Recycling Household Items for Charity

Here are a couple more thoughts on what to do with your trash or household items you wish to dispose of.

Consider donation, it's the ultimate recycling and reusing:

Old books can go to libraries, nursing homes, preschools, or various charity book collections.

Clothing can go to charity organizations such as Goodwill, Salvation Army, women's shelters, and charity resale shops. You can do the same with some children's toys and baby equipment such as strollers, cribs, toys, etc.

Furniture you no longer want can go to charity organizations as well. Consider those that resell those items or those that provide the items directly to people who are financially in need or are disaster victims.

If you just get a bit creative you will probably find many ways to recycle or reuse many of your household items. Our next post will consider ways you can make money off of items you no longer need. In the meantime, feel free to drop us a note if you have more ideas to add to this list.

Try Reusable Shopping Bags to Decrease Your Impact on the Environment

ChicoBag Reusable Nylon Shopping Bag holds 20lbs
Measurements: Pouch measures a mere 4” x 2 ½” x 1” Expanded bag is 18" x 13"

Chico Bag Reusable Shopping Bags rock!

Use the ChicoBag Reusable Nylon Shopping Bag for everything – trips to the grocery store, farmers market or out shopping. The Chico Bag reusable shopping bag's made from strong, durable nylon. It's ultra-lightweight and tuck itself into a little bag making it perfect to fit into your purse, pocket or glove box. The Chico Bag fabric is soft making holding the handles a little easier on the hands. They’re easy to pack, durable and hold a lot. Machine washable. 1 year manufacturers warranty against defects in material and workmanship.

Reduce your Footprint with Reusable Bags. Did you know that using reusable shopping bags can save the average American 300 to 700 plastic shopping bags per year, which will save 3 to 7 gallons of crude oil? That’s per person for plastic bags alone! What a great, simple way to conserve our natural resources.

Ways to Improve the Environmental Friendliness of Your Business

Face it; it is easy to waste items at work and to not think about reducing, reusing, recycling, repurposing or regenerating resources. However, maintaining an environmentally friendly business helps your bottom line as well as the environment. So what can you do to improve the green at your place of business?

First, see that policies are put in place which encourages reducing, reusing and recycling.

Maximize energy efficiency. Turn down the heat or up the air conditioning by a couple of degrees. Be sure all windows and doors are insulated. Use energy efficient light bulbs. Turn equipment and machinery off when appropriate.

Reduce your water usage. Install displacement toilet dams in toilet reservoirs. Stop leaky faucets as soon as they are spotted.

Recycle, recycle. Have specially marked bins for recycling to collect paper, cardboard, aluminum cans, plastics and ink cartridges.

Keep the “e” in e-mail. Don’t print off an e-mail unless it is absolutely necessary.

Check with your suppliers and see if they take back packaging and reuse it.

Look for a supply of paper with maximum recycled content.

Ask all of your suppliers to let you know what “green” policies and practices they have in place. If they don’t have any, look for another supplier.

Reduce paper usage by producing double sided documents. Reuse padded envelops.

Buy more environmentally friendly vehicles.

Putting just a few of these in practice will help you to “Be Green and Save”!

What Have You Reused Today?

As you are throwing out that paper towel roll or coffee container or cheese box, have you thought about how you might reuse them? Karen’s Pot Your Plants with Plastics and Save article from a while ago was a terrific way to reuse your throw aways.

One of our friends is an expert “reuser” and every time we chat she has put something through a second life span. What are some of her ideas? Clothes in good condition go into a garage sale or a resale shop or are donated to The Salvation Army or Good Will or similar organization. Clothes with holes or stains get cut up for rags or into fabric squares to use for sewing into something else. Cheese boxes – you know the 2 pound processed cheese – she uses these as drawer organizers for pens, pencils, markers, paper clips. Paper Towel rolls and other cardboard tubes – store your taper candles or your electrical extension cords or save them for your favorite school or Sunday school teacher or camp leader as they always have craft ideas that use cardboard tubes.

In fact, check with your local school, church or camp as they may have lots of everyday things they can use that you may just toss!

We would love to hear what you reused today!

Happy reusing!

Welcome to Be Green and Save

Welcome to Be Green and Save. We will be talking about ways to find, purchase, and use environmentally friendly products and services (Be Green) and at the same time help save resources, time, money, and the planet (and Save). It’s a win-win proposition for everyone.

Check back with our site often for loads of great information and please leave your comments and questions. We want to hear what you have to say!

Once again, welcome and we hope you enjoy the site!