By Jennifer Kaplan •
July 17, 2009
In some respects, waste is immeasurable—it touches every aspect of your business, from the scrap paper that fills your waste bins to the fuel you use for business travel.
And while we know that that aiming for zero waste is a fast, cheap and effective strategy for combating climate change, its not always easy to do. You can’t find the resources, it involves trips here and there, its expensive. There are all sorts of obstacles. However, these six companies (some are actually non-profit organizations and government agencies) make recycling easy.
1. Earth911.org is an excellent site with good recycling information. Their recycling search tool makes it easy to locate waste collectors and drop-off sites. It covers resources for paper, metal, hazardous waste, plastic, glass, electronics, automotive, household, garden, and construction waste. Two of my favorite resources are: 1) a great list of manufacturer and retail take-back e-waste programs and 2) an awesome free widget for your website that can not only give your customers access to the world’s largest database of over 100,000 recycling locations, but can pre-populate recyclable materials search to fit your readers. For example, a blog focused on car care can auto-populate the widget to search for locations that accept used motor oil or car batteries.
2. LampRecycling.com is a new online resource for facilities that need a simple and cost-effective way to recycle their fluorescent bulbs, CFLs, batteries, ballasts, and electronic waste. These guys make it super easy to recycle. You can order recycling containers for multiple types of waste and return them via pre-paid FedEx. Once the waste has been received for recycling, a recurring order is triggered and a new EasyPak container is shipped out automatically. You can view recycling reports that give totals of all waste you have recycled and every time waste is recycled with EasyPak, you are issued a certificate of recycling that verifies your recycling efforts and details exactly how much waste was recycled.
By Becky Striepe •
July 14, 2009
By Jennifer Kaplan •
July 10, 2009
Consumer Alert: There are three things you need to know about remanufactured ink and toner cartridges:
- They are not inferior in quality to new Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) products. (In fact, in 1997, the US EPA stated that remanufactured products are “as good as new.”)
- Using a remanufactured or any cartridge other than that of the OEM will not in fact void the printer equipment warranty. (Not that manufacturers didn’t try. They did but the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act of 1975 specifically states that a warranty may not be voided because of the use of aftermarket products.)
- Buying them will typically save you money and selling spent cartridges will typically make you money.
(This information comes courtesy of Ecogreenoffice.com whose primer about the truth about remanufactered print cartridges contains lots of additional information.)
There are two sides to greening your ink and toner purchases: The Buy and the Sell.
The Sell. The act of selling ink and toner cartridges is one of the easiest ways to make money and be green at the same time. On the revenue side, cartridges are valuable (some are worth as much as $22). If cash isn’t what your looking for, retailers such Office Max, Office Depot and Staples have rewards programs that give up to $3 in store credit for each eligible cartridge and have drop boxes in stores. (Office Max also has a postage-paid shipping program for those who recycle high volumes of cartridges—up to 300 a month). In any event, selling spent cartridges is easy and sometimes even lucrative.
The Buy. Want to know the impact of all those cartridges you’re using? The folks at SB Office Supplies, an online office supply retailer with an extensive green catalog, have a nifty Remanufactured Cartridge Savings Calculator that tells how much oil is saved and how many cartridges stay out of land fills when you buy remanufactured cartridges.
Convinced? They are basically two routes to go.
By Becky Striepe •
July 8, 2009
Last week, commenter Robyn asked about crafty ideas for reusing an old shower curtain liner. What a great question! It turns out there are several ways to reuse that old shower curtain liner.
Re-nest suggests using tarps to kill weeds in your yard. Why not use an old liner place of the tarp? Just weigh it down with bricks over the problem area on a sunny day. The plastic liner will trap the heat from the sun. There’s a good chance you’ll kill any other plants underneath there, so this is probably best if you’re clearing an area to plant a garden bed.
But that’s just the beginning! Check out these other crafty ideas for that old plastic shower curtain or liner:
By Becky Striepe •
July 7, 2009
Sure you can knit with old cassette tapes and even find cassette tape fabric to craft with. Those aren’t the only uses for your analog relics!
Artist Erika Iris Simmons (aka iri5) takes reused cassettes to a whole new level. She specializes in turning trash into treasure, letting the materials dictate the final product. Here’s how she describes her Ghost in the Machine series:
By Jennifer Kaplan •
June 12, 2009
Another post inspired by a HARO request. This time it was an ask for low or no-cost tools used by small businesses. I did a quick search for the word “free” in my book and realized there are dozens. Here are my 19 favorites:
- Free energy-efficiency information, resources, and technical advice—ENERGY STAR for Small Business provides free information, resources, and technical advice on hundreds of cost-savings practices. Includes a downloadable copy of the free ENERGY STAR for Small Business Guide, “Putting Energy into Profits” and information about ENERGY STAR–labeled products.
- Free recycling and conservation signs—You can customize, download, and print free recycling and conservation signs at recyclereminders.com.
- Free control of your IT—If you run a network, software from companies like LocalCooling.com allows the settings on computers to be controlled centrally so you can automatically turn those babies off when no one is using them.
- Free Green IT for Dummies—HP sponsors a free, downloadable, condensed, limited edition of the Green IT for Dummies guide.
- Free recycling bins—The Coca-Cola/NRC Recycling Bin Grant Program provides recycling bins to selected grant recipients for the collection of beverage container recyclables in public settings.
- Free rideshare widget for websites— at GooseNetworks.com.
By Kelly Rand •
June 11, 2009
With a name like Darn Good Yarn, it’s hard not to like this yarn and their principals. This U.S. based company offers a small variety of yarn but specializes in recycled silk sari.
The yarn is spun from the remnants of the production of silk saris in Nepal. Darn Good Yarn only works with co-ops in Nepal that offer fair trade pricing for the spinning of the yarn.
Refuse collection has been mandatory in San Francisco since the 1930s, so perhaps it came as no surprise when the nation’s leader in recycling passed a mandatory recycling and compost ordinance on June 9, but San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom still commended the Board of Supervisors for its passage of the ordinance.
By Rhonda Winter •
June 3, 2009
Heavy Pedal Cyclecide Bike Rodeo is a consortium of inventors, bike mechanics, artists, musicians and visionaries who love bikes and building stuff. Their wild imaginations having created all manner of beautiful recycled bike art machines- everything from a wacky two-wheeled Chupacabra to a complete bicycle-powered carnival. Bicycles are seen not only as a vehicle, but also as a medium for creative expression and fun. Cyclecide member [...]
There is nothing earth-shattering about what is going on at the Attorney General’s office in Salt Lake City, Utah. It’s quite the opposite. The Utah AG’s office is taking a small step in the right direction to save, not shatter, our planet.
In some respects, waste is immeasurable—it touches every aspect of your business, from the scrap paper that fills your waste bins to the fuel you use for business travel.
