Posted by Kyley Eagleson on Thu, Apr 11, 2013 @ 07:29 AM
It might be a generational thing but I see “You know you’re [blank]” lists all the time. One of the most popular is “You know You’re a 90’s Kid When.” I saw a new one today though and it got me thinking, what would be some major (and potentially comical) ways to identify yourself as a tree hugger, eco warrior, etc.? So I came up with a list. How many criteria do you meet?
1. You drive a hybrid or alternative energy vehicle.
2. You not only know how solar panels work but you’ve installed some on your own home.
3. You have splinters in your arms.
4. You’ve seriously considered owning a tiny house.
5. You routinely pick other peoples recyclables out of the trash.
6. You always shut the lights off when you leave a room, always!
7. You started and fully utilize your own compost heap.
8. You only buy organic.
9. Your favorite cartoon movie is FernGully.
10. You have not used a plastic shopping bag since 1992.
11. You bike everywhere. Even when it’s cold out.
12. You have at least 2 trees as friends on Facebook.
13. You have an entirely hemp wardrobe.
14. Earth Day is your favorite holiday.
Okay, so there is a chance that some of these are far-fetched, but I think you get the idea. What are some things you do that you think really make you green?
Here are the answers to Tuesday's quiz post.
18:d 19:c 20:d 21:b 22:d 23:c
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Posted by Kyley Eagleson on Thu, Apr 04, 2013 @ 07:06 AM
If you don’t follow any of our social media accounts then you probably missed the start of our newest contest. This time we are giving away a laminated set of the four posters in our Recycling Poster Kit! These posters, which are available for download here, measure 12” x 36” and depict the processes four common recyclables go through in order to be reused.
These posters would be perfect for a classroom, office, or anywhere you think people would be interested in a depiction of 4 common recycling processes.
- Glass Recycling
- Plastic Recycling
- Paper Recycling and
- Aluminum Recycling
Entering is simple, just click the button below to be taken to the entry form, fill it out, and cross your fingers that you win! This contest will run for 11 days, (April 1st - 12th) with the winner being randomly selected on the morning of the 12th. This will allow enough time for us to mail the posters to the winner before Earth day on the 22nd!
And make sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and / or LinkedIn to get the most up-to-date information about current contests and promotions!
Looking for the answers to Tuesday's quiz post?
12:d 13:d 14:b 15:b 16: a 17:b
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Posted by Kyley Eagleson on Tue, Mar 12, 2013 @ 07:06 AM
Since starting to work for an environmental company about two years ago I have become much more cognizent of my actions as they relate to the environment. A big thing that I've noticed is that there were some pretty common and simple recyclables I was just completly neglecting! Since realizing the first one (shampoo bottles) the list of items has grown to include most of the following list.
Since I'm assuming I'm not the only person experiencing these oversites I thought I should share the items here to encourage other people to look around at things they may be missing when it comes time to go to the recycling facility.
1. Shampoo, conditioner, and soap bottles – This is something I just recently started doing. I don’t know why it never occurred to me in the past to recycle these items. I think that I (like many people) assumed the residual product made it more work than it was worth. That simply isn’t true though! So take the extra minute to rinse these bottles out and toss them in the recycling with your empty soda ones.
2. Dish and laundry detergent bottles – Much like the last category, I never thought to recycle these items! They too are simply made ready though. And especially with laundry detergent! Rinse out the bottle and poor the water into your wash so you get the full benefit of your soap purchase.
3. Old Glasses – a local eye doctors office may collect old eyeglasses because the can be are reground and made into new eye wear.
4. Old sandwich and freezer bags - Used bags can be recycled at stores offering a plastic bag recycling program (they cannot be placed in your recycling bin with other recyclable).
5. Used aluminum foil - Aluminum foil can be recycled! Just try to get as much food residue off as possible and you are good to go.
6. Metal coat hangers – Have you ever wondered where on earth all the metal coat hangers come from. In my experience, no one really likes using them except for cleaners. That said, do your part to ensure no more of them are produced by taking them to your local drycleaner if you have some to get rid of. Most will accept and reuse or recycle them.
7. Old gift cards, credit cards, store loyalty cards, and hotel keys – These type of things tend to accumulate in my life. Especially the store loyalty cards! Luckily, if you need to purge your wallet you can send old cards to EarthWorks.
8. Pizza boxes – Historically, these have not been recyclable due to the oil stains left by the pizza. Recently, however, many pizza places have taken measures to stop this by adding a paper liner under the pizza. Check if your local place does, you may be surprised to learn you’ve been throwing out perfectly recyclable cardboard!
So step up your recycling game and spread the word about these items that people tend to forget can be reused!
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Posted by Kyley Eagleson on Thu, Feb 21, 2013 @ 07:56 AM
Over the past few years you may have noticed a serious increase in use of the word “green.” It is used so frequently that there is another term, “green-washing,” which deals with companies or organizations using the “green” phraseology to make them seem more environmentally conscious than they really are.
I was thinking about this this morning when I got the idea for this blog post. Now, what you need to know is that I’m the type of person who, once I get a thought or an idea in my head, my brain will make me play it all the way out. What I mean is I can’t quite let the strange ideas go when I get them, I’ve got to soldier through. Don’t believe me? See my past posts about Alphabetical (Environmental) Advice and the Top 5 Ways to NOT be Eco-Friendly for good examples of this phenomenon. But I digress, this morning I got it in my head that I could probably come up with a list of 50 “green” things. And then, since I promised this blog would be extra awesome due to our missing Tuesday’s, I thought “Hey, I bet I could come up with 100 things!”
So, ill-advised as this may be here we go with my list of 100 (literal and figurative) awesome green things.
1. Turning off lights when you leave a room.
2. Riding your bike to school / work.
3. Evergreen trees.
4. Taking shorter showers.
5. Wearing layers in the winter.
6. Recycling paper.
7. Solar power.
8. Broccoli.
9. Asparagus.
10. Peas.
11. Turning your heat down at night.
12. Composting your wastes.
13. Buying local.
14. Re-usable shopping bags.
15. Grass.
16. Four-leaf clovers.
17. Cucumbers.
18. Pickles.
19. Lettuce.
20. Ivy.
21. Jade.
22. Unplugging appliances when they are not in use.
23. Teaching your kids the importance of recycling.
24. Hydroelectric energy.
25. Granny Smith apples.
26. Frogs.
27. Cacti.
28. Brussels sprouts.
29. Wind Energy.
30. House plants.
31. Taking public transportation.
32. Recycling aluminum cans.
33. Avocados.
34. Also, guacamole.
35. Plastic army men.
36. Re-usable water bottles.
37. Salad.
38. Upcycling.
39. Heimlich, the caterpillar from Disney’s A Bug’s Life.
40. Green beans.
41. Turtles.
42. Green Day?
43. The land part of a map of the world.
44. Recycling glass.
45. Using a low-flow shower head.
46. Lima beans.
47. Kiwis.
48. Mold.
49. Portions of the feathers of a male peacock.
50. On occasion, the aurora borealis.
Checkpoint: This is slightly more difficult than I was anticipating. The end of this list may get a little reach-y.
51. Cleaning your lint filter to help save energy when drying clothes.
52. Mike Wazowski from Disney’s Monsters Inc.
53. A percentage of the world’s highlighters.
54. The majority of merchandise sold on or around St. Patrick’s Day.
55. Leprechauns.
56. Washing your clothes in cold water.
57. Packing a lunch as opposed to buying individual items from a vending machine.
58. Leeks.
59. Kale.
60. Spinach.
61. Recycling plastic.
62. Shopping secondhand stores.
63. Donating old clothes / home goods as opposed to throwing them away.
64. Cabbage.
65. Grapes (obviously not the red or purple ones).
66. A stoplight when it’s time to go.
67. An un-ripened banana.
68. The outside of a watermelon.
69. The inside of a honeydew melon.
70. CFL or LED lighting.
71. 1/4th of the common package of food coloring.
72. Green Lantern.
73. Gender neutral baby showers.
74. Sprouts.
75. Carpooling.
76. Fair trade items.
77. Link’s primary tunic in The Legend of Zelda.
78. Luigi’s hat.
79. Celery.
80. Reading a book over watching television.
81. Bok Choy.
82. Printing double sided.
83. Line drying clothing.
84. Planting a garden.
85. Some cars.
86. Fuel efficiency.
87. Road name signs.
88. A somewhat confusing deck of cards I bought once (red was green, it was weird).
89. Earth day.
90. Planting trees.
91. Lime skittles.
92. The only female M‘nM before they animated the brown one.
93. Limes.
94. Palm fronds.
95. Filtering tap water instead of buying bottled.
96. “Dipsy” the green Teletubby
97. The thumb of the title character in my favorite childhood movie, A Troll in Central Park.
98. Hybrid cars.
99. Paying bills online.
100. Emeralds.
Well… that was considerably more difficult than I thought it would be. If you think of anything else please add it in the comments section, we’ve got to be close to the world record for listing green things, right?
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Posted by Kyley Eagleson on Thu, Feb 14, 2013 @ 06:42 AM
Since people really seemed to enjoy our previous Environmental Memes post, I decided to round up some more appropriate images. Just in case you missed the last post, Dictionary.com defines a meme as, "an element of a culture or behavior that may be passed from one individual to another by nongenetic means, esp. imitation." And in relation to online memes they are usually, "an image, video, etc. that is passed electronically from one Internet user to another."
So now that we're all on the same page, here come the memes!
1. Schrute Facts
2. McKayla is Not Impressed
3. Grumpy Cat
4. Crying Woman (A Variation of First World Problems)
5. Batman Slapping Robin
And even though we included him last time, you can really never go wrong with...
6. Ryan Gosling, "Hey Girl..."
Plus, that last one is really in the spirit of Valentines day. I hope you enjoy these as much as I do!
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Posted by Kyley Eagleson on Tue, Nov 13, 2012 @ 09:58 AM
I found a website the other day that listed a bunch of different writing prompts. Everything from “Imagine a world where sharks swim in the forest and somehow you find yourself lost in the woods,” to “Pretend that you are in your 70’s or 80’s. Complain about kids these days.”
My favorite though was one instructing you to write an alphabetical list of advice. So as I’m wont to do, I took the idea and gave it an environmental spin. Some letters were tricky, you’ll see I had to fudge a little on X…
A – Aspire to create a greener planet
B – Bring your eco bags
C – Compost
D – Do your part
E – Everything that can be reused should be
F – Fight the urge to waste
G – Grow your own produce
H – Hold on to things you think you’ll be able to use later
I – Instill green habits into others
J – Jump on the green bandwagon
K – Kindness towards the earth is always good
L – Littering is never a good idea
M – Make sure to recycle whenever you can
N – Notice new ways to help the environment
O – Open your eyes to see what needs to change
P – Paper and plastic should both be recycled
Q – Quietly clean up the planet, small things are still helpful!
R – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
S – Stay away from bottled water
T – Take the bus instead of driving alone
U – Use alternative sources of energy. Solar, hydroelectric, and wind are all great options!
V – Various things can be upcycled, experiment!
W – Water should be conserved
X – eXamine your current choices and make some greener
Y – You can be responsible for major change
Z – Zealously take part in environmentally friendly ways of life
Can you think of any other advice? Better yet, can you think of something for X?
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Posted by Kyley Eagleson on Thu, Oct 18, 2012 @ 11:22 AM
In our newsletter last month we included a link to a poster kit that we created. If you are a frequent reader of our blog you may remember our infographics about paper recycling, plastic recycling, glass recycling, and aluminum recycling. We took those graphics and resized them so they could be printed as 12"x36" posters!
These posters are great for a classroom, home, office, or anywhere you feel people could use more information about what happens to the things we put in the recycling bin.
These posters are still avaliable for download and would make a steller addition to your home or workspace. Let us know what you think in the comments section!
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Posted by Kyley Eagleson on Thu, Oct 11, 2012 @ 12:35 PM
In a perfect world
we would be able to recycle everything. Sadly, we just are not quite there yet. Additionally, the costs associated with our attempting to recycle things that can’t be recycled are high! “In 2009, contamination in the recycling stream cost the City of Phoenix [AZ] approximately $722,000.” [1] This said, we want to provide you with a list of things you may think are recyclable that actually aren’t.
1. Shredded paper – Shredding paper shortens the paper fiber and makes it more difficult to recycle. Many recycling facilities will not accept shredded paper because of this. [2]
2. Brightly colored paper – This is like the classic red sock in a load of whites’ problem. Brightly colored papers will bleed onto other paper and can ruin a whole load of paper! [3]
3. Pizza boxes – This is one of the most commonly mistaken items. Although they are made of cardboard, the grease from the pizza contaminates the raw material. You can tear off the untarnished parts and recycle them though! [2]
4. Bottle caps – Because the caps of bottles are a different type of plastic (#5) they can’t be recycled with the bottles. The problem comes down to the melting points of the plastics; if a cap gets into the mix it can contaminate a whole batch of plastic because it won’t melt. [2]
5. Household glass – Items like window panes, mirrors, light bulbs and dishes are impractical and should be left out of your recycling. [2]
6. Wet paper – Paper that has gotten wet can have damaged fibers which make recycling difficult or impossible. Take care to cover your recyclables to keep them safe from the elements. [2]
7. Milk and juice cartons – Because these are often coated with a thin layer of wax they can’t be recycled. [2]
8. Paper coffee cups – Although often thought of as a better alternative to Styrofoam, paper cups pose issues to recycling as well due to the plastic coating applied to prevent leaking. Your best bet is to bring your own mug! [3]
9. Used baby diapers – the plastic and paper from them cannot be salvaged by most recycling facilities. [2]
10. Aerosol cans – While these are made of metal, because of the chemicals used to pressurize the cans they are classified as a household hazardous waste. [3]
11. Ceramics and pottery – This includes things like coffee mugs and old flower pots. Look into donating items like this if they are in alright shape, someone else may be able to reuse them! [3]
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Posted by Kyley Eagleson on Thu, Sep 20, 2012 @ 11:49 AM
On Tuesday I told you the startling (and rather depressing) statistic about Americans annually throwing away upwards of 80 million dollars’ worth of copper, gold, silver, palladium and platinum by junking old cell phones. Today though I learned about a new EPA program that will hopefully help to decrease the wastes associated with throwing away all electronics, not just cell phones.
According to the EPA, “Consumer electronics — including TVs and other video equipment, computers, assorted peripherals, audio equipment, and phones — comprise approximately one to two percent of the municipal solid waste stream, as tracked in the Municipal Solid Waste Characterization Report.” Additionally, the typical American household uses at least 24 different electronic devices, from cell phones to TVs. Computers, and eReaders. All these items have an eventual end of life or usefulness, if you don’t believe me look for stats in the coming weeks about how many people will have “upgraded” to the iPhone 5, I’m anticipating startling numbers. And most of those people will probably be replacing phones that still function fine; it’s just a fact of life.
That said; think about the problem on a larger scale. What will happen to the stock of the old iPhones at retail stores? What about the parts for old phones that don’t work in new ones? Or old TV sets, eReaders, etc.? For consumers, it’s a little easier to find an electronics recycler because we generally accrue just a few items. For manufacturers and retailers though the story is much different.
As stated on their website, One way EPA is addressing this growing number of discarded electronics is through the Sustainable Materials Management Electronics Challenge. By participating in the Challenge, original equipment manufacturers and retailers are promoting responsible electronics recycling. They are increasing the number of electronics being collected, sending 100 percent of their used electronics to a recognized third-party certified recycler by the third year of your participation, and publicly reporting this information.”
Ten companies have already signed on! Will you be on the forefront of the sustainable electronics movement or will your company risk becoming as obsolete as the original iPhone?
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Posted by Kyley Eagleson on Tue, Sep 18, 2012 @ 09:47 AM
As a sort of companion piece to our post "11 Strange Facts About Recycling," we scoured the internet once more to find you 10 new somewhat strange and interesting facts that you may not know about recycling!
1. It is believed that the history of recycling dates back to pre-industrial times when people would melt down old pots and swords in order to make new ones from the same materials. [1]
2. According to the EPA, In the United States alone, about 75% of waste that ends up in the garbage could be recycled. [1]
3. Approximately 500,000 trees give their life each week in order to bring you the Sunday newspaper. [1]
4. Every year Americans throw away upwards of 80 million dollars’ worth of copper, gold, silver, palladium and platinum by junking old cell phones. That one really hurts doesn’t it? [2]
5. As a last wish, old Fido could help to grow a tree that he’d have loved to pee on. The Doggone Project in Mannheim, Germany, can recycle deceased pets into fertilizer. [2]
6. Americans throw away enough aluminum every three months to rebuild our entire commercial air fleet. But would the flights be on time? That’s the real question. [3]
7. Every ton of paper we recycle saves 3,700 pounds of lumber and 24,000 gallons of water! Make like the Lorax and speak for the trees! [3]
8. You probably don’t notice it when you’re cruising at 70mph, but if you walk a mile down an average U.S. highway you will see approximately 1,457 separate pieces of litter. [4]
9. In the 10 minutes you may spend on our blog 3,500,000 aluminum cans will be produced. [4]
10. With all the awesome mugs you see in stores today, this one really blows my mind; American’s throw away approximately 25,000,000,000 Styrofoam coffee cups every year. That’s 25 billion cups ending up in our landfills! [4]
So how many did you know? Or better yet, do you have any we should add to the list?
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