Now that Christmas is over, it’s time to think about recycling that tree! The City of Chicago will be collecting trees for recycling!
From Saturday, January 7 through Friday, January 20 Chicago residents can bring their holiday tree to one of the 23 participating sites listed below. The trees will be chipped and made into mulch, which will be available for pick-up starting Friday January 13 at those same sites. Be sure to remove all ornaments, lights, and stands before dropping off your tree. We are not able to accept decorations or tree lights, wreaths, garland, or household recyclable materials at these locations. Continue reading 'Holiday Tree Recycling 2011-12'»
The time to finish holiday shopping is running out, and if you still don’t know what to get for a relative or friend, think green. Everyone can feel good about receiving a gift that helps save the environment.
Uncommon Goods, a web-based retailer and catalogue, has a whole section of green gifts that are more unusual and thoughtful than the standard fare of knickknacks made from recycled glass bottles.
For the fashionista on your list who doesn’t want to be caught wearing the same thing as someone else, consider a skirt made from recycled sweaters – no two are alike. There are also scarves made from t-shirts and belts made from spent fire hoses.
For the techie who has every device, Continue reading 'Deck the Halls with Boughs of Green'»
‘Tis the season to give, and one of the easiest ways to give is to recycle what you already have.
There are a number of charitable organizations in Chicago and throughout the state that accept household items that are commonly discarded such as old pairs of glasses, hearing aids and shoes.
The “Lions Recycle for Sight” program collects used eyeglasses and delivers them to regional Lions Eyeglass Recycling Centers. At those centers, Lions Club volunteers clean glasses, sort them by prescription, package them and send them to people in need in developing countries. In addition, some vision stores, such as Pearle Vision, accept used pairs of eyeglasses.
The Lions Club also recycles hearing aids for adults and children worldwide. Used hearing aids can be sent to Lions Hearing Aid Recycling Centers. Go to lionsclubs.org to learn more about where to send used glasses and hearing aids.
Even worn shoes can get new life. Share Your Soles is an organization that cleans up and repairs Continue reading 'Another Way to Recycle'»
Guest Post by Rebecca Jones
The concept of plastic recycling enjoys worldwide attention as people across globe are getting enough awareness about the environment hazards caused by plastic. The increasing number of people embracing ‘Go Green’ attitude has given further impetus to the idea of recycling discarded plastic. The process of recycling post-consumer plastic is a modern technological fad that helps in recovering the economic value of used plastic objects.
Governments and responsible individuals all over the world are investigating alternative ways of putting post-consumer plastic into different uses. They are forced to do it mainly because of the ever-increasing level of plastic consumption and the resulting waste generation. Some creative people and environment-loving business enterprises have come up with innovative ideas to recycle plastic. The main objective of this article is to explore how some initiatives have transformed and modernized the concept of recycled post-consumer plastic. Continue reading 'Recycled Post-Consumer Plastic Gets Modernized'»
Chicago’s new mayor, Rahm Emanuel, is aiming to partially privatize the city’s recycling services in an effort to cut costs and boost the number of households with recycling pick-up.
The city’s existing Blue Cart Recycling program services 240,000 homes at an annual cost of $13.8 million. But bids from private companies have come in 50% lower.
In July, contracts were signed with two different vendors to take over a portion of the recycling pickup Continue reading 'Chicago to Privatize Part of its Recycling'»
Nature is the ultimate model of efficiency. In nature there is no waste; outputs of every process become inputs for new processes: dead trees become homes for owls, ideal locations for mushrooms to fertilize and food for termites. At the Academy for Global Citizenship (AGC), we try to replicate some of nature’s natural processes in action and in theory. This year, we are thrilled to partner with Collective Resources to haul our compostable waste to Land and Lakes’ compost facility! This partnership will allow AGC to expand our compost program because Land and Lakes is a certified commercial compost facility and can accept all food scraps and fiber based materials. The compost that Land and Lakes produces goes back out to landscapers and gardeners to use as nutrient rich soil; a replication of nature’s process.
What all this means for AGC is that we are now running a Zero-Waste Food Program Continue reading 'AGC Partners With Collective Resources'»
Recycled cans, bottles and newspapers have more than just monetary value when redeemed at redemption centers. A lot of people are now giving those items a second life by turning them into art.
The New York Times featured a Brooklyn-based artist who fashions vases and bowls out of recycled glass and asks friends to save their plastic water bottles – particularly Evian bottles — for her so that she can transform them into works of art.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/24/garden/24qna.html?_r=1
Bottlecap Candle
Tuna Can Candle
An artist in Lake Forest, IL, for example Continue reading 'Recycling into Art'»
Came across this excellent list of recycling “do’s”, “don’ts”, “how to’s” and “what’s”.
It’s actually a poster that is published by SWANCC (the Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County — a nonprofit intergovernmental agency).*
JPeg image is below, but to see a full screen, readable PDF of their copyrighted poster, please click on the following link:
http://ecoprintmail.com/pdfs/SWANCCPoster2011.pdf
For more information about SWANCC , please visit their website –
www.swancc.org
Stop. Think. Choose…. and find the value that is inherent our “disposables” and utilize that value again and again and again…
By: David Weiner
Though “open sharing” of this copyrighted material is both permitted and even encouraged between individual family members, friends and co-workers — any commercial use of this material is strictly prohibited and requires the author’s expressed written permission in order to be disseminated in any printed or electronic format including any form of social media.
Guest Post by: Erlene Howard and Mary Beth Schaye of Collective Resource
At this point, whether you recycle or not, you are at least familiar with the idea. You separate glass, aluminum cans and some plastics and put them in a separate bin. As landfills around the world fill up, a third bin has been introduced in order to divert food scraps.
The simplest way to have a zero-waste event is to buy compostable plates, napkins, cups and cutlery and have a company like Evanston-based Collective Resource haul it all away, along with all of the food scraps, to a commercial composting facility.
In this scenario, there is not a lot of sorting. Collective Resource provides you with 5-gallon buckets. You only have to pay for the buckets you fill, so a certain amount of sorting helps your bottom line. If you scrape the leftover food into one bucket and stack the plates neatly in another, pour out liquids and nest cups, you can save a lot of space.
Every gathering is different, but they can all be greened. I’m fond of an exquisite brand of compostables called Continue reading 'How to Have a Zero-Waste Event'»
It seems that most household items can and should be recycled, but it turns out that one common item doesn’t need to be: alkaline batteries.
Some battery manufacturers, like Duracell and Energizer, have eliminated all of the added mercury from its alkaline batteries, so they can now be safely discarded along with normal household waste. The other components of the batteries — steel, zinc and manganese — don’t pose health or environmental risks in the solid waste stream, according to Duracell, and those metals are difficult to recover from batteries.
Rechargeable batteries are a different story, though — they can contain mercury, cadmium, lead, and lithium, and therefore should be recycled. Car batteries and other lead-based batteries should also be recycled.
Continue reading 'Alkaline Batteries – Just Throw them in the Garbage!'»
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