Yes yes, I know, recycling. It’s been around since the 1970’s as a movement. I have 5 garbage cans in my kitchen because of recycling, isn’t that enough?

Well, there’s a lot more to recycling than just paper, plastic, glass, and cans. A friend recently pointed me to an article called 21 Things You Didn’t Know You Can Recycle Some of the items, like batteries or motor oil, I already knew about, but some were a bit of a surprise:

1. Appliances: Goodwill accepts working appliances, www.goodwill.org, or you can contact the Steel Recycling Institute to recycle them. 800/YES-1-CAN, www.recycle-steel.org.

6. Compact fluorescent bulbs: Take them to your local IKEA store for recycling: www.ikea.com. [Ikea? I had no idea. This is great, considering fluorecents contain mercury, which really shouldn't ever be thrown out.]

20. Tyvek envelopes: Quantities less than 25: Send to Shirley Cimburke, Tyvek Recycling Specialist, 5401 Jefferson Davis Hwy., Spot 197, Room 231, Richmond, VA 23234. Quantities larger than 25, call 866/33-TYVEK.

21 Things You Didn’t Know You Can Recycle
www.enn.com/ecosystems/article/28729

That’s just a few from the list, obviously there’s more. So if you’re lucky enough to live in a town with curbside recycling^*, you’ve got most of your work taken care of. I plan to at least save my CFL’s and old computer parts from the trash, now that I know where to send them!

* Right now I live in an upscale Boston suburb… that doesn’t even have regular trash collection, let alone curbside recycling. So if you have it, consider yourself very lucky, and make good use of it!

No, this is not a Martha Stewart moment.

Given that it’s the time of year to make mazzo balls, egg nog, or large quantities of ham and poultry, it’s time to take Conservation into the kitchen and teach it to cook. I’ve already written about saving water, so I’m already shutting off the faucet while I lather up my hands. There’s more to do at dinner time, though!

• Think Globally, Shop Locally. Nearly every town has some kind of local market- not a supermarket that’s close to you, a local market. Meaning the produce and meat you find was actually grown somewhere just outside of town, or in someone’s garden. Chances are good it’ll be fresher, maybe even organic, and a trucker didn’t have to burn gallons of diesel from some farm 1,000 miles away.
• Okay, shop locally on occasion. The local market often isn’t too convenient for most people’s daily grocery shopping, but for a big Christmas dinner? A special event? Every little bit helps, and you’d be surprised how much tastier produce is when it was in the ground yesterday.
• Buy Organic. Yeah, yeah, yeah, ya hippie, I know. It’s pricier, but that’s only because special care and extra steps were taken to prevent chemicals from getting into the ground- and your food. Organic farmers practice sustainable living, and when I can afford a little higher grocery bill, I try and support them.
• Who needs tupperware? I mean, seriously, it may feel a bit ghetto using sour cream tubs to store leftovers, but who’s going to care? Its not like I’m serving meals to wedding guests, I’m just sticking unused food back in the fridge. Instead of buying plastic containers, we use everything from butter tubs to salsa jars, and already our cupboards runneth over. It amazes me that anyone buys empty plastic containers anymore.
• Less packaging = less trash. I kind of already covered this when writing about Christmas shopping, but the same principle applies to food. Granted, buying bulk vegetables is just dumb unless you’re making a huge meal, but things like rice and pasta last forever in the pantry. Why buy a 1lb bag of rice if a 5lb bag is available? Also, any time I can skip the plastic produce bag, I do- Lemons are tough enough to survive the shopping cart ride on their own.
• Tea and Sympathy. Despite what certain recent albums might suggest, I drink a lot of tea. Rather than throw away teabag after teabag, I have a few tea toys like steel steeping balls, a French press, and I’m in the market for a good teapot. By buying loose tea like Twinings, I’m throwing away less paper and getting a great little storage tin out of the bargain too.

As an update from recent posts, I have indeed installed a shutoff valve on my shower head. It feels a little weird at first, turning the water off to lather up and scrub. It’s kind of like summer camp or when we did the Habitat thing down in Tijuana. After a week, though, I began to wonder why I’d been wasting so much water my whole life. It’s astounding how little you actually need to stay warm and clean, and how a simple $6 piece of hardware can save a load of money on the water bill.