Recycling Your Real Christmas Tree

Each year, millions of real Christmas trees are cut down worldwide for the holiday season. And every year at the end of the first weekend in January, a lot of these trees end up simply discarded. But there are really much better ways to dispose of a real Christmas tree. Ways that are much better for the environment, as well.

Here are a few different ways to dispose of your Christmas trees.

Curbside Pickup

Don’t just throw your tree out into the curb after Christmas. Most cities offer curbside pickup, typically around two weeks after Christmas. Look up when they are doing pickups and place your tree outside then.

If you put your tree out front too early, it could get treated as trash. If you do it too late, you might miss the curbside pickup window and again the tree will just be treated as trash.

Note that some cities may not offer Christmas tree pickups at all, so do make sure you check your city’s website.

Take it to the Recycler

If you can not find anyone to pick it up for you and if you miss the curbside pickup deadline, then you can just drive and take your tree to the landfill to be recycled or the recycler yourself. Most recyclers will take your tree completely free of charge.

Look up Green Recycle

Look up green recycle and environmentally oriented non-profits in your area. Chances are many of them will have partnerships with recyclers that help people get rid of their Christmas trees. Generally all the information you need will be on their website, though you can also call and ask.

Call the Boy Scouts

You can also just have the tree picked up for you by the Boy Scouts (or Lions Club). Just call your local Boy Scouts chapter and ask if they have a program to pickup Christmas trees.

You will normally have to pay them $5 to $10 for this service. This is a great way to make sure your tree gets recycled, as well as to support your local Boy Scouts chapter and help teach kids the value of helping the community.

Use it As Firewood

If you live in a cold part of the country, you could just cut up the tree and use it as firewood. Christmas trees aren’t the best burning woods in the world and can be smokier than your average firewood, but it’s still a good way to get rid of a tree. Chop it up and burn it in small pieces.

Shred it into Mulch

A lot of cities today have programs that shred your mulch for you. Basically a tree shredder drives to your area on a certain day and the tree is turned into mulch on the spot. Great for your garden.

With so many different choices for recycling a real Christmas tree, there is really no reason to throw yours away.

If Not Sustainable Living… Then What?

If the earth no longer sustains life, there is no other option. While chemicals added to the soils help farmers produce more crops and helps feed those who might otherwise not have enough to eat, too much emphasis on chemicals to produce crops, has caused soils to not be as healthy as they once were.

This is only one point of contention for those who realize that humans need to be more careful of how they treat the planet on which they live. Waste products clog waterways, causing problems for wildlife and interrupting normal life cycles of both plant and animals. The safety of our land, animal and plant life and our own future depends upon being able to live in balance with our environment.

Sustainable living is the term used for those who wish to live with nature and not against it. The basic concept of sustainable living is to choose to live in such a way that our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren still have usable natural resources. To achieve this goal, individuals have to consider what natural resources are available and how to live in a way that they leave the earth in better shape than when they lived. This involves being careful in choosing to use products that are renewable, learning to recycle, reuse products and finding ways to live with nature.

Those who seek to live a sustainable lifestyle make changes in transportation used, food buying and eating habits and in lowering overall energy consumption. Sustainable living means choosing vehicles with good gas mileage. It means taking care of vehicles so they run efficiently. Where possible, those who live a sustainable lifestyle use public transportation. Sustainable living causes less pollution to be released while preserving more of the earth’s natural resources for future generations.

Sustainable living means consuming a healthy diet through the use of natural, organic foods. Gardens are a sustainable resource that produces food that is healthy and safe. Tending a garden takes physical effort, resulting in a healthier body, both from the exercise to grow the food and from a steady diet of natural foods. Growing foods organically sustains a more healthy soil.

Those seeking to live a sustainable lifestyle live in balance with nature by being careful of what earth resources they use or consume. Food products are not wasted. They are eaten or preserved for later use. However, gardening usually produces more than the individual or family can consume alone. Surpluses can be given away to others. This fosters good will and helps others also use renewable food resources. It might also encourage others to start their own gardens. Sustainable living means using only as much as needed for the required outcome and disrupting nature as little as possible. Sharing surpluses and knowledge is key in spreading a culture of sustainable living.

Sustainable living is about conservation, reusing products and finding ways to recycle products that are used. Doing so encourages creativity and leaves a less unpolluted earth for those who follow.

This article was contributed by sustainable.colorado.edu to promote and encourage sustainable practices

Re-Usable Household Items

Re-Usable Items That You Might Not Have Thought About

Recycling is an excellent way to help keep our environment clean. However, you can take it a step further by reusing a number of household items in fun, interesting, and useful ways. Let’s take a look at a number of creative uses for reusable items that you may not have thought about.

Old Curtains

These make great rags for cleaning your car or other large areas.

Coffee Grounds

Coffee grounds have a number of different uses. Many plants prefer acidic soils and adding coffee grounds to your compost is a great way to increase its nutrients. Coffee grounds are also a powerful insect repellent. Sprinkle the grounds over an ant pile and watch them scurry away. Finally, use the grounds as a deodorizer for your refrigerator. Place them into a small cup and they’ll help keep your refrigerator smelling fresh.

Margarine Tubs

Margarine tubs are excellent food storage containers. Chances are you go through a large handful of containers each year, all in varying sizes. By the end of year you’ll have your own set.

Milk Jugs

Like most, you’ve probably lost your share of clothespins. You can cut the top off of a milk jug and hang it from your clothesline, creating a handy clothespin holder.

Old Toothbrushes

Old toothbrushes are fantastic for cleaning hard-to-reach and small areas. Use your toothbrush to clean grout, areas around the sink, drains, and faucets.

Altoid Tins

Altoid tins are excellent storage containers for small items. You can use them to create a mini emergency kit for your car, as a place to hold your sewing materials, etcetera.

Butter Wraps

Once you’ve finished a block of butter you can use the wrapping to grease baking pans.

Envelopes

Envelopes can be used to store garden seeds, as a to-do list, or even as a bookmark that will never slide out. You can create a bookmark by cutting the corners off of the envelope, forming a triangle, and sliding it over the page you’re on. Your bookmark won’t slide or stick out like a normal bookmark would.

Plastic Bread Clips

Plastic bread clips are the ultimate scraping tool. They’re great for scraping off price tags, labels, and even lottery tickets.

Old Cookie Trays

An old cookie tray placed at the bottom of an oven or grill will catch anything that falls, helping keep it clean. These are just a handful of creative ways to reuse normal household items. So before you recycle something, ask yourself if it can be reused. You may be surprised at what interesting uses you can come up with.

About the Author

This article comes from Phill.

Your Dispose Cell Phone A Pollution Problem

Your Dispose Cell Phone A Pollution Problem

Many people don’t recognize it, but cell phones are becoming a huge share to pollution on our planet now. As part of our “throwaway” life style together with our voracious appetite for mobile phone usage meaning that landfills are becoming choked at an appalling rate with not only computers and other electronic components, but cell phones as well.

Sadly, it is estimated that over 125 million cell phones are cast-off annually. Landfills does not have to be the last stop for your cell phone, your old cell phone can be recycle.

The reason why cell phone recycling is important is because they contain some bad toxic material embedded inside their circuitry and displays, toxins such as Arsenic, Lead, and Copper, Cadmium, Mercury and Beryllium (a carcinogen which has been linked to cancer), dangerous chemicals you wouldn’t want leach into the surroundings. If disposed of correctly the non toxic materials can be recycled and used again save our limited natural resources.

Regrettably, no landfill is 100% safe and it is the toxins that leach from these materials into the ground which pollutes our groundwater level and our drinkable water supply. Currently less than 1% of the entire earth’s water is drinkable so we must take steps to protect it.

Studies from the University of Northwest Indiana http://www.iun.edu/~environw/landfills.html have revealed that a whopping 82% of landfills in Northwest Indiana alone experienced leaks, a frightening statistic when you consider how much damage it poses to the surrounding environment and that the consequences such as migration of methane gas and leaching contaminants cannot be isolated.

Therefore toxic are the emissions from landfills that living within a close proximity of one can affect health such as low birth weight in newborns, shorter height than the general population and heart defects and liver abnormalities to name a few. If these are just some of the side effects from landfills, imagine what else we are casting into them.

Our landfills are becoming so overflow with unwanted electronics in our technology starved society that unless we do something, we will run out of land to accommodate it all and the resources with which to make them.

So, before you decide to throw out your old cell phone in exchange for a new one, think for a moment do you absolutely need it or is because you want the coolest new style? If your older model is still working fine, do you really need to buy a new one?  What else could that money be spent on?

Think about where that cell phone will end up. Just because it disappears from plain sight as it heads for the landfill does not mean its impact stops there.  The effects of your old cell phone will continue to be felt long after your memory of it has faded.

What Can you Do? Each country has different requirements dispose of electronic products. With a little research, you can find out what policies as well as where you can go for donating or recycling. Disposal doesn’t have to be the end of the road. Why not give your old cell phone another lease on life and adopt it out to a good home?

You can donate them to a worthy cause, for example www.wadt.org is a nonprofit organization that accepts cell phone donations for victims of domestic violence.

How about reselling it on eBay or offer it free at Craigslist?

Here is another fantastic means, there are actual businesses that will pay you up to $50 for your old cell phone, they make it extremely easy to arrange and will even pay for postage and handling.

There is no excuse for not recycling or re-use your old cell phone and you could feel good in knowing that you helped keep mother earth a little cleaner because ultimately these little things make a big difference.

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Eco friendly holiday cards at Tiny Prints.