Posts Tagged ‘Recycling for Charities’

Live Green; Reduce Waste by Reusing Recycled Materials

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

With more and more waste being produced landfill space is decreasing by the minute in the United States. Construction and demolition waste currently takes 25 percent to 30 percent of area landfill space. The thing here is that the majority of construction and demolition waste contains materials that can be recycled and reused.

Instead of sending these usable materials to the landfill it would make more sense to recycle and reuses such materials for future buildings. That is exactly what ReSource, a Colorado based company has come up with. Working like a thrift store for construction products ReSource accepts donations of reusable building materials, Resource is one way to decrease this throw away factor construction and demolition waste. The accepted materials are then sold for home projects at 50 percent to 90 percent below retail cost.

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Post Halloween Recycling

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

When Halloween is over and it’s time to put away the pumpkin decorations and moveĀ onto the next holiday, try to think of green ways to move on from Halloween.

Finding out what to do with your pumpkin is the easy part and reusing your decorations year to year is a no-brainer. Save money and resources by not being one of the Americans that collectively buy nearly $1.58 billion worth of Halloween decorations each year. Here is an interesting fact about reusing decoration:

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Benjamin Gott Proves Boxed Water is Better

Friday, October 30th, 2009

Check out the transcript of RFC’s conversation with Benjamin Gott.

Back in late September we wrote a blog featuring Boxed Water is Better, a water company that takes a more environmental approach than your traditional bottled water company. Boxed Water is Better is a company based out of Grand Rapids, Michigan that distributes water in cartons oppose to plastic bottles. The concept derives from the environmental issues that are caused by the overwhelming amount of plastic bottles entering landfills.

We were lucky enough to get in touch with the founder and designer of Boxed Water is Better, Benjamin Gott. He agreed to be a guest on our Recycling for Charities Podcast Radio Show to sit down and answer all of our questions about Boxed Water is Better.
Benjamin Gott

It all started with a simple idea of creating a new bottled water brand. Sounds simple right? Well Gott didn’t want it to be just like every other brand. He wanted one that was kinder to the environment and also gives back at the same time. His solution was instead of packaging water in a plastic bottle he would bring back the old school carton and use that instead. Hence, the name Boxed Water is Better.

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2010 Olympics Will Use Recycle E-Waste for Medals

Thursday, October 29th, 2009

The 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver will feature an Olympic medal first. Not only will every single medal handed out at the Olympics be different, but they also will be made of recycled electronic waste or e-waste. The 2010 Winter Olympics will be one of the first to take on a sustainability and conservation initiatives philosophy and correlate it with the games. In part of doing this Vancouver’s metal industry leader, Teck Resources is manufacturing all of the Olympic medals out of recycled metals recovered from old electronics. This is a great for our mother earth, as e-waste continues to be a growing concern for our environment.

Teck Resources is acquiring the metal materials from the smelting of various old electronics. Whether it be from cathode raytube glass, computer parts, or circuit boards each medal will be made up from electrical parts. The process involves the shredding, separating, and heating the electrical parts, then combining the byproducts with metals from other sources. As of now Teck resources is producing more than 1,000 medals for the 2010 games.

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Turn Halloween into HallowGREEN

Monday, October 26th, 2009

I know “green” isn’t exactly the color that you think about when you picture Halloween, but here are a few ideas of how you can be a bit more mindful of the waste and help reuse more items each year.

Instead of letting your kids take plastic bags Trick-Or-Treating, get
them each their own reusable tote. You can even get one and
decorate it for Halloween to use every year! An old pillow case is
great for Trick-Or-Treating.

Reuse and recycle costumes with your friends. Instead of going out
and buying a new costume, save money and resources by getting
creative. Find out what the kids want to be and ask around to see if
anyone you know has it. Don’t forget to look in your closet for some
help!

Host a Halloween party! Didn’t think that would be too “Green”, did ya?
This way, you can provide all of the treats to the kids in your home.
That means that there will be less individually wrapped candy bars
and you can actually monitor what kind of treats everyone is getting.
You can also use items made from recycled materials and try to serve
as much local/organic food as possible.

      • Don’t be one of those parents that follow their kids around in a car as they are Trick- or-Treating. If you are worried about their safety, get out and walk with them.

        Use nature for your decorations. You don’t need to buy plastic and cardboard decorations: Use leaves, branches, pumpkins, hay bales (which can then be used on your garden for the winter) to give your house a pretty fall look. If you do buy plastic Halloween decorations always remember to save them for next year instead of buying new.

      These are just a few ideas of how to keep this fun holiday less wasteful and damaging to the earth. Help by telling your neighbors these tips to make this years Halloween a much more green one!

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