Recycling stories of the week
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Own up! What green excuses are you using?
Welcome to another round up of zero waste stories.
Each week I highlight 3 stories from around the net that have a reduce, reuse, recycle theme.
Stop excuses and be greener!
Over on Reduce Footprints, a guest post about the excuses we put in place really got me thinking.
As the author points out, we are all highly selective about the ‘green’ things we accept and put into practise. Some things we embrace easily, whereas other things we reject straight off. When we take an honest look at WHY we reject things, we might just find we are simply making excuses.
Anything from not wanting to ask stupid questions to not wanting to move outside our comfort zone can come up.
Check out ‘what’s stopping you from being greener?‘ for some inspirational thinking and let me know what excuses you use.
Dealing with ewaste
Over on “Reduce, reuse, relate“, Gina wrote about an automated ecycling station called EcoATM. You simply enter the type of device you have, such as mobile phone, insert it into the machine where it will be automatically scanned and tested before the machine determines a value for your device.
You can choose to get cash, a store voucher or donate the money to charity and your device is either reused or recycled.
The ecycling station is currently only available in the US, but interest is high across the world for the ecoATM kiosks.
Reduce paper waste
On Kris’s blog, “Outwardly pleasant” I discovered a great online caluculator for helping you reduce paper waste.
If you remember, each person in the UK throws away approximately 250kg of paper per year. We’ve shared the tip of reducing paper waste by switching to paperless billing, told you how to recycle shredded paper, and shared 5 tips for reducing paper waste.
With the pay it green paper footprint calculator you can actually see how much paper, water, gas, trees and overall carbon footprint you can save by switching to paperless billing.
Have a play with the figures and tell me how much you could save!
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Very interesting post. I do try to be as green as I think but know I’m not. Today I opted to buy a bag of carrots that were organic, 8p dearer than another bag but you could home compost the bag. Same for a box of tomatoes we bought. You can compost both the film cover and the box. Still I did buy some things that have the ‘can’t recycle now’ on it.
@Julie Day: It’s interesting to take an honest look at ourselves sometimes isn’t it? Well done for your choices today and hep 8p isn’t much difference!
I was thinking about paperless billing. I keep being told about having paperless bank statements and I have thought about it for a long time.But I like getting my paper statements and I keep them, because you would be surprised how often I have to show them, to prove how much money I don’t have. I’ve kept them since when I first had my account and I use them to prove to my husband who actually bought the garden bench all those years ago. So, no I will not be going paperless but that’s just me personally, I’m glad we have a choice.
I have been stuffing toilet roll and kitchen roll inners with the contents of my shredding machine. I give them to a friend who has an open coal fire who uses them to start the fire.
@Alyson: Hi Alyson, I understand about bank statements, sometimes they are necessary and I will sometimes print them out too. I’m sure there are many other areas where you are reducing waste 🙂
@Karen: What a great idea Karen; I could do that too! Thanks for the idea…
Great post! It is so easy to go about our daily routines without considering the impact that we are making. There are so many simple steps that can be taken and small alterations to our actions that can really make a difference in our environmental footprint. Simply collecting plastic bottles or recylcing newspapers might seem like a small task, but if everyone takes a little time to do this we can collectively make strides towards a healthier planet.
Take a little time to calculate your ecological footprint – http://bit.ly/h4Ztoo. It can really put in perspective the impact you are making on the earth.
@Gina: Hey Gina, good to see you. I agree with you, taking lots of small actions leads to significant collective change – thanks for the inspiration and the reminder to check our ecological footprint.