But, one of my favorite resources, the Council on the Environment of New York City, has even more recycling info on their site.  Below is their condensed version…  I suggest you visit their site & sign up for all kinds of great environmental info!  Enjoy & happy recycling…

NYC has an extensive recycling program, and there are many ways to recycle additional materials. Here are just a few resources. Check out www.NYC.gov/nycwasteless for a comprehensive collection of recycling information and resources.

Batteries

Rechargeable batteries are prohibited from household garbage and can be recycled at stores that sell batteries of that type. For more info on this law, visit www.nyc.gov/nycwasteless or call 311. Select Greenmarkets have collection bins for cell phones and rechargeable batteries or you can visit www.RBRC.org to get a bin for your building.

Single-use alkaline batteries can be recycled at Interstate Batteries on Berrian Blvd in Astoria and at the NYC Department of Sanitation’s Special Waste Drop-Off Site in your borough. (Note: Whole Foods and 3RLiving have suspended their in-store battery collections).

For more information on disposing of batteries in NYC visit NYCWasteLe$$.

Business Recycling

All businesses must recycle in NYC. Visit the NYCWasteLe$$ page dedicated to businesses, which provides tips and resources for setting up a recycling program. Looking to get rid of reusable items without loading up a landfill, or trying to save money by acquiring used goods? Check out NY WasteMatch – a free match-making service for used and surplus goods. This commercial materials exchange helps businesses save money on purchases and/or disposal, while also helping the environment.

Bicycles

Tired of your old bicycle? Donate it to Recycle a Bicycle or Time’s UP! and make someone’s day!

Building Materials

Save money on renovations by buying from and donating to NYC’s building materials reuse centers, Build It Green! and Rebuilders Source. Visit their websites to view their inventories of cabinets, doors, appliances, paint and more.

Cell Phones

Any store that sells cell phones in New York State has to take them back. You can also recycle your old phone for a cause through Collective Good, which will refurbish it for reuse if possible.

Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs (CFLs)

Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs (CFLs) save energy and last much longer, but still require disposal eventually. These items, which contain trace amounts of mercury, are permissible in household garbage but can be recycled at several sites in the City. Get more info on light bulb recycling and CENYC’s CFL recycling pilot program at www.cenyc.org/CFL.

Compost

Why let your food scraps go to waste? Many NYC community gardens offer composting to turn your coffee grounds, vegetable trimmings and other organic waste into “black gold” to fertilize flowers, vegetables and trees. Find out where at www.nyccompost.org or drop it off at the Union Square Greenmarket with the Lower East Side Ecology Center or at the Ft. Greene Greenmarket for composting at local community gardens. Check out the Manhattan Compost Map from Green Map for more local compost resources.

Clothing & Textiles

Materials such as old clothing and linens represent 6% of NYC’s waste but are 100% recyclable at our weekly Greenmarket textile recycling collections: Fridays at 97thSt. (8a-2p); Saturdays at Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn (8a-4p), Ft Greene (8a-3p), McCarren Park (8a-2p), Inwood (8a-3p); Sundays at Tompkins Sq. (8a-2p) and Jackson Hts (8a-3p)JUL-NOV only; and Mondays & Saturdays at Union Square (8a-6p). Items in wearable condition can also find a new home through Freecycle™ New York City or local charities. Contact Wearable Collections for information on setting up a collection in your very own apartment building!

Computers & Electronics

Although they are a small portion of the waste stream by volume, computers and electronics contribute about 70% of the toxicity to landfills. There are many recycling opportunities for these items. Find upcoming collection days on our Recycling Events page, visit Take It Back NYC for info on manufacturer recycling or click here for info on free computer recycling at local Goodwill stores.

Food

Food that is still edible need not go to waste. Find a soup kitchen or food pantry near you with this handy interactive map from the NYC Coalition Against Hunger. Large volumes of canned food can be donated through the Food Bank for NYC. Contact City Harvest for information on donating large amounts of fresh, perishable and prepared foods.

Furniture

Goodwill Industries, The Salvation Army, St. Vincent DePaul, Housing Works, Everything Goes, Furnish-a-Future and other non-profit organizations provide good homes for old furniture. You can also look for takers through Craigslist.org and Freecycle.org

Ink Cartridges

Refilling ink cartridges reduces the amount of plastic that goes into the landfill. See Fine Star Imaging, Cartridge World, and Staples. Prepaid return labels or envelopes are available on all brands of toner and ink cartridges so you can return them for free recycling.

Junk Mail

Take your name off of mass mailing lists with the Direct Mail Marketing Association and reduce catalog waste with Catalog Choice. Opt out of offers for credit cards and insurance through the Consumer Credit Reporting Industry. Stop unsolicited telephone books with the new Yellow Pages Opt Out.

Plastic Bags & Plastic Film

They make up 7.5% of our waste, and they never degrade. The key is to reduce your use of plastic bags. If you need to recycle your “stash” you can do so at many stores around the city, thanks to a recent local law that requires recycling of plastic film such as shopping bags, dry cleaning bags and newspaper bags.

Tubs, Cups & Other Plastics

Though not collected for recycling by the city, plastic tubs such as margarine and yogurt cups can be recycled at the Park Slope Food Coop. Bring #5 containers and Brita pitcher filters to most Whole Foods locations, mail to Preserve Gimme 5, 823 NYS Rte 13, Cortland, NY 13045. Click here to find drop-off sites in NYC.  NOTE: You can drop them off at Green in BKLYN, too!

Shoe Repair & Recycling

Don’t throw them out, resole them. An artifact of the past in many cities; the shoe repair business in New York City is thriving. These shops offer great value by extending the life of good shoes. If your running shoes are worn completely, you can recycle them through the Reuse-a-Shoe program, which makes them into athletic surfaces. You can drop off any brand of rubber-soled shoes at Niketown, 6 East 57th Street (212.891.6453) or mail them to the Nike Recycling Center, c/o Reuse-A-Shoe, 26755 SW 95th Ave., Wilsonville, OR 97070.

Swaps & Exchanges

Items that are no longer useful to you can still be helpful to others. Try catch-all resources like Craigslist.org or Freecycle.org or search NYC Stuff Exchange for a wide array of reuse options. And don’t miss CENYC’s Stop N’ Swaps!

Technotrash

Recycle CDs, floppy disks, VHS tapes, etc. by purchasing a Technotrash bin from Green Disk.

With organic wine from Gnarly Vines, vegan pizza from Slice and family & friends from near & far, the event was lovely & lively.  Jennifer read from her book, some guests asked questions, others offered suggestions & Jennifer shared her very easy-to-follow green tips.

For those of you who couldn’t join us (& until you come into the shop to pick up your own copy of the book), here are a few simple steps for Greening Your Small Business courtesy of Jennifer Kaplan:

• Use on-line banking.
• Purchase recycled content products & supplies for daily use as well as for maintenance operations.
• Replace all existing standard lightbulbs with high-efficiency ones.
• Offer recycled gift bags & tissue paper in lieu of traditional gift wrap & boxes.
• Use email & scanned documents to communicate instead of fax machines & paper memos.
• Source locally by purchasing local & sustainable products & services including produce, flowers, beverages, decor & rentals.
• Consolidate shipments & avoid air freight/expediting whenever possible.
• Replace Post-It Notes with scrap paper.
• Rent hybrid & alternative-fuel vehicles or, better yet, use mass transit.
• And (of course), reduce – reuse – recycle.

With gratitude & congratulations to Jennifer!  It was a pleasure to host her first book signing & enjoy such spirited conversation, helpful information & kind company!

Implementing small changes where & when you can makes a big difference in moving toward & living a greener lifestyle.  If you decide what your priorities are & think about where it would be easiest for you to begin, starting there can make it easier to work up to bigger & more difficult issues.

With that idea in mind, here are a few more easy steps to living greener…

1) For instance, you can start by replacing your light bulbs as they burn out with compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) & replacing your cleaning supplies as they run out with environmentally friendly ones.  CFLs use 75% less energy & last up to seven years.  Simple & significant.

2) Another easy-to-implement strategy is to buy items with less packaging.  Consider what would happen if you bought toilet paper in double rolls, which contain twice as much as a regular size roll.  The number of cardboard tubes inside the rolls is reduced by half as is the amount of plastic used to wrap the packages.  If you recycle the cardboard tube that remains & open the plastic wrap at the top of the package & reuse the wrap as a trash bag, even better.  And, finally, if you buy recycled toilet paper, that’s even more eco-friendly!  And easy, too.

3) And finally, support your local community both socially & economically.  It can be done simply by buying your food, gifts, crafts & home items from local producers & businesses.  It reduces the distance traveled & resources used in the transportation of those products as well as keeps other resources close to where they came from – strengthening the community & making it easier to get what you need close to home.  Convenient & easy & a lot more fun than traveling all over the place to get your stuff done!

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

2. Batteries: For rechargeable & single use batteries, as well, contact Battery Solutions (734-467-9110 / www.batteryrecycling.com).

3. Cardboard Boxes: Contact local nonprofits & women’s shelters to see if they can use them.  Or offer them up at your local Freecycle.org listserv or on Craigslist.org.  And, if your workplace collects at least 100 boxes or more each month, UsedCardboardBoxes.com accepts them for resale.

4. CDs/DVDs/Game Disks: Send scratched music or computer CDs, Dvds & PlayStation or Nintendo video game disks to AuralTexch for refinishing & they’ll work like new (888-454-3223 / www.auraltech.com).  For recycling, see “Technotrash.”

5. Clothes: Wearable clothes can go to your local Goodwill outlet or women’s shelter.  Donate wearable women’s business clothing to Dress for Success, which gives them to low-income women as they search for jobs (212-532-1922 / www.dressforsuccess.org).  Offer unwearable clothes & towels to local animal boarding & shelter facilities, which often use them as pet bedding.

6. Compact Fluorescent Bulbs: Take them to your local IKEA store for recycling (www.ikea.com).  Or, order a Sylvania Recycle Pak for $15, which is a special lined box large enough for eight average CFLs.  Your fee covers shipping to & recycling at Veolia Environmental Systems.  We’re working on getting them in Green in BKLYN.  In the meantime, order them at www.sylvania.com.

7. Compostable Bio-Plastics: You’ll need to take them to a municipal composter.  Find one at www.findacomposter.com.

8. Computers & Electronics: Find responsible recyclers, local & national, at www.ban.org/pledge/Locations.html.

9. Exercise Videos: Swap them with others at www.videofitness.com.  Also see “Technotrash.”

10. Eyeglasses: Your local Lion’s Club or eye care chain may collect these.  Lenses are reground & given to people in need.  Sometimes, eyeglass stores will also take your old specs & forward them on to charities that reuse glasses.

11. Foam Packing Peanuts: Your local pack-and-ship store will likely accept these for reuse.  Or, call the Plastic Loose Fill Producers Council to find a drop-off site (800-828-2214).  For places to drop off foam blocks for recycling, contact the Alliance of Foam Packaging Recyclers ( 410-451-8340 / www.epspackaging.org/info.html).

12. Ink/Toner Cartridges: Recycleplace.com pays $1 each.  Some office supply shops (like Staples & Office Max) sometimes have buy-back &/or recycling programs, too.

13. Miscellaneous: Get your unwanted items into the hands of people who can use them.  Offer them up on your local Freecycle.org or Craigslist.org listserv.  Or, try giving them away at Throwplace.com.  Or giving or selling them at iReuse.com.  iReuse.com will also help you find a recycler, if possible, when your items have reached the end of their useful lifecycle.

14. Oil: Find Used Motor Oil Hotlines for each state (202-682-8000 / www.recycleoil.org).

15. Phones: Donate cell phones: Collective Good will refurbish your phone & sell it to people in developing countries (770-856-9021 / www.collectivegood.com).  Call to Protect reprograms cell phones to dial 911 & gives them to domestic violence victims (www.donateaphone.com).  Recycle single-lines at Reclamere (814-386-2927 / www.reclamere.com).

16. Sports Equipment: Resell or trade it at your local Play It Again Sports outlet (800-476-9249 . www.playitagain-sports.com).

17. “Technotrash”: Easily recycle all of your CDs, jewel cases, DVDs, audio & video tapes, cell phones, pagers, rechargeable & single-use batteries, PDAs & ink/toner cartridges with GreenDisk’s Technotrash program.  For a small fee, GreenDisk will send you a cardboard box in shich you can ship them up to 70 pounds of any of the above items.  Your fee covers the box as well as shipping & recyvling fees (800-305-GREENDISK / www.greendisk.com).

18. Tennis Shoes: One World Running will send still-wearable shoes to athletes in need in Africa, Latin America & Haiti (www.oneworldrunning.com).  Nike’s Reuse-a-Shoe program turns olds shoes into playground & athletic flooring (www.nikereuseashoe.com).

19. Toothbrushes & Razors: Buy a recycled plastic Recycline toothbrush or razor (from Green in BKLYN) & the company will take them back to be recycled again into plastic lumber.  Recycline toothbrushes & razors are made from used Stonyfield Farms’ yogrut cups (888-354-7296 / www.recycline.com)

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. Stuff You Just Can’t Recycle: When practical, send it back to the company & tell them they need to close the waste loop.

Courtesy of LOHAS Journal / Spring 2008

Since I’m updating our Green Tips page, I’ve added our original tips here to make space for new ones there…  Let me know if you’ve got any favorites to include on our next green-go-round!

• War on Junk Mail: More than 100 million trees are destroyed each year to produce junk mail – the equivalent of clear cutting the entire Rocky Mt. National Park every four months.

• Houseplants Clean House: Common houseplants can rid the air in your home of organic chemicals, pollutants, toxins & carbon dioxide from paint, cleaning supplies & synthetic rugs & fabrics.  Rock the green at home!

• Turn It Down: Turning down your thermostat by one degree can cut 8% off your fuel bill.  What’s one degree between you & your sweater?

• Lite Lights: Compact flourescent light bulbs (CFLs) use 75% less energy than regular light bulbs & last up to seven years.  If a quarter of the US households replaced just one incandescent with a CFL, it would save as much CO2 as planting 257,215 acres of forest.

• Cold Wash Clothes: Heating the water in your washing machine uses 90% of the machine’s power consumption.  I guess that explains why washing your clothes in cold water reduces energy usage & saves money.

• Bad Lint Bunnies: While we’re talking laundry – a full lint filter will cause your dryer to use 30% more energy.  Use lint to start fires in your fireplace, not your dryer!

• Star Power: More on the laundry front: An energy efficient washing machine will use a third less electricity for each wash, which could save you more that the cost of the appliance.  Who knew laundry could be so interesting?

• Change Your Filters: Studies show that regularly changing the filter on your car can save the equivalent of 28 cents per gallon.

• Slow Down & Enjoy the View: Speaking of cars… Keeping your speed at 65 mph instead of 55 mph increases fuel consumption by 15%.  Slowing down saves money & the environment.

• Love Your Wheels: Properly inflated tires can increase fuel efficiency by 3.3%, routine maintenance can up fuel efficiency by 4% & fixing serious car problems can improve efficiency up to 40%.

• Idle Waste: Idling for just 30 seconds burns more fuel than turning off the car & restarting it.  Turning the ignition off at long stoplights & other lengthy hold-ups saves gas & air.

• “Micro-wave Safe”: “Micro-wave safe” plastic containers & plastic wrap only guarantee that the plastic won’t melt or crack in the microwave but don’t guarantee they won’t leach chemicals into the food… The greenest & safest way to contain your food for microwave heating & cooking is to use oven-safe glass cookware.  Think Pyrex.

• Glass is Good: The energy saved from recycling one glass bottle will light a 100-watt light bulb for four hours.  Recycling that bottle also causes 20% less air pollution & 50% less water pollution than when a new bottle is made from raw materials.

• Airplanes & Television: Every three months, Americans throw away enough aluminum to rebuild the nation’s commercial air fleet.  Recycling one aluminum can will operate a television for three hours.

• The 411 on TP: If every household replaced one roll of regular toilet paper with one recycled post-consumer waste roll, then 424,000 trees would be saved.

• Trees & America: It takes 75,000 trees to print a Sunday Edition of the New York Times.  Recycling the Sunday papers alone would save a million trees a week.

It seems that most folks who stop in the store already have an idea of what it means to be green for themselves, their families & friends.

Every once in a while, however, a “newbie” wanders in & it’s great to hear their questions about products & practices & to witness how the information affects them.  We’ve hosted a few groups of students, too (from 7 to 17), & they’re the most exciting & excited. But then, I’m partial to kids.

Anyhooo… since in reality we’re all students wandering this big blue planet of ours, I offer up a dozen “Did You Knows” – ways & means for saving & conserving our resources.

Will you send us your own best & favorites?

DID YOU KNOW?

1.  Turning down your thermostat by one degree can cut 8% off your fuel bill.

2.  An energy efficient washing machine will use a third less electricity for each wash, which could save you more than the cost of the appliance.

3.  If every household replaced one roll of regular toilet paper with one recycled post-consumer waste roll, 424,000 trees would be saved.

4.  Every three months, Americans throw away enough aluminum to rebuild the nation ’s commercial air fleet.

5.  The energy saved from one recycled aluminum can will operate a television for three hours.

6.  The energy saved from recycling one glass bottle will light a 100-watt light bulb for four hours.

7.  Recycling a glass bottle also causes 20% less air pollution & 50% less water pollution than when a new bottle is made from raw materials.

8.  Recycling & reusing the material in “tin” cans reduces energy use by 74%, air pollution by 85%, solid waste by 95% & water pollution by 76%.

9.  It takes 75,000 trees to print a Sunday Edition of the New York Times.

10.   The amount of wood & paper Americans throw away each year is enough to heat 50 million homes for 20 years.

And two more for recycling inspiration…

11.  If Americans recycled just one-tenth of their newspapers, we would save 25 million trees a year.

12.  Producing one ton of paper from recycled pulp saves 17 trees, 3 cubic yards of landfill space & 7000 gallons of water. It also reduces air pollutants by 60 pounds, saves 390 gallons of oil & conserves 4200 kilowatt hours of energy – enough to heat a home for half a year.