This includes but is not limited to the following items: Aluminum cans, packaging (carton, plastic, etc.) Junk mail, other paper product like office paper waste, food items (kitchen scraps, food past it’s ‘use by’ date, etc.), metals (electronics, cars, etc).² In other words any product that can be recycled after it’s been used and in most cases (unfortunately) would be discarded (in contrast to pre-consumer waste. These are products that have never reached the end-user/consumer consisting of ‘not up-to-standard’ products that would usually be discarded but have never been used ³).

Usually a product will state: this has been made with XX % of post-consumer materials, for example, Paper towels. If they have been made with an X amount of post-consumer materials it might mean that they recycled used office paper, cardboard and used paper products to create the new paper towels. Examples of this can be found in many products like Seventh Generation, Green Forest, Small Steps, and many more (nice list, for paper/kitchen towels specifically, can be found here )

So that’s it, the first post in the “Green Trance” series. Feel free to comment, add or leave remarks, they are always welcome.

¹ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-consumer_waste
² http://www.oregonmetro.gov/index.cfm/go/by.web/id=3369
³ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre_consumer

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Tip: Next time you are going through your closet and thinking of discarding clothes that for whatever reason you don’t want anymore, consider donating them instead of simply trashing them.

Your discarded clothes could be the find of the century for another person. Many places in the US (and around the world) have donation containers and places like the Goodwill centers.

Some donations centers can even provide you with donation receipts which can get you tax deductions, that in the end even give you financial benefit.

Especially in these harder economic times, donating useful items like clothes (or furniture, electronics, appliances) could be a great help to someone in need.

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Tip: In this season of consumer celebration most people tend to go overboard waste more then regularly.

Here is one aspect of this celebration where we can save a little waste:

• From the people of Earth911.com: TreeCycling

And a few various tree recycling sources:

• http://www.recycleyourchristmastree.com/
• http://searchchicago.suntimes.com/homes/news/1354745,HOF-News-arbor02.article
• http://dpw.lacounty.gov/epd/xmastrees/index2008.cfm

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Here are some pictures from the event:

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The FreeCycle Network is a entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving and receiving stuff for free in their own towns.

The have groups all over the USA that you can join fro free. You can then post your stuff that you would like to give away and browse through stuff that people a giving away.

This provides a platform for anyone looking to reuse and recycle.

Take a look at: http://www.freecycle.org and find out more info about your local FreeCycle group.

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Tip: Because solid items hold cold better then empty space/air your fridge or freezer needs more energy to keep all the contents nice and cold, whenever it gets low on contents.

Consider filling up some op this space with some water filled containers you may have lying around (like in your plastic recycling bin…).

This way you’re reusing the bottles that you where going to recycle and your helping your fridge to stay cool with less energy.

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• Step 1: Don’t push it!

• Step 2: No really….., don’t push it | Although going green is becoming the ever more popular lifestyle, to a lot of people it’s hard to shake certain ideas they might have about being green (you know, going green = living like a hippie in the woods with no water or electricity….). So take it easy and start introducing a greener lifestyle to them through simple changes like:

• Step 3: Start slow by providing a simple easy to do routine | Example: next time you visit you friend(s) or family leave a container to deposit their plastic in. By doing this they’re doing a great thing for the ecosystem and are greatly reducing their garbage output. Let them know where they can go to recycle the plastic in the area or, if need be, offer to pickup the plastic when the bin gets filled.

• Step 4: Suggest some small changes | Example: change an incandescent lightbulb to LED or CFL, suggest replacing some kitchen paper by a reusable kitchen towel or recycled kitchen paper

• Step 5: Send them to ecotipsforlife.com….

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Tip: If you are planning to do some home flooring renovations consider recycling your old carpet by dropping it of at a carpet recycling depot. The Carpet America Recovery Effort (C.A.R.E. more info at carpetrecovery.org) has a list of Carpet Reclamation Partners in the US here: http://carpetrecovery.org/waste.php

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Tip: Buy a large bag or two that you can reuse. In our case for example, we have a bag that, when loaded, almost fills the entire shopping. We got the bag at Ikea for under $1. You fold it up and throw it in your shopping cart, do your shopping and while checking out you pack the stuf into the reusable bag instead of plastic or paper. Outside the savings in plastic or paper it also has a great time-saving advantage since you now have fewer bags to pack in and out of your car. Make sure to get sturdy large bag you like and feels comfortable to you.

Also you may want to opt for a cooler. If you have any perishable items like dairy and meat products and you don’t want lying around in a warm car, you can also keep a reusable cooler in the back of your car. It can be a real fancy one or just one of those cheap ones you can pick up at Walgreens. They keep cool for a very long time and you can use them for years. This way you can also do some errands on your way back from shopping and you don’t have to race like hell drive fast to get home to keep your groceries in a preferred state.

Calculate your personal impact
Example: Let’s say you shop every week and have an average of 5 plastic bags every time. Using this scenario you have just saved 260 plastic bags (5 bags per visit times the 52 weeks of a year, 5 x 52 ). Did you know it takes 20 years for a plastic bag to decompose? This way you will save the planet at least 5200 years of trying to decompose the one-time plastics you used for only about 30 minutes.

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