Home Improvement You Can Feel Good About

If you have home improvement projects on your fall agenda, Habitat for Humanity’s Re-Stores may be a great resource to help you stay green and save some green! Re-Stores sell usable and surplus building materials to the public at a fraction of the retail price. This may include fixtures, appliances, building materials and even furniture.

On the other end of the equation, Re-Stores also accept donations of new or gently used items that can be re-sold to others. The proceeds help local Habitat affiliates build homes in their community.

Bottom line: For home improvement you can feel good about, check out the web site for local Re-Stores near you.

Give a Little Greener

As invitations for spring parties - showers, birthday and graduation parties, weddings - start coming in the mail, it's a good time to think about how you can give a little greener this year. While gifts are always well-intentioned, the reality is that sometimes we give and get items that end up being unwanted...which instantly turns them into clutter in your home...and ultimately might land them in the trash. Nobody likes to be the giver or the receiver of such a gift - not to mention that it's not very green to purchase and accumulate unwanted things. It got me thinking about ways to avoid this the next time you give a gift. Here are some simple ideas...

1. Give a gift card to a retailer you know the recipient likes. Or if you are unsure, you can always give cash or something like a Visa gift card.
2. Buy from the gift registry. While some of the best and most memorable gifts for life's events are often off-registry, unless you have a special idea, it is safest to stick to the registry for events like showers and weddings. The gift recipients have already decided these are items they want! Just be sure to make sure your purchase is noted on the registry and always get gift receipts so items can be exchanged if need be.
3. Give consumable or usable items. This only works well if you know enough about the tastes of the recipient. Ideas for consumables might be a favorite bottle of wine or basket of fruit. Usable items could be anything from fun office supplies to a membership to a museum or tickets to an event.
4. Give gifts that help recipients go green, such as cute reusable shopping totes (http://www.envirosax.com/), an aluminum water bottle (http://mysigg.com/), or even a subscription to a junk mail reduction service (http://precycle.tonic.com/).
5. Make a donation to a meaningful charity on behalf of the recipient. This has become a popular replacement to traditional wedding favor trinkets.

Let us know if you've used these or other green gift giving strategies!

Recycling CDs and Other Technotrash

I recently decided to downsize my CD collection since it had been sitting untouched under my desk in one of those old giant CD 'binders' for years - the contents of this wooden CD crate are all that remain. But I was left wondering what to do with all my unwanted CDs. It turns out that there are a number of options for recycling your old CD/DVDs. I used a favorite green site, www.earth911.com, and discovered that my local Best Buy has recycling bins at the front of the store for CDs, batteries and cell phones - who knew?! On another note, I also recently brought an old desk top computer that was simply collecting dust to the Geek Squad desk at Best Buy where they happily took it all (I removed the hard drive first) off my hands to recycle. They charged a $10 fee for the monitor, but gave me a $10 gift card in return.

Back to the CDs, here are some other 'technotrash' recycling options I have recently seen recommended by other professional organizers.

http://cdrecyclingforfree.com/

http://www.greendisk.com/

I love GreenDisk's slogan: "because good planets are hard to find"

Here are some interesting CD/DVD tidbits from cdrecyclingforfree.com:

CD/DVD Recycling Facts

• A cd/dvd is considered a class 7 recyclable plastic
• To manufacture a pound of plastic (30 CDs per pound), it requires 300 cubic feet of natural gas, 2 cups of crude oil and 24 gallons of water
• It is estimated that AOL alone has distributed more than 2 billion CDs. That is the natural gas equivalent of heating 200,000 homes for 1 year
• It is estimated that it will take over 1 million years for a CD to completely decompose in a landfill

Think about what technotrash you have cluttering your home and office, check out the resources above and do something about it! And by all means, let us know if you have other recycling resources to share.

Simple Steps

While many people think of recycling their bottles, cans, and paper as simple steps to help the planet (and they are!), there are also simple ways to reduce your impact while you organize your home or office.

1) Buy less stuff! Sounds so simple, right? And it is! Think twice before each purchase you make - will the item enhance your life and contribute to the space you are trying to achieve? The less stuff you own, the less you have to maintain, clean, and get rid of down the road.

2) Donate, don't dumpster! I live in a large building and so often see large quantities of seemingly usable household items in the trash. While it's an organizing must to get rid of items that are no longer needed in your space, that doesn't mean someone else can't use them. There are lots of charities and thrift stores out there that will gladly accept gently used household items. Simply 'Google' charities or donation sites in your area to find out what they will take. Some will even pick items - bonus!

3) Get creative and reuse what you have! It can be expensive in addition to wasteful to buy new things every time you embark on an organizing adventure. See if there are new and creative ways to use items you already have. This doesn't mean you should keep things around that you don't love or need - just think outside the box. For example, two mesh filing crates I wasn't using have been repurposed as recycling bins in my house. And to think, I almost bought new recycling containers?!

These are just a few ideas - let us know your favorites!

Go Green While You Spring Clean

Would you like to green up your cleaning routine? Spring cleaning's a great time to make a few changes. Here are a few ideas to get you started.

Green Cleaning Products
Fortunately, 'green' cleaning products are widely available these days so you have several options if you want to switch up some or all of the items under your sink. Here are just a few of many choices:

www.seventhgeneration.com/Green-Cleaning
www.simplegreen.com/products_family.php
www.greenworkscleaners.com/cleaners/

Green Cleaning Tools
You can also find cleaning tools like mops and buckets made from recycled materials. The Container Store carries a few such items.

Another great way to green your routine is to make use of tired household items for cleaning. For example, instead of using paper towels or cleaning wipes, try re-usable rags made from cut up old t-shirts – they’re great for dusting, cleaning glass and mirrors, and just about anything else that needs wiping. You can also make cleaning tools like sponges last longer by throwing them in the dishwasher to refresh them.

What are your favorite tips for green cleaning? Please share your suggestions in the comments!

Paper Recycling

Does your office have a paper recycling program? If not, it's easy to set one up. There are many recycling companies that will pick up barrels of paper for a small fee. In Massachusetts, I am a fan of Earthworm recycling. But, there are companies nationwide. All you need to do is make a phone call, order some plastic recycling bins (or put a sign on regular trash bins to designate them as paper only), and put them under everyone's desk. I first did this at a small company (40 employees) I worked for 10 years ago. A few people teased me, and my boss was reluctant, but I pushed for it and got the program going. The first month the recycling program sent me a report. We had saved 35 trees that month (that's almost one tree per person!). The company still uses the system today. In 10 years – that's over 4,200 trees saved! All I did was take initiative. You can, too!