Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

To my surprise, last posting on 3 steps to turn your business green had gained many visitors’ attention. That encourages us to write more implemented 3R steps to be done. This time, 1000 Green Steps will show you just how easy to apply that exact same 3R at your very own home. Continue reading

Reduce

Reduce paper towels usage, and use cloth towels instead. To make things simpler, just avoid using anything disposable. That will just increases your unnecessary waste.

Try to buy everything you need ONLY IF it is packaged with eco-friendly packaging. Example: Choose card board-packaged eggs instead of Styrofoam-packaged eggs.

Reuse

Conduct a small (or big) garage sale for goods you don’t need anymore. This is 1000 Green Steps favorite step since it could make us money and being eco-friendly all at once.

Maybe you can choose old books from your shelf to be donated to your local library and see if they could use them.

If none of those works, I still have a back-up plan. In my upcoming post, I will show you how to make some Do-It-Yourself things you’ll like. Try to do that, and reuse your old stuff.

Recycle

Bundle up all non-organic stuff inside your house and give them to your local recycling center to get it recycled.

Buy goods from shops that allow you to return its bottles whenever you’re done with it. They are the producers, and believe us, they know how to recycle those packaging better than we all do.

Happy Green Living!

That’s nearly a 30 percent increase from 2007.

And it’s equivalent to preventing the release of greenhouse gases equal to the annual emissions from approximately 15,500 cars.

Plug-In to eCycling is a partnership between the EPA and consumer electronics manufacturers and retailers. The program encourages consumers to donate or recycle their used electronics through in-store take back, online trade-in, and local collection events. Recycling programs like this conserve the energy and resources needed to manufacture new materials.

“Our Plug-In partners are continuing to develop programs that help consumers protect the environment,” says Susan Bodine, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response. “It’s exciting to see these programs mature rapidly at a time when people are increasingly looking for ways to do their part by recycling their used electronics.”

Is your company taking green steps? Let 1000GreenSteps.org help you spread the word. Please leave a comment below, or contact us at: 1000GreenSteps@gmail.com Thank you!

Consumers can bring up to two items per day, per household, to any Best Buy store.

Best Buy will accept most consumer electronics, including:

• televisions and monitors up to 32″

• computers CPUs and notebooks

• small electronics

• VCR and DVD players

• phones

• accessories, such as keyboards, mice, and remotes

You’ll be charged a $10 recycling fee per unit for items with screens, such as televisions, laptop computers, and monitors. But, then you’ll instantly receive a $10 Best Buy gift card in exchange for the recycling fee. (This fee does not apply for units recycled in California stores, and does not apply for any of Best Buy’s Exclusive-Branded products, such as Insignia, Dynex, and VPR Matrix.)

Best Buy will NOT accept these items through this program:

• televisions or monitors greater than 32″

• console televisions

• items containing Freon, including air conditioners, dehumidifiers, and mini-refrigerators

• microwaves

• appliances

For more information, check out this press release.

Is your company taking green steps? Let 1000GreenSteps.org help you spread the word. Please leave a comment below, or contact us at: 1000GreenSteps@gmail.com Thank you!

ReBagz Eco-friendly Clutch by Half the Sky Designs

This silver pouch looks ordinary and commonly seen at the department store you visit. But not after you hear what 1000 Green Steps have to say about this purse. This is HAND-WOVEN, and made of cleaned or recycled plastic fruit juice packs you always poke a straw into!

These kinds of bags and clutches are made under ReBagz Company, where rice sack graphics totes and hand-woven purses are combined into one.

This clutch is available online at $29, and purchase it now to be more eco-friendly and be chic!

Happy Green Living!

Everything is just really going eco-friendly lately! Just look at this beautiful designed lamp. Who says that eco-friendly lamp can’t have a sophisticated design? These lamps are made of rotomolding, in a mix of low density plastic with crushed electronic waste plastic. Its base is even produced with smelted aluminum of beer and drink tins! It is very cool 1000 Green Steps even wanted one for ourselves.

The name of the lamp is N+EW Light which is an abbreviation for No More Electronic Waste. So it is clear now that the main goal of this project is to reduce electronic waste in our environment.

If that is not enough, you can match your N+EW Light with N+EW Handmade Stool! Yes, it is handmade and made of electronic waste, epoxic resin and melted aluminum. These stools are one of a kind and only made through special orders.

Who’s behind this? Actually this project is made by Rodrigo Alonso, a graphic designer with recognized experience in the world of publicity. He has a noticeable academic of different universities and workshops in Chile and Latin America. He has worked in the image of large international brands as Renault, Lucky Strike, Warner Bros, and Sony. He is the one who created of the studio-laboratory Müsuc.

Green Birthday Party

Gifts

1000 Green Steps think that it’s nice to apply gift exchange in a birthday party. That is even better if every child brings a ‘green’ friend of them (plants, soil, or even animals!) and in the end they will go home with their own new ‘green’ friend.

Garnish

For the party supplies, try IKEA dinnerwares which are recycled plastics. If your child demands characters decorations such as Spiderman or Princesses, try drawing (or tracing) favourite characters or items on kraft paper to make a tablecloth. Even better, let the kids do it at the party. As for balloons, it might be easiest to go cold turkey. That may sound outrageous, but there are plenty of reasons. Fancy mylar balloons are not biodegradable. Even normal latex balloons, which do eventually break down, can cause problems.

Goodies

While kids are thrilled to rip open these sacks of treasure, the pleasure is usually short-lived. There is a reason that these items were inexpensive – they are poorly made, mass-produced, and definitely not sustainable. Use a small cloth bag or a recycled cardboard instead, or if you are on a budget, you can go back to number 1 where goodies bags are no longer needed to be provided by the host.

Happy Green Living (or Partying)!

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Sounds impossibe? Totally not! 1000 Green Steps will just implement the same exact 3R tips to be done in your business environment. Easy. Simple. Doable.

Reduce

You can reduce your electricity usage by turning off equipments you are not using. Get used to the behavior to turn off the computers at the end of your day and easily cut back 50% energy usage.

Avoid printing everything out of your computer. If it’s not necessary, then try to reduce paper waste starting from there.

Reuse

If you really have to print things on paper, try to print them on recycled paper or print them using both sides of the paper.

Change your office equipment into more eco-friendly office supplies which often offer the ability to be reused after you are done with them.

Recycle

Make sure that you provide many recycling bins for all of your company staff. So that everyone will know where to recycle those unwanted paper sheets. You can even make a contest among office departments so that everyone will do their part as much as they can to improve our environment.

Contact a recycling company so someone can handle your company recycling needs correctly.

It’s very simple right? Educate your staff and implement what you’ve learned for Mother Nature.

Happy Green Living!

Fist, you can reuse it and tell the (blog) world why you have done that on Kept. It’s a sweet little web site that urges people to “keep the stuff you’ve already got. To use it. To wear it. To celebrate it!”

OR, if you can’t even stand its existance , you can go SMARTLY donate it to some good will company.

Lifeline for Africa collects used phones and sends them to Africa. Some phones will be refurbished, and donated directly to charitable groups in Africa. Others will be refurbished and sold to make money for the charities.

Woodland Trust will receive a donation for every phone it receives. The money will be used for protecting forests.

~Happy Green Living!~

First of all, recycled paper and binders might make a good option for your kids. After all of those green stuff you bought, don’t forget to aim for a waste-free lunch to top it all sweetly.

Happy Green Living!

1000 green Steps know that almost every woman knows that recycling in their kitchen would be a good idea. The problem is that green steps are not always easy or convenient! Who really wants to lug a bag full of aluminum cans out to the recycling bin (especially during the cold winter months?) No one. Luckily, this aluminum can crusher makes your green steps much less daunting! Simply crush all empty cans and store them until enough have accumulated for a single trip out to the bin.

Happy Green Living!