Tag Archive: recycling

Teaching Your Kids To Be Eco Friendly

There are so many stresses on the environment that many scientists believe we are in the midst of one of the largest extinctions that has ever occurred on earth. Add to that the fact that many of our natural resources are finite, instilling a sense of awareness and care for the natural environment is incredibly important for today’s youth. A generation without concern for the world’s precious ecosystems and natural resources may be the final stressor that pushes the world into a dangerous imbalance that it won’t be able to recover from. How can parents help kids be eco friendly, be caring stewards of the beautiful environment they live in?

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Recycling Plastic Markers

My daughter, Hannah, is almost 5 years old and she loves to draw. She’ll use whatever’s on hand but her favourite drawing tool, by far, is a marker. I can see why – they have the most vivid colours and they don’t become dull with use. As long as you remember to put the tops back on they hold their own for quite some time.

I have concerns with markers, though. For one thing, markers are all made of plastic. This means that when we’re done with them they head to the landfill where they’ll spend tens of thousands of years.

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Recycling With Kids

Going green is everywhere now and can seem pretty overwhelming at times. With so much information out there it can be hard to know where to start.

You don’t need to go green overnight; take small steps!

Recycling can be a good first step, and it’s also a great way to teach kids about waste.

There are a lot of good resources out there to help you show your kids why we recycle. One site featuring a lot of great information is Kids Recycle. It’s geared toward schools but parents will find the information helpful as well.

One good idea to help kids get involved comes from an episode of Jon & Kate Plus 8 where Sara Snow visits.

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You Can Actually Recycle Too Much

Recycling binI am sure some of you would have experienced a moment like this–you look at your overflowing recycling bin full of paper, cardboard, tin cans, glass, and plastic bottles, and think to yourself “what a great job I’m doing to save the environment”. But to the contrary, it is actually a sign that something is wrong.

I myself realised this when looking at our recycling bin over Christmas!

The common saying “reduce, reuse, recycle” is actually a hierarchy expressing the order of importance of these ideas.

Firstly, and most importantly, you must reduce what you consume and reduce your generation of waste.

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Recycling & The Beauty Products Industry

Why is it that beauty products are seldom packaged in recyclable containers?

Even when their containers are plastic, they seldom have recognizable recycling symbols on them. Sometimes they have what I assume are European symbols on them.

Did you know that this symbol:

The German ‘Green Dot’, has no environmental significance at all? It only means that the manufacturer has paid a fee towards the packaging recovery system in Germany.

Is the beauty industry too upmarket to put the little triangle on the bottom of their packaging? Do they think their little packages would make the symbol too tiny to read?

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Freecycling Into 2009

The holidays are behind us, and we’re moving into the time of year when lots of people are facing the daunting twin tasks of finding places to put all the Christmas presents and getting ready to do some serious Spring cleaning.

If you’re like me, you may even have made a New Year’s resolution that seemed like a good idea at the time, but now seems a bit daunting: “Take care of the clutter problem.”

I suspect de-cluttering is harder for those of us who hate to add things to the waste stream. The thought of putting something into a landfill that someone else might get use out of is bothersome, but how do we find someone who needs or wants our old stuff?

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Around The Greenosphere: Weekly Link Roundup

Here are some favorite posts from elsewhere that had us thinking this week, to help start your weekend a bit greener.

Monday Doreen at Mom Goes Green posted on ridding our respective mailboxes of copious amounts of junk mail, and her post features multiple organizations who will help you do that easily and affordably.

Tuesday EcoGeek published an article on a new and unusual use for cocunut husks.

Is this really practical on a large scale? For those of us living in parts of the world where coconuts are limited to the grocery store, it’s hard to imagine. But in more equatorially located countries, coconuts are everywhere.

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Holiday How-To, Green Edition

The Holidays can be a tricky time of year to navigate while staying green and not going over-budget. Here at 5 Minutes for Going Green we’re here to help you think outside the box this gift-giving season. We want to help keep you and your family green this holiday season, while also keeping more green in your pocketbooks, too. Keep reading for our customized How-To Holiday Guide.

(Keep in mind, too, that nearly all of these How-To tips are not holiday-centric and can themselves be recycled for birthdays, anniversaries, group social events, and just day-to-day green living.)

How To…

Wrap Recycled:

  • My new favorite recycled wrapping trend that I’ve seen suggested and modeled everywhere from Etsy to Martha Stewart Living is wrapping with maps and pages from atlases and other travel-related paperie.

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What Does Buying Local Mean To You?

What does the term “buy local” mean to you? There is an increasing push for people to start buying local foods and products of late. I think it’s a great idea. You need to first ask yourself, what does that mean to you? Does it mean that you buy foods and products from just your community? Your state? Our country?

It can mean all those things. Here in Idaho, we have a campaign called “Buy Idaho”. T.V. and radio ads encourage Idahoans to purchase goods and services within our state. I’m sure other states have this kind of program too.

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Finding Simplicity by Going Scratch

When I first wrote this article, I was gung-ho all fired up about a campaign I started on my blog called Going Scratch. That was nearly a month ago. I write for this blog once a month, sometimes more when I get a bee in my bonnet. Going Scratch was an idea I had to help myself return to basics. My question to myself was: Why am I relying on the store to provide things for my family when I can just as effectively make them myself? It’s a good question I thought. Why not? Things like food items I would normally buy I can make at home.

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