Green Options

A surge in the number of mercury-bearing energy-efficient light bulbs in use in Minnesota is expected to overwhelm recycling programs in the next few years and there’s no plan yet on how to recycle more of them.

Fluorescent light bulbs use only one-fourth as much energy per unit of light produced as incandescent bulbs and last up to 10 times longer. One CFL bulb contains 5 milligrams of mercury, about one-fifth the amount in a watch battery.

While we now know that you can’t just throw everything into the trash, sometimes it’s tough to figure out exactly what goes where. I’ve got the recycling thing down, but what about the scary stuff I’ve been weeding out of my cabinets?

Thanks to Kelli’s post a while back, I learned the acronym for materials that needs special handling: BOATY. This stands for Batteries, Oil and other hazardous household liquids, Appliances and other

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We got new next-door neighbors, who haven't moved in yet, but have been working on updating the house for the past few weeks. On Saturday, my husband called me over to the window.

"She's washing out her paintbrushes with paint thinner ON THE GROUND!" I looked. Sure enough, our soon-to-be neighbor was pouring paint thinner all over her paintbrush, right into her yard, along with the paint from the

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