Recycling tips: Why not?

[Piwoslaw]

Originally Posted by Christ

Does anyone take their plastic grocery bags back to the store?

My Mom has been doing that ever since she noticed Kroger accepts them. But she doesn't have too many, as there are always 4-5 reusable cloth bags in her trunk.

My brother-in-law's friend ordered a printer, but it didn't work, so he called the company. They sent him a new one and didn't want the old one back. So my brother-in-law took the busted one. It didn't work because a piece of packaging styrofoam was blocking the carriage. He took it out and now has a new printer/scanner/copier.

Back to bottles: I use my bike bottles, I've been intensively using all four for 15 years now. When my Wife and I go swimming, wall climbing or play squash, we take two of them, about 1.5 liters of water total. I read an article in E magazine about bottled water and that just made me glad I drink tap. My wife says she doesn't like its taste, so for her I buy water in the largest jugs (6 liters) I can find.

Another reuse project I did was a thermos cover. It is a two layer sleeve with a hood, the inner layer is out of fleece scraps to keep in heat, the outer layer is from a rainproof coat. It cost about $10 for a tailor to do it, now the thermos is warm even when we hike in the winter In fact, it's so good that we had a second one made, and a third and fourth for our friends. Now we need more scraps.

[jamesqf]

I can understand most of that. It's gotten so that I hate to have to make a trip to the local landfill, 'cause I always want to come home with more stuff than I brought.

[Christ]

So far, I'm enjoying the goings-on of this thread...

As far as the grocery bags go - Some grocery stores will give you a break on your purchases if you take the used bags back... something like .02 for each bag.. it's not much, but when you buy groceries like I do, in $200-$300 spats, and it takes 40-50 bags to bag it all up, there's a dollar. :P Doesn't seem like much, only about $1 a month... $12 a year... but at current gas prices, that's a free fill-up a year for my Civic!

That was back when we shopped at a local PriceChopper in NY state.

[Clev]

Old CD's can be hole-punched and hung up to keep birds off your cars/crops.

My grandfather built "e-brake caddies" for his Hondas out of scrap wood and tin cans. He built them to straddle the e-brake when it was down, and then attached two sizes of tin cans to the top (one notched for a coffee cup handle) and attached an oblong cocoa tin in the center to hold pens, garage door opener, etc. The entire thing was covered in carpet that matched the floors (he got scraps from an upholstery shop.) Very convenient back when cars didn't come with cupholders.

I'm not mechanically inclined enough to fix some things, so I offer them on Freecycle as "needs work." There is ALWAYS somebody like Frank Lee who will pick them up and repair them, keeping them out of the landfill.

Kinda off-topic, but my employer is about to scrap a bunch of old broken computers (anything from K6/450 to P4-1.8GHz.) I'd like to make working machines out of them and donate them. Does anybody know of a charity, either local to SoCal or nationwide, that can distribute these? I have a skill; might as well use it for good. (I'd also pick up all computers I can off Freecycle and fix them up similarly.)

[Christ]

Fixing and donation qualify as re-using, in my book... so I'll humor this one.

Churches are often looking for donations of the sort, to keep up with at least the trailing edge of technology.

Often times, brothers and sisters clubs are in need, as well. Many times, they can't afford the computers that might otherwise be given to them.

Several community schools might also accept such a donation, provided the systems are "cleanable"... i.e. no software installed.

The nice thing about freecycle in large areas is that it reaches so widely over the population, even through hear-say and WOM. Also, you can easily pick and choose who you give something to. A few emails back and forth will usually pretty easily determine who will make the most of such a gift.

Around this time of year, it might even be nice to get a list of needy families from a local church, and donate a computer directly to them, no thanks necessary. I don't know about your area, but in rural areas, most churches will gladly give the names of those who haven't asked that it not be done, and this makes it easy for someone to "Secret Santa" a gift to a family who otherwise could not afford such a thing.

As far as the cupholders in the Honda, I've considered doing that several times.. but there are more OEM appearing ways to do it, if you have the patience and skill to make them fit. One such way is the DIN slot cup holder on the ford taurii of the age... they fit perfectly where the radio went in hondas, and the average honda has a cubby-slot that can be cut out to accommodate them as well. Another option is the center console from some newer Integras (90+) that have cupholders in them. Also, many have just taken window-mount ashtrays, made cupholders from them, and mounted them to a section of trim that would overhang in front of the passenger seat, which, amazingly, doesn't interfere with passenger legroom, for the most part.

[ATaylorRacing]

Almost all my furniture came from cheap stores that would throw out broken returns....the recliners, loveseats, and sofas had cheap, thin wood frames that would break easily. I would pull off the dust covers and put a couple of wood slats on each side of the breaks and use a few bolts to hold them together...never had a fixed one break on me, barely used for free.

When I open my mail I use paper that has no printing on the back side for everything that I use my printer for that I want to keep.

The envelopes that have no print on the backside are used for note paper.

I have been reusing throw away plastic plates forever, along with large size McDonald cups. Refilling water bottles is a no brainer.

When I was an active mailman with a rte of 44 miles I would get all kinds of free stuff that people set out. I'd come by after work and pick it up, then on my days off set it out front with a very low priced sign and it'd be sold in a few minutes.

One guy took 11 adult bikes that he didn't want to mess with due to various problems. For less than $20 I had them all in perfect riding order and would take one per event to the drag strip and sell them for $20-$50....11 bikes, 11 races....paid for my entry fee on average.

Had a 2.5 Chrysler minivan motor with 235,000 miles on it given me. The guy was a rural router and had pulled it out to replace with a newer one as a preventive measure. It was put in a car that I race as is and won the Dodge SRT Nationals with it a couple of months later. My car has 267,000 miles on it and only sees used stuff put on. The motor used 1 qt of oil every 2000 miles (nice, since that's my change interval) and I just had it freshened up with used Ford wrist pins (.912 compared to .9), timing belt, valve job, valve guides, and valve seals.

[Christ]

See - even cars can benefit from re-using things!

Junkyard slogan in this area: "We know our parts work - They're used."

[Formula413]

Originally Posted by Christ

See - even cars can benefit from re-using things!

Junkyard slogan in this area: "We know our parts work - They're used."

Or one from up my way: "Everyone drives on used parts"

[Christ]

yep, I've seen that one too! One of my old employers used it.

When people complained about prices for parts, he'd ask them "What will you take for your car?" and they'd give some stupid price, like $1000 or something, to which he'd reply "But! It's used!!!"

They usually got the hint.

[Ryland]

I have boxes of cords from just about everything, wall warts, RCA cables power strips, all those cords that come with things like DVD players that you only need one of the 3 that came with it, but sooner or later someone needs it and if they do get to be outdated then you recycle them and cash in on the coper in them, same with lamp cords.
I did finely take my trash out and realized that the reason it was so full was from a month and a half ago, we sanded our wood floors and the trash can was half full of used sand paper... from over a month ago.
we have a water filter deal that sits on a shelf with a spigot on the side, fill it from the tap then fill your glass from the spigot, we don't have a single plastic water bottle in the house or the recycling, instead they are all stainless steel and should last the rest of my life, travel mugs are also stainless steel inside, the local coffee shops all give a discount if you bring your own mug as paper cups cost them money and are tacky.