Day 39 of our Green Year: Recycling

Now I know what you guys are thinking. Craig, recycling? Come on that is an easy one. You are right, it is an easy one. Everyone knows they should recycle, but for whatever reason, a lot of people do not recycle. While the percentage of recycled material used by the United States rose dramatically between the 1980s and 1990s, it has not climbed over the past few years. This means that people have more or less 'reached their peak' with recycling, and that peak is far from perfect. Recycling has actually fallen in several cities in the United States, including Seattle, where recycling was once king. Recycling rates in the United States are also their lowest in over ten years, and Americans are throwing away more beverage cans and bottles than ever before. In fact, in 1995, 37 percent of Americans recycled, while in 2002 it was only 21 percent.

That is why for our 39th Day of the Green Year, we are committing to recycling everything that we can. You can see from the picture that we already recycle cardboard, bottles, cans, milk jugs and papers, but we are going to start going a step further. A lot of what we do here in the Baird household is centered on taking what can be recycled and reusing it for another purpose in the house before we recycle it back into the manufacturing line, but we are going to go a step further, and if it can be recycled, we will. No more throwing out items. We aim to be no-impact with our garbage now. I would also like to point out that in that photo you see plastic bags, those are from before we turned Green, and we are slowly getting rid of them through recycling.

The point of this blog is to show people that we are recycling everything we can, and you should to. Far too many people only recycle pop cans and newspapers, when there is so much more that can be done. That is what this Green Year is about, teaching others how to go greener than the norm.

Here is a list of the many things that can be recycled:

File Folders, envelopes, paper, paper clips, staples, newspapers, flyers, magazines, catalogs, text books, coffee trays, phone books, beverage cans, food cans, glass jars, glass bottles, plastic bottles, plastic containers, ink cartridges and electronics.

Here are some 'fun' facts about recycling in the United States.

• Recycling aluminum saves 95 percent energy than making it from scratch. You can power a TV for three hours by recycling one aluminum can (in terms of energy saved).
• Enough aluminum is thrown away to rebuild the commercial air fleet of the United States, four times over, every single year.
• Recycling one glass container saves enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for four hours.
• Recycled glass generates 20 percent less air pollution and 50 percent less water pollution than making it from scratch.
• One ton of glass made from 50 percent recycled materials saves 250 pounds of mining waste.
• You can reuse glass an endless amount of times, yet 41 billion glass containers are made each year.
• It takes 60 percent less energy to recycle paper than make it from scratch, while generating 95 less air pollution.
• For every one ton of paper recycled, 17 trees and 7,000 gallons of water is saved.
• Every year enough paper is thrown away to build a 12 foot wall from New York to California.
• If Americans recycled every plastic bottle they used, it would keep two billion tons of plastic out of the landfills.
• Americans use enough plastic wrap to wrap all of Texas, every single year.
• If you incinerate 10,000 tons of waste, you create one job, putting 10,000 tons of waste in the landfill creates six jobs, but recycling 10,000 tons of waste creates 36 jobs.

Did I miss anything that can be recycled? Let me know. Don't forget, send us your photos of you doing green things as outlined in Our Green Year and we will post it on our website.

Day 21 of our Green Year: Recycling Package Material

Three weeks! That is the point we have hit now and we are happy to be continuing on this amazing journey of environmental discovery, meeting new people and helping new people learn about the many things we can all do to help Mother Nature.

As professional writers, Layla and I will often receive books in the mail for which we are supposed to use for research on certain projects. As well, we love books and we often order a few every few months from Amazon.com to help fuel our creative and literary juices.
However, we have begun to think, as part of our green year, about the problem these can create for the environment, when we waste a lot of packaging to hold a few items.

So, for Day 21, we are going to start recycling our packaging material.
First, you can reuse the packaging material to send a package you may need to send to someone. This will save you money from not having to get packaging, and it helps the environment by reusing the item. Of course, you can't just hold onto all these boxes and package material for months on end, unless you want your house to look like a pigsty.

You can also find out if any of your friends, co-workers or family need any boxes or packaging material. If they do, then you simply need to provide some of your excess to them. This may not happen often, as no one wants a bunch of packaging material in their office, but you never know. It is better than putting it in the landfills where it can pile up and become a growing problem.

Now, you can recycle everything in the packaging material, including the bubble wrap and foam inside. You simply need to find a recycling center in your area that will accept it and then you can drop it off. This is by far the best option because you are not contributing at all to waste and you are not adding bubble wrap, boxes and foam filler to your office closet.

This may seem like a rather small thing to focus on when we have talked about saving trees and more, but the truth is that we have to alter everything about our lives in order to help the environment, and everything from recycling bubble wrap to driving less play into making the environment healthy and saving our civilization from an ecological disaster.

Day 14 of our Green Year: Washing Windows The Eco-Way

For our 14th day of our Green Year, we decided to take the suggestion of one of our readers, which was to wash your windows without using paper towels. It is hard to say how many trees are cut down each year to make paper towels, but it probably numbers in the millions. Like toilet paper, it is something we use briefly before we get rid of it and it is a huge waste. Most people do not recycle their paper towels and only a few buy recycled paper towel. Here are some statistics of what can be saved, simply by replacing your current paper towel and toilet paper with recycled paper from Seventh Generation.

• One million trees would be saved if every U.S. household replaced just one 250-count package of virgin fiber napkins with 100 percent recycled ones.
• 544,000 trees would be saved by replacing a 70-sheet roll of virgin fiber paper towels with recycled.
• 424,000 trees would be spared by replacing a 500-sheet roll of virgin fiber toilet paper with recycled.
• 170,000 trees would be saved by replacing one 175-count box of virgin fiber facial tissue recycled.

You can also use a very eco-friendly solution, which is to use a clean sock to clean the window as one of our readers suggested. It will work great, and when you use a mixture of vinegar and water it creates a wonderful clear window (the smell will go away if you open the windows). Windex, while it has improved greatly for the environment, is still laden with some chemicals.

Have more suggestions for us? Let us know so we can implement them in future blog posts!

Day 9 of our Green Year: Milk Jug Flower Pots

Nearly every home buys milk, and many often buy them in the 4 Liter milk jug size. However, these milk jugs are often not recycled. Sadly, they often end up in landfills, or simply thrown away to sit for decades as they slowly decay. It does not have to be this way, and Layla and I have already committed to recycling our milk jugs. However, we thought we would also go one step further and starting turning our milk jugs into something useful.
There are really countless things that you can use a milk jug for if you don't recycle it, but here are a fraction of the ones Layla and I have initiated in our house.

1. You can poke holes in them and turn them into a great watering can for the garden. Leave them sitting outside (securely so they don't blow away) and let rain water fall in them. This then gives a double-whammy for the environment because you are using rain water and recycling a jug.
2. You can cut them in half and use them as flowers pots. As you can see, we have done this with three of our milk jugs already. You may be asking about the tops, well you can even use those as flower pots if you keep the lid on them, or you can use them as funnels.
3. The tops of the milk can also be turned into bird feeders and watering sieves, simply by poking holes in the top.
4. They also make great mini-compost containers. You can use them to transport compost from dinner or other meals to the compost bin. Just remember to keep it clean, and it will work great sitting under the sink for you until you can go out to your compost bin.

We are using three of our jugs to grow some flowers, one for watering the garden and one for composting transportation. Layla is also working on a great set of birdhouses and flower pots made from milk jugs that will be decorated and look wonderful, which will be available through our blog.

Waste Reduced: Several milk jugs worth and growing.