Living Like Ed by Ed Jr. (whitelam books .txt) 📗

that e-waste can be recycled. Even companies outside California are having their e-waste shipped to this company to make sure everything gets recycled properly. SoCal also holds events at schools and parks, places throughout the community, so people can drop off e-waste close to home. And they don’t just recycle this e-waste. They also make sure to remove any proprietary data—on a computer’s hard drive or on a cell phone or on a BlackBerry or what have you. They make sure your data is safely and properly destroyed.

So the bottom line is, if it runs on batteries or gets plugged into the wall, they can recycle it in a way that’s good for the environment and good for your privacy, good for things like preventing identity theft.

Reusing: The Easiest Form of Recycling

You know, recycling doesn’t always have to mean taking stuff apart and melting it down. Reusing things is the easiest form of recycling. I like to give stuff away to Goodwill, and Rachelle likes to sell stuff at a garage sale. She likes the cash.

There’s another kind of curbside recycling that a lot of people do every day, and it’s great. They put stuff they don’t want anymore out on the curb with a sign that says FREE. It’s like Recycling 101. Let someone else, instead of a landfill, have it.

That is what we did with Hayden’s old plastic playhouse that she had outgrown. There was no way I was going to send it to a landfill. Somebody with little kids would love to have it. Especially for free.

Donating stuff to a charity is another great way to make sure it gets reused, and you get a tax deduction at the same time. All kinds of charities operate thrift shops—stores where they sell the stuff you donate—and then they use that money to benefit the charity’s cause. You can donate stuff to thrift shops that benefit the American Cancer Society, Habitat for Humanity, a local hospital, a homeless shelter, a church, a no-kill pet shelter. Groups like the Salvation Army and Goodwill also have thrift shops, plus they have training and rehabilitation programs, so they may take stuff like an old lamp that needs rewiring or a couch that needs reupholstering.

There are other options, too, besides donating stuff to a charity or leaving it out on the curb or having a garage sale. Freecycle, for example, is a living like worldwide nonprofit that connects people who want to give stuff away with people who want to get stuff for free. You go on the freecycle.org website and find a group in your area. Then you just post something, and it goes out to this list. You just go, “I’ve got an old TV stand that’s gotten ratty, but it still works. It just needs a new paint job.” Someone will probably come and pick that up and be very happy to have it. They have the time to paint it or what-ever. If you’ve got an old lawn mower that’s broken or an old TV that doesn’t work anymore, you know there’s someone out there who knows how to fix it and then can use it or sell it. There’s a place for just about anything through freecycle.org.

         You can find other ways to help people with your old stuff, too, like prescription glasses. Charities collect them and then they distribute them to people in need, here in the United States and all over the world. You just drop off your old glasses at a store like LensCrafters or Sunglass Hut or a Pearle Vision center. The store collects them and then gives them to a charity like Give the Gift of Sight.

You can do the same kind of thing with an old cell phone. It’s kind of ironic, but it’s actually cheaper to provide cell service than it is to build all the infrastructure for old-fashioned landline telephones in some underdeveloped countries. So if you donate an old cell phone that’s just junk to you—it’s just cluttering up your closet—you literally can provide a lifeline for someone in another country.

Buy Recycled

Now, everything we’ve discussed so far is really important. But it’s not enough just to recycle or to find someone who can reuse your old stuff. Unless you’re buying recycled products, you’re not really recycling.

Why? Because recycling programs only work when there’s a demand for recycled products. If people don’t buy recycled products, companies won’t make them. Then things that can be recycled wind up going unused. They wind up in a landfill simply because there’s no need for them.

So buy every envelope, every sheet of paper, everything you can that’s recycled. The products are out there. You just have to go online to a search engine and type “recycled envelopes,” “recycled paper,” “recycled fences,” “recycled lawn furniture.” Buy it. It’s out there.

All the paper that I use in my printer—and in every way—is 100 percent postconsumer recycled paper. That’s great.

And that’s an important point: Recycled paper can mean different things. It can be called 100 percent recycled paper and still be from the paper mill. It’s just the end of the roll and the stuff they chop off. So yes, it’s recycled, but it’s just what’s left over when they make paper. They didn’t have 8 by 11-inch pieces, so they put those scraps in their recycling bin.

And that’s fine; it’s still reusing their waste. It’s not a bad thing. But it’s not as good as post-consumer recycled paper. That’s made from the stuff you and I and businesses all across the country have put into recycling bins.

One hundred percent post-consumer recycled paper is now available—and it has been for some time—even with the Staples logo on it. It used to be that you had to buy some off brand, some earth-friendly paper, and maybe it was 50 percent postconsumer waste, and it was a lot of money per ream. They