Americans throw away 25% more trash during the Thanksgiving to New Year’s holiday period than any other time of year. The extra waste amounts to 25 million tons of garbage, or about 1 million extra tons per week, so be sure to recycle that wrapping paper (unless it’s a metallic paper) along with all your holiday cards, paperboard and cardboard in your city bin.
Packing peanuts can be returned to most packaging stores. This one is nearby:
Pak Mail
3112 Windsor Road #A
Austin, TX 78703
(512) 478-7600
Take styrofoam to Cycled Plastics.
Send used gift cards and grocery cards to Earthworks for recycling OR save them for our card recycling bin in the school lobby in the new year…
Earthworks c/o Halprin Ind.
25840 Miles Rd.
Bedford, Oh 44146.
Make at least one GREEN RESOLUTION to reduce your waste stream in the new year.
1. Compost. Yard trimmings and food residuals together constitute 24 percent of the U.S. municipal solid waste stream. That’s a lot of waste to send to landfills when it could become useful compost instead! All around the country, landfills are filling up, garbage incineration is becoming increasingly unpopular, and other waste disposal options are becoming ever harder to find. According to Jonathan Bloom at wastedfood.com, the food rotting in landfills creates millions of tons of methane gas, which scientists say is 20 times as harmful to our atmosphere as carbon dioxide. Landfills are the largest human-related source of methane.
2. Stop junk mail. Sign up at http://www.catalogchoice.org/, http://newdream.org/junkmail/optout.php, http://www.paperlesspetition.org/
3. Break the bottled water habit.
4. Bring your own coffee cup.
5. Bring your own bag (and remember to recycle all plastic bags and film at the grocery store or dry cleaners).
6. Pack waste-free lunches with reusable containers.
7. Buy in bulk.
8. Buy used.
9. Reduce consumption.
10. Recycle more.
Check out these Web sites for more info.
earth911.com
http://www.realsimple.com/home-organizing/organizing/tips-techniques/recycle-anything-00000000006117/index.html
www.ecology-action.org
http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/sws/zerowaste_recycling.htm
www.brykerwoodspta.org. Click on the Go Green link.
Happy Holidays.
