses the money raised to fulfill wishes of breast cancer patients throughout the country. 21. Stuff you just can't recycle: When practical, send such items back to the manufacturer and tell them they need to manufacture products that close the waste loop responsibly.
Yogurt CupsYou can join w to recycle No. 5 yogurt containers, and raise money for your favorite charity at the same time.
TerraCycle has partnered with organic food maker Stonyfield Farm in a pilot program to collect used yogurt containers. The pilot Yogurt Brigade includes schools, community groups and others collecting 6-ounce and 32-ounce yogurt containers not normally included in local recycling programs. For every container collected, Stonyfield will donate 2 cents or 5 cents, depending on size, to a charitable organization or school of the collector's choice. There are no signup fees for the Yogurt Brigade, but you must provide a non-residential address to receive the four pre-paid collection boxes.
Once the boxes are filled with 400 small or 50 large yogurt cups, they go back to TerraCycle via UPS. TerraCycle will then transform them into planting pots and sell them to large retailers to use in place of the millions of black plastic planting pots discarded by consumers every year.
Check out TerraCycle's other Brigades for recycling hard-to-discard items, including drink pouches and energy-bar wrappers, at www.terracycle.net. For questions, send an email to info@terracycle.net or call 609-393-4252 ext. 36.
We all hate junk mail. You see how much is "recycled" at the post office itself. Seems to me more every day. More than 50% of all U.S. mail is junked, unopened, 60 million trees and 28 billion gallons of water were used to produce U.S. mail for just one year. And habitat loss is a major cause for plant and animal extinction. Here are practical steps to reduce both personal and business junk mail http://www.globalstewards.org/junkmail.htm which will save trees and preserve our forests.
Energy use is of interest for everyone--or should be Here is “A Guide to Global Internet Energy Usage” - https://www.energyhelpline.
