Category Archives: Reduce Reuse Recycle

Get Thrifty, Go Green (And Save Green)

It’s no secret to anyone who knows me that I LOVE to shop at thrift stores, but it wasn’t always this way.

When I was a middle-schooler, I absolutely hated it. I felt like it was embarrassing, something only poor people should do. If someone complimented a thrift store item I was wearing (which did not happen often, due to my complete non-thrift-store-related lack of stylishness) and asked where I got it, I would fib and say I didn’t remember. By high school, however, I had fully realized the awesomeness that is thrift shopping, and would gladly tell anyone who asked where I shopped.

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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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Great Green Giveaway: Skeeda

By now most of us know that plastic shopping bags comprise a significant amount of the world’s plastic waste, with The Wall Street Journal estimating that the United States alone consumes 100 billion shopping bags a year. 100 billion is 99.9 billion too many.

The great thing about that outrageous number is that it can be easily and dramatically downsized, one household, and one trendy reusable canvas bag at a time.

Enter three sisters with a mission and www.skeeda.com

About Skeeda

When three sisters from a small town in upstate NY combined their passion, creativity, and concern for the environment, skeeda© was born.

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Recycled Note Of The Week: Renée Anne

Every week or so we use this space to feature a recycled note or three from some of our favorite online sources. This week I stumbled upon this Happy Birthday Cake card from Renée Anne’s Etsy shop and fell instantly in love with the simple (and 100% recycled!) design.

From the seller:

Chocolate Birthday cake is my son’s favorite but this Happy Birthday card is perfect for just about anyone! It is blank inside ready for your personalized message. It features a print of an ORIGINAL WATERCOLOR painting designed and painted by me.

BEAUTIFUL, HIGH QUALITY 100% POST-CONSUMER RECYCLED card stock and envelope used.

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The Missing Link

Reduce, reuse and recycle. We all understand the importance of the three “R’s” of being environmentally responsible. I believe there is another part of the circle that is often overlooked, and I think it is the most important part.

I am referring to supporting the market for your carefully recycled cast-offs.

When you buy something, look for items made from a high percentage of post-consumer recycled materials. It doesn’t matter how many plastic bottles, newspapers, cardboard boxes and tin cans we throw in the recycle bin. If there is no market for these materials, the recycling industry will disappear.

In west Texas, for example, it is very difficult to recycle glass.

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Dry Your Clothes Green

After a reading a few comments on my post called Saving Green by Going Green, I thought that the topic of clothes drying could use a little more attention. So, this week I am going to focus in on a few different issues about living green and drying our clothes that I believe everyone can benefit from.

First of all, it was brought to my attention that the dryer balls I referred to in my original post were, indeed, made of PVC, which is obviously not a green material. With that said, I was assured by distributors of these balls that they are made with safe practices, but let’s face it, any way we can avoid PVC (especially heating it) is probably a good idea.

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New Ways To Recycle

Most curbside recycling programs and collection centers accept a very specific and somewhat limited set of items. The usual suspects are #1 and #2 plastics, paper of all kinds, and aluminum cans. Sometimes corrugated cardboard, metal food cans, and glass containers are accepted as well. But in our over-packaged society, there’s always a lot of waste left behind after the recycling bins have been carried out.

Over the last few years, I’ve stumbled onto a few less-conventional avenues for recycling and reusing some things that our curbside recycling won’t take. By making a few calls around town, you might be able to find places to offload your extra odds and ends.

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Recycled Note Of The Week: Pretty & Plantable

Every week we use this space to feature a recycled note or three from some of our favorite online sources. This week I found an Etsy shop specializing in cards comprised of 100% recycled paper embedded with wildflower, sunflower, spruce and clover seeds. All of the cards sporting the aforementioned seeds can be purchased at Grace Graphics, and my three favorites from the shop are listed below.

Bouquet Of Three

Plant these cards and they grow a gorgeous garden of wildflowers! Yep, that’s right! The seeds are in the paper. The ultimate card for the eco-conscious gift giver!

This set of 3 cards on handmade peach tinted paper is embedded with a blend of wildflower seeds that will grow most anywhere.

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Help A Friend And Give Locally

Wellcome Images

For the past few weeks, my family has been preparing for a big move. We are not moving down the street or to the next town, but instead across the country.

During our lives here in our current home, we fortunately did not accumulate a lot of “stuff,” but much of what we have will not be traveling with us. We have decided that the memories created with some of our personal belongings are not worth the expense and time of packing them up and hauling them across country. Don’t get me wrong, we are a sentimental family, but my days of holding onto my lost baby teeth (I kept them way into my college years), have been replaced with a more common sense mentality of only keeping what I am going to use eventually, preferably sometime this year.

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Recycled Note Of The Week: (Be My) Valentine Edition

Still need a green Valentine for your sweetie by Saturday? We have your romantic note-giving covered.

I Fancy You

So, this is my first endeavor into the world of Valentine Cards. I’m hoping this set will inspire you to organize a Valentine exchange in your office. You know, cover some shoe boxes in pretty paper and make mailboxes at your respective desks, and choo-choo-choose someone! Or maybe you’ll just give them to your friends. Or the 10 suitors you are currently juggling?

This set of 10 flat notes is printed on linen finish stock with rounded corners and comes with natural kraft recycled envelopes.

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