Central Florida News 13: Information For Current And Future Pet Owners At Pets911.com

Filed under: Pets 911 - April 26, 2008

By Al Ruechel

Pets911.com is a one-stop resource for pets—the ones you own, or maybe ones that you could adopt.

The site is put together by a group in Arizona as sort of a national clearing house.

Here’s the key: Your ZIP code makes it possible for the Web site to search for pets to adopt, local shelters, lost and found pets, emergency clinics, vets, and spay and neutering services near you.

Go to the “Adopt a Pet” link on the left side of the page, enter your ZIP code, and select the animal you would like to adopt. You can look at the pictures as they rip out your heart.

You can see the gender, breed, age and local organization offering up the animals. Click on the picture for more details about each animal.

The “Lost & Found” section works like a billboard to report and search for lost animals, remove the listing when the animal is found, and place and ad for a pet you have have found.

There is also a section to help your local community—places to donate, to volunteer and educate—with lots of links to local nonprofit pet rescue organizations that could really use your help.

There is even a link to find apartments that are pet friendly, again based on your ZIP code.

The site also includes several 24-hour hotlines you can use for more information.

The Journal News: Make “Green” Your Favorite Color For Earth Day

Filed under: Earth 911 - April 25, 2008

By Nancy Richardson

Ask consumers these days the the most popular word of the moment, and a majority would probably tell you “green.”

Citizens are asked to think green, go green, buy green, even eat green, but what does it all mean?

In celebration of Earth Day on Tuesday, April 22, it seems appropriate to investigate easy methods to make your household and community “green.” And contrary to Kermit the Frog’s popular song of many years ago, it is easy to be green.

Earth Day, founded by Senator Gaylord Nelson, may have been the start of the green movement. Nelson’s idea evolved over a seven-year period when he saw environmental degradation appearing everywhere in the country. Unlike today, the environmental issue wasn’t even on politicians’ agendas.

According to the website earthday.envirolink.org, Nelson’s idea for a grass-roots protest about the environment came from the anti-Vietnam war demonstrations being held nationwide during that time.

In September 1969, he announced a nationwide demonstration planned for the spring of 1970. The media picked up the story, and the idea of Earth Day began to spread. The first official celebration of Earth Day was held April 22, 1970.

Make Sure To Recycle

One of the easiest methods for keeping the planet cleaner, and reducing waste in ever-shrinking landfills, is to recycle. With the latest addition of the Coffeen center, the Montgomery County Recycling Program offers seven locations for area residents to use.

With the exception of Raymond and Farmersville, all the centers are open daily for material drop-off. Raymond holds recycling on the first and third Saturdays from 8 to 10 a.m., and Farmersville has recycling on the second Saturday of the month during the same hours.

Open daily are centers in Litchfield, Hillsboro, Nokomis, Witt and Coffeen. If you need assistance unloading, help is available during daytime hours only at the Hillsboro location.

Chris Daniels, Montgomery County Coordinator, praises the successful county program. According to her records, total pounds of recycled materials has increased dramatically in the last four years.

Shipped weight of materials in 2003 amounted to 1,663,003 pounds. In 2007, that figure rose to 2,939,914 pounds. That’s a remarkable amount of weight and space not added to landfills from just one county.

Cardboard represented the most weight, with 1,343,415 pounds shipped last year. Daniels said the price for cardboard went from $60 per ton to $100 per ton, which resulted in a healthy increase for recycling program revenues.

Daniels reminds readers that all revenues from materials sold goes directly back into the program. The county does not use these funds for any other purpose, and the county is not able to pay individuals or groups for their products.

County Board Chairman Mike Plunkett said, “Last year, with the increased amount of materials and the increased price we received, was the first year the program has really broken even. It normally runs at a deficit.”

The current fiscal year is off to a good start with a total weight shipped to date of 830,718 pounds.

When you visit any of the area recycling drop-off centers, you will find marked containers for each of the acceptable materials.

Please make sure steel or aluminum cans, plastic bottles and jugs are rinsed out before recycling.

Acceptable items are cardboard, steel cans, aluminum cans, dry newspaper, magazines and catalogs, office paper (such as computer, copy, notebook, file folders), plastic soda and juice bottles, milk jugs and other translucent drink containers, detergent and shampoo containers, miscellaneous food containers and phone books in season (Feb.-March).

No-nos include oil or antifreeze bottles, drink cups, glass, plastic bags and styrofoam. If you would like more information about the county recycling program, you may call Daniel’s office at 532-9577 or visit the website www.montgomeryco.com and click on recycling.

Green Household Ideas

Did you know you can go green when spring cleaning? Although many store bought cleaning products have reduced toxins from days past, cleaning alternatives made from products in the home may reduce your need to purchase the other items as often.

Some eco-friendly possibilities include glass cleaner made from equal parts of vinegar and water; simmer citrus fruit and cinnamon in water to freshen air; clean copper with vinegar and salt on a damp sponge; place molasses or honey in a lid outdoors on an ant trail to control ants; and use cedar chips in the pet’s bedding and Brewer’s yeast in their food to repel fleas.

Consider switching from traditional incandescent light bulbs to compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs). They do cost more than the traditional bulb, but they use less electricity to operate and last longer than the other style. They can save about $30 or more in electricity costs over each bulb’s lifetime.

Illinois EPA Director Doug Scott said, “If every American home replaced just one light bulb with a CFL, we would prevent greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to that of nearly a million cars and reduce more than $600 million in annual energy costs.”

That’s a pretty amazing return for only replacing one bulb in every home.

Hazardous Waste

Consumers should be aware, however, that CFLs do contain a small amount of mercury. It is important to properly dispose of and recycle used bulbs in order to recover the small amount of mercury in each one.

Some retail stores offer proper disposal of CFLs, and you can check online for any in the area at www.earth911.org. Bulbs may be taken to Illinois EPA household hazardous waste collections each spring and fall. Unfortunately, only a limited number of these collections are held across the state each year.

A list of collection dates and places are available at www.epa.state.il.us.

Board Chairman Plunkett said Montgomery County is chosen for a collection site of household hazardous waste only every three or four years. He recommends, if possible, storing items in a safe location until that time, unless you are able to take advantage of a collection in another location.

Items considered hazardous include oil-based paints, chemical cleaners, old medicines, antifreeze, motor oil, weed killer, insecticides, pesticides, household batteries, and of course, CFLs.

“We are planning a used tire collection on Aug. 8 and 9 this year. It will most likely be held at the county fairgrounds, but more information will be available at a later date,” Plunkett said.

In the event you break a CFL, use caution when cleaning it up. Do not use a vacuum cleaner. Keep people and pets away from the area and ventilate the room. Do not throw the broken bulb away in the garbage. Check the Illinois EPA website for a complete list of precautions and suggestions for safe handling of a broken CFL.

Building/Remodeling

It probably comes as no surprise that you can “go green” when building a home or remodeling your current abode.

Environmentally friendly decisions about materials and appliances can translate into financial savings for consumers in the long run. For example, spray-in cellulose insulation made from 80 percent post-consumer recycled newspaper will effectively seal homes from both winter cold and summer heat.

Look for Energy Star appliances in order to conserve both electricity and water. Many areas of the country experienced drought last year. Items such as front load washers, low-flush toilets and water-conserving dishwashers that reduce water consumption may become a necessity if seasonal shortages come again. These appliances would not only help water levels, they would save the consumers money on water bills.

When looking for flooring, choose materials made from local or regional sources. Many products available are made from recycled materials, such as carpet or reclaimed hardwood.

During a home renovation, recycle as much as possible. For instance, if you replace doors, windows, countertops or even bathroom fixtures, you may be able to donate these items to an organization such as Habitat For Humanity to sell in their Habitat Restore. One is located in Springfield.

Some remodelers will recycle project waste, as well, by separating metal, wood and concrete into containers in order to keep as much as possible out of landfills.

Did You Know?

Hopefully the information in this article has reaffirmed your belief in recycling or given you ideas on what you can do personally to leave a lighter environmental footprint.

If you’re still not convinced, check out the following facts supplied by County Coordinator Chris Daniels:

For more information on Earth Day, recycling or energy-saving tips, visit the following websites: www.EarthDay.gov, www.earthday.envirolink.gov, www.Americarecyclesday.org.

The Free-Lance Star: One Caveat About CFLs

Filed under: Earth 911 - April 24, 2008

By Bill Freehling

Tuesday was Earth Day. One way that many people are taking care of the environment while saving money is by using compact fluorescent light bulbs instead of regular incandescent bulbs.

The fluorescent bulbs, often referred to as CFLs, last longer, use less energy and reduce electric bills.

Yet some people have expressed concern that CFLs contain a small amount of mercury, although far less than the amount in older, nondigital thermometers.

CFLs each contain about four milligrams of mercury, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Manufacturers are taking steps to reduce the amount.

By contrast, a mercury thermometer has about 500 milligrams. Older thermostats have about 3,000 milligrams of mercury, a toxic metal that can affect the brain, spinal cord, kidneys and liver.

No mercury is released when CFLs are in use. It becomes an issue only if the glass bulb breaks, or when you throw them out.

Some localities have started recycling programs for CFLs. Locally, the Belman Road Recycling Center in Fredericksburg and Stafford County’s regional landfill on Eskimo Hill Road have them, according to Earth911.org. That site allows you to enter your ZIP code and find the closest recycling center for various household products.

Spotsylvania County residents can turn in their CFLs at the county’s twice-yearly Hazardous Waste Collection Day. The next one is May 3 from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Chancellor Public Use Area.

According to the Web site of General Electric, which produces CFLs, some retailers are exploring take-back programs. IKEA stores already take back used CFLs.

For people without access to a recycling facility, or for those who prefer not to recycle, the EPA has the following tips on disposing of CFLs (which are not legally considered hazardous waste according to federal solid waste rules):

If a CFL breaks in your home, open nearby windows, sweep up the fragments (don’t use your hands) and wipe the area with a disposable paper towel to remove all glass. Don’t use a vacuum. Place all fragments in a sealed plastic bag.

Intact CFLs should also be sealed in a plastic bag before disposal, as you would with batteries, oil-based paint and motor oil. Place the sealed bag with your regular trash.

Rockford Independent: Conserving Energy Starts at Home

Filed under: Earth 911 - April 24, 2008

As Earth Day nears, we are reminded of the importance of finding sustainable and environmentally friendly energy solutions for ourselves and future generations. One simple step you can make towards a more “green” home is with your air conditioning system.

“Even though Earth Day is an annual event, we can still be energy conscious year round,” said Aaron Vanden Berg, of the Aire Serv of West Michigan franchise. “Most air conditioning and heating systems consume more than half of a homes energy. By switching over to a new hybrid energy efficient system, families can cut their monthly usage of fossil fuel-generated electricity by up to one-third. That means saving money and helping the environment without sacrificing comfort.”

Rising utility and overall energy costs are concerns for most homeowners today. Fortunately, you can save money while being “greener” and stay comfortable.

Follow these suggestions from Aire Serv to create a more “green,” energy efficient home:

If installing a new HVAC unit, consider donation or recycling. A unit in working order can be donated and non-functioning pieces can be picked-up by your municipal solid waste agency or Steel Recycling Institute. Go to www.recycle-steel.org or visit www.earth911.org for more local options.

Ludington Daily News: CFL: A Green Dilemma

Filed under: Earth 911 - April 22, 2008

The energy efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) have become the objects of controversy for containing a small amount of mercury.

The new bulbs last 10 times longer and use 75 percent less energy than regular incandescent bulbs, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The catch is, a fluorescent light bulb also typically contains mercury, but only around 5 milligrams of mercury, just enough to cover the tip of a ballpoint pen.

Despite reductions through the years in the amount used, mercury remains a crucial element in allowing CFLs to become energized and produce light, and the element is the main reason why the bulbs are so energy efficient.

Although no mercury is released while the bulbs are operating, its presence raises the issue of what to do with fluorescent bulbs when they break or need to be replaced.

Most of the materials used to make CFLs, including mercury, can be recycled. However, www.earth911.org indicates there is no place within 50 miles of Ludington that collects these bulbs to be recycled. Currently, the State of Michigan only has recycling programs in place for mercury thermometers.

If no other alternative can be found, the EPA and the Michigan Department of Community Health advise placing a CFL bulb in two sealed plastic bags before disposing of it with household trash. On the other hand, those who are familiar with the waste disposal process are aware this precaution won’t adequately prevent mercury from getting into a landfill.

David Hasenbank, director of the Mason County Department of Public Works, said mercury will only be prevented from escaping if the plastic bags stay in one piece. “If it’s going to a landfill, then a plastic bag won’t help because the compactor unit (on a garbage truck) will likely tear the bag apart. If you plan on holding on to the bulb or saving it until it can be properly disposed of, then putting the bulb in a bag is a good idea, but only so long as it stays intact,” Hasenbank said.

Fort Dodge Messenger: Ways to Celebrate the Planet on Earth Day

Filed under: Earth 911 - April 22, 2008

By Abigail McWilliam

If you haven’t bought your tree yet—relax. There are many ways to celebrate our planet other than the traditional idea of planting a tree. Here are a few suggestions:

  1. Ride your bike or walk—Try to avoid getting in a car today. You’ll help save energy and won’t create air pollution.
  2. Turn off the faucet—Save water while you’re brushing your pearly whites. It’s an easy way to save gallons of water.
  3. Lights off—Turn off the lights when you leave the room and turn off the TV if you aren’t watching it.
  4. Pick it up—If you notice a piece of trash on the street, pick it up and pitch in.
  5. Recycle—Take your newspapers, bottles and cans to be recycled today and reduce the amount of trash that ends up in landfills.
  6. Experience nature—Get outside today, even if it’s just for a little while. Go to a park, utilize a trail, look at the sky. At the very least, draw a deep breath of fresh air.
  7. Learn about it—Make an effort to learn more about the environment and how to protect it.
  8. Reuse—Take your drink container with you and use it all day. Don’t use anything disposable.
  9. Donate—Give your time or money to an environmental group of your choice.
  10. Talk about it—Talk to your family about Earth Day and how you can implement eco-friendly living into your daily lives and how you can do practical things to protect the environment.

Fort Dodge schools contribute

Fort Dodge Community Schools are helping make the Earth a little bit cleaner today as they spend time picking up garbage around the buildings and playgrounds. Classes in the district will also be coloring awareness posters to remind fellow students to do simple activities like:

Students are also encouraged to wear green or white for the day to promote recycling as well.

Iowa Central Community College is also getting involved by passing out “ONE EARTH” bracelets and letting people know about the educational Web site www.earth911.org.

Internet users can visit the site and type in their zip code to learn the nearest locations to drop off hard-to-recycle items. Sites for disposing of used motor oil, antifreeze, car batteries, other batteries, plastic grocery bags and more can be found by searching the site.

In addition, this site can help users locate places to recycle household items, electronics and automotive supplies.

Dayton Daily News: Recycling Garbage is a Complicated Process

Filed under: Earth 911 - April 21, 2008

By Amelia Robinson

Packs of wild dogs do not patrol mountains of busted refrigerators, rusted cars and decaying filth at Stony Hollow Landfill on Gettysburg Avenue.

Save for controlled areas where earthmovers lumber, push and bury, there are surprisingly few signs of trash. The trash is out of sight, and for many people, out of mind.

“You come home from work and expect your trash to be gone, but a lot of work goes into picking up and getting rid of trash,” said David Foster, Dayton’s Waste Collection Supervisor.

Few want a rubbish graveyard in their neighborhood, and this one has had more than its share of controversy since opening in 1995, but Stony Hollow—expected to reach capacity in four years—is not like the dump grounds of yesteryear, said Frank S. Fello, Senior District Manager for Stony Hollow owner Waste Management.

“They are state-of-the-art landfills, employing state-of-the-art technology,” Fello said.

On Monday, April 21, about 20 Brownies and Scouts from St. Luke Catholic Church in Beavercreek planted pin oak tree near the entrance of landfill for Earth Day.

“It’s pretty cool and fun,” Brownie McKenzie Garnet , 8, said of the landfill. “It looks pretty nice.”

But places like Stony Hollow are just the end of the line for banana peels, water bottles and other junk we chuck.

Despite recycling programs, too many things that could have been recycled end up sealed between layered topsoil, clay, high-density polyethylene, bedrock and other materials at places like Stony Hollow.

Only about 33 percent of the nation’s waste is recycled, according the Environmental Protection Agency.

“When you look at the waste stream, there is still a lot of material people are throwing in the trash that could be recycled,” said Daniel Graeter, assistant manager of Montgomery County Public Works.

About 75 percent of waste can be recycled or composted, according to Earth911.com, an environmental information Web site. Other estimates say 50 percent of waste can be recycled or composted.

Magazines, cardboard boxes and beer bottles are among the trash 20-year waste collector Pete Williams and his crew put in their City of Dayton garbage truck Monday through Friday.

Williams said people throw away everything from dead pets to mannequins.

“I can’t think of anything I haven’t seen in a garbage truck,” he said.

The garbage business isn’t pretty. How could it be? It involves maggots, worms and leachate. But waste removal is complicated. And trash passes through more hands than you may expect.

The empty pop bottles you set out with the rest of your trash on Monday ends up in a landfill just days later.

If they are tossed out in Montgomery County, they would be among 1,700 tons of trash trucked daily into the county’s solid waste district’s two transfer facilities.

Eventually the bottles end up buried miles way in a landfill in Logan County or one in Hamilton County, Graeter said.

As for those bottles, they could have been recycled.

Graeter said recycling is not only a matter of protecting the environment, but also a practical matter of preserving resources.

“Reduce, reuse, recycle economically makes sense,” he said.

Manufacturing with recycled aluminum cans, for example, uses 95 percent less energy than using virgin material, according to the National Recycling Coalition, a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit.

And recycling material is generally cheaper for cities, Foster said. While it costs Dayton about $36 per ton to dispose of trash, it only costs $14 per ton to process recyclables at Rumpke Recycling on Monument Avenue.

“That’s a big savings per ton,” Foster said.

There will likely always be a need for landfills because some items cannot be recycled, but there have been significant signs of more companies “going green” and more residents recycling, said Beth Schmucker, a spokeswoman for Waste Management, which is America’s largest recycler.

“We have to do more than just protect the environment today,” she said. “We have to plan for future generations.”

MSNBC: Give Back to the Earth

Filed under: Earth 911 - April 21, 2008

You can find out about major Earth Day celebrations around the globe—and ways to take action and make your everyday life more environmentally friendly—through the Earth Day Network. The organization, which developed out of the first Earth Day in 1970, convened Sunday’s star-studded rally on the National Mall calling on Congress to act on global warming.

More resources and some affordable fresh-air getaways are below.

The Monterey County Herald: The Recycling Dilemma: How to Throw Things Away the Right Way

Filed under: Earth 911 - April 21, 2008

By Kathryn McKenzie Nichols

If you’re like me, every week you faithfully set out your recycling bin next to the garbage, trying to do your part in saving the earth. You put in the cans, bottles, newspapers, cardboard and scrap paper; maybe if you’re really ambitious, you have a green waste container and a motor oil receptacle, too.

But then you wonder: What in the world do I do with all this other stuff?

There’s the old iPod, broken and sitting in a drawer. There’s a few antique computers, floppy disks and keyboards in the office, stacked against a wall. And then the clothing that doesn’t fit but is still perfectly good, the eyeglasses that aren’t the right prescription anymore, and stacks of videotapes—I mean, who watches VHS these days?

If you’ve ever wondered what to do with all the obsolete items that seem too good to just throw away, wonder no more. They, and a whole host of other items, can be recycled these days.

First off, though, here are some general ideas about recycling.

If none of these options work, there are three other great resources to consider.

In Marina, the Last Chance Mercantile at the Monterey Regional Waste Management District takes all kinds of items, from clothing to furniture to wheelchairs to plant pots to lumber.

Online, check out www.freecycle.org, where people offer items they’re not using and ask for things they need. The Monterey-Salinas Freecycle chapter always has interesting objects being listed (what with almost 2,800 members participating) and is a great way to keep useful stuff out of the landfill.

A very good source of information is Earth911.org, a Web site which will direct you to recycling centers for darn near anything, and find the ones nearest you.

Here’s a look at what to do with specific items:

The Providence Journal: Old Gadgets Need Proper Burial

Filed under: Earth 911 - April 20, 2008

By Sara Schaefer Munoz

Rapidly improving technology and a consumer thirst for all the latest gadgets are leaving people with a growing number of old electronics. Even though they should be recycled, most end up in the trash or gather dust in the basement. Now, states and manufacturers are trying to make it easier for people to recycle old TVs, iPods and even fluorescent light bulbs.

Retailers are seizing on “green” marketing opportunities by launching recycling initiatives. Best Buy last year started a program that sponsors local drop-off events around the country, where people can bring in carloads of unused items. In October, Office Depot began selling recycling “boxes” at $5 to $15 that customers fill with office items such as laptops and fax machines to be recycled. (The company says the cost of the box helps fund the program.) Ace Hardware retailers in the Chicago area and Wisconsin last year started programs to recycle mercury-containing compact fluorescent bulbs; Wal-Mart held a pilot take-back day last summer at 350 of its stores. Meanwhile, states are tightening their waste laws: Minnesota, for example, passed a law in 2007 that requires manufacturers of TVs and computers to collect and recycle by weight 60 percent of what they sold in the previous year.

Computers, televisions and other electronics contain materials such as lead, cadmium and mercury, which can pose a risk to human health and the environment. Energy Star-labeled electronics—touted as eco-friendly due to the energy they save—still contain hazardous materials. The mercury in LCD TV screens and the lead in computer monitors, for example, may contaminate soil or water if not handled properly. There’s no federal law for the disposal of consumer electronics, though a handful of states have made it illegal to throw them in the trash. Rhode Island is not among them.

The Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation’s Eco Depot holds monthly collections of such materials at the Johnston landfill, on a Saturday morning, as well as less frequent collections at sites around the state. Residents can drop off computers and cell phones for free, but must pay $5 to drop off a TV, which may be dropped off only in Johnston. The next collection in Johnston is May 3.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, old consumer electronics accounted for about 1.5 percent of 250 million tons of trash in 2006, up from one percent in 2000. According to a 2006 report from the International Association of Electronics Recyclers, an industry group based in Albany, N.Y., roughly 15 percent to 20 percent of electronic waste was recycled, up from 10 percent to 15 percent in 2003. The figures don’t include products that were returned to manufacturers for recycling.

Some environmental advocates and researchers warn that many recycled items may end up in landfills anyway, or be recycled improperly in poorer countries.

Nevertheless, more people are interested in recycling. Richard Leventhal, a small-business owner in Wellington, Fla., admits that he has put cell phones, a TV and a computer monitor in the garbage in the past. “I really didn’t put a whole lot of thought into it,” he says. “But with this attention to the environment, I started to.”

He was in Office Depot about two months ago and saw a pamphlet for the office-supply chain’s recycling program. He now takes his personal and business electronics in, because “it’s easy. I just fill a box and bring it back.”

Another product that should be recycled is the fluorescent light bulb. As part of the government’s focus on energy and the environment, Americans are urged to buy compact fluorescent light bulbs, which use only about 25 percent of the energy and last up to 10 times as long as traditional incandescent bulbs. Nearly 300 million such bulbs were sold in U.S. in 2007, compared with 100 million two years earlier, according to the Department of Energy.

But, unlike traditional incandescent bulbs, these are just like regular fluorescent lights in that they contain mercury, a metal hazardous to human health and the environment, said Sarah Kite, recycling manager for the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation. So they’re considered a form of hazardous waste when it comes to disposal.

Most people don’t realize that, Kite said. Manufacturers “didn’t do a good job of letting consumers know that these items contain mercury . . . They left it to consumers to figure out on their own, and for environmental groups to raise the alarm.”

That’s why word has been slow to spread, Kite said.

“Who’s going to read the warnings on a light bulb package?” asks John Roth, a sales manager in Portland, Ore. He has several bulbs around his house.

Kite agreed. “There’s been some pressure for producer responsibility,” she said, to make manufacturers and retailers responsible for alerting consumers and for providing ways for disposing of them.

Consumers are urged not to toss them in the trash. In some states, such as California, it’s illegal to throw them away; they must be recycled. Rhode Island does not have such a law.Still, many cities and towns don’t have recycling programs for the bulbs, and consumers aren’t sure what to do with them.

Resource Recovery accepts CFL bulbs for recycling, along with other common household hazardous wastes such as batteries, pool chemicals, mothballs, nail polish, cleaners and flea collars at its Eco Depot one Saturday a month in Johnston and less frequently at other sites around the state, just as it does with e-waste, but not necessarily on the same day. You must also make an appointment and label the waste, so Resource Recovery staff will know what they’re dealing with and can dispose of it safely.

Many local public works departments also have or are considering programs offering local collections of compact fluorescent bulbs around the state, Kite said, so check with your local agency.

An estimated 25 percent of all mercury-containing bulbs—including residential compact fluorescents—are recycled, according to Paul Abernathy, the executive director of the Association of Lighting and Mercury Recyclers, an industry group in Calistoga, Calif. There are little more than two dozen licensed facilities in the United States for processing mercury waste, he says.

“Everywhere we go, we are being encouraged to use [compact fluorescent bulbs], but there’s really a lack of reasonably accessible drop-off spots” when they burn out, he says.

The amount of mercury in compact fluorescent bulbs is small, about five milligrams at most, and is sealed inside the glass tubing, according to the EPA. Manufacturers have been working to lower that amount. As long as people clean up broken bulbs right away and don’t let kids touch them, people should be able to prevent contamination in their home, says Ellen Silbergeld, a professor of environmental health sciences at Johns Hopkins University. (The government suggests airing out the room for at least 15 minutes as a precaution. You can see the Environmental Protection Agency’s full instructions on dealing with a mercury “spill” from a broken bulb or thermometer at http://www.epa.gov/mercury/spills/index.htm.) Yet Silbergeld says she is more concerned about the environmental impact if millions of these bulbs end up in landfills or incinerators.

“I don’t think anybody has really grappled with this,” she says.

The Department of Energy, which encourages consumers to buy the energy-saving bulbs, acknowledges they can be “cumbersome to recycle and dispose of,” but says the agency is working to increase the availability of options. The agency also says that coal-fired power plants are the greatest source of environmental mercury—U.S. power plants emitted 50 tons of mercury in 2006—and using compact fluorescent bulbs cuts down on the amount of coal burned to make electricity.

When it comes to computers, many major manufacturers—such as Apple and Dell—will take old computers back. The recycling of TVs, especially large ones, is also onerous. Sony Electronics started a take-back program in September. Consumers can find a list of more than 80 drop-off points at www.sony.com/recycle. None is in Rhode Island but some are in nearby Massachusetts.

If consumers want to know what else to do with their old electronics or fluorescent bulbs, several Web sites can help them find a drop-off place in their area, such as www.earth911.org and www.epa.gov/bulbrecycling. They can also check with the manufacturer, as well as their local utility and waste-management division.

Yet there is some concern about where the “recycled” items actually end up. According to Barbara Kyle, the national coordinator for the Electronics TakeBack Coalition, a national group based in San Francisco that promotes responsible recycling, roughly 50 percent to 80 percent of electronic waste that goes to recyclers goes on to developing countries, especially China, where it often isn’t properly dealt with. There, workers break apart the items to get at the metals and other components that can be resold and are often exposed to toxic substances in the process. (The International Association of Electronics Recyclers says that there are good and bad recycling operations all over the world and that it urges its members to adhere to best industry practices.)

Kyle suggests that, if possible, consumers recycle their items through the manufacturer because the manufacturer is likely to have responsible practices to protect its reputation. Consumers can also check a database called e-Stewards at www.ban.org. There, they can search for a local recycling firms that have taken a pledge not to export the waste to developing countries or allow it to end up in landfills or incinerators.

Stockton Record: One Dim Spot in Bright Idea

Filed under: Earth 911 - April 19, 2008

By Alex Breitler

Of all the no-brainer things you can do for the environment, changing a light bulb has to be the simplest.

Millions of fledgling conservationists have converted their old incandescent bulbs for the twisty, curvy kind—compact fluorescent lights, which last longer and use less energy.

But there’s a wart on these beauties: They contain small amounts of mercury, which means they can’t be tossed into your garbage or recycling bin when they burn out or break. They have to be taken to a hazardous waste facility or a recycler.

In a few years, when these bulbs start to fizzle throughout California, will we be willing to drive somewhere to drop them off? They are, after all, just light bulbs.

“The 37 million residents we have want to do the right thing, but it’s got to be free, local and convenient,” said Leonard Robinson, deputy director for the state Department of Toxic Substances Control.

State officials are working on recommendations for the labeling of old bulbs, as well as an Internet database that will allow people to type in their address and find nearby recyclers.

Experts said the environmental benefits of CFLs easily outweigh the mercury blemish. The bulbs on average contain five milligrams of the toxic metal, enough to cover the tip of a ballpoint pen.

In comparison, the old mercury thermometers that you stuck under your tongue contained about 500 milligrams.

“Today’s CFLs are much better than yesterday’s, and tomorrow’s will be much better than today’s,” said Nicole Tam, a spokeswoman for Pacific Gas and Electric Co. The utility gave out one million CFLs in October.

That doesn’t mean the mercury isn’t a hazard in your home should the bulb break.

“I’m not going to say it’s safe to inhale or ingest mercury,” Robinson said. “The best risk is no risk at all.”

Mercury from large numbers of bulbs tossed into the trash could contaminate air and water as well. However, the Environmental Protection Agency notes that most of the mercury that humans release into the environment comes from coal-burning power plants. And using CFLs reduces our need for power.

Nan Ballot, a local Sierra Club leader, uses CFLs in her home and walks door to door distributing them to neighbors.

But she said there’s a “real question” about how the bulbs will be disposed.

“That’s something that’s going to have to be emphasized,” she said.

A Bright Idea

San Joaquin County residents can dispose of compact fluorescent light bulbs for free at the Household Hazardous Waste Facility, 7850 R.A. Bridgeford St., at Stockton Metropolitan Airport. The facility is open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursday through Saturday. Also, bulbs are accepted at the county’s periodic electronic waste collection events. For details, visit www.begreensanjoaquin.org.

Here’s what to do if a CFL bulb breaks at home:

Orlando Sentinel: Saving Power Can Help the Environment, and Save Money

Filed under: Earth 911 - April 19, 2008

By Etan Horowitz

Tuesday is Earth Day, and if you care about the environment—or just want to save a few bucks on your electric bill—there are lots of easy steps you can take. Some tips, ideas and resources:

Power management

Set your computer to go into standby, sleep or hibernate mode after between 30 and 60 minutes of inactivity. This will conserve power and allow you to quickly get back into what you were working on. The less time it takes for your computer to go into standby or hibernate, the more power you will save. Using the power management features on your computer can save between $25 and $75 per year per computer.

On a Windows PC, you can change the settings by going to the Control Panel. On a Mac, look under “System Preferences.” If possible, change the settings for both the monitor and the computer itself. On laptops, be sure to activate the power saving features in both the AC and DC (battery) power profiles.

Using a screen saver may not save power and may actually use more power if you have a screen saver with animations or lots of pictures.

Consider a flat-screen monitor

If you have a computer with an old, bulky CRT monitor, consider replacing the monitor with a flat-screen LCD monitor, which you can get for less than $200. The flat-screen monitor will take up less space and use a lot less power.

Charge wisely

When you are finished charging your cell phone, iPod or other device, unplug the device from the charger and unplug the charger from the outlet (or flip the switch on the power strip). Since chargers typically don’t have on/off buttons, they are still drawing power when plugged in.

Unplug peripherals when you aren’t using them

Most computers and televisions are surrounded by other devices, such as printers, speakers, video game consoles and DVD players. These devices don’t take too long to boot up, so when you are not using them, keep them turned off and unplugged. You may want to plug all of your peripherals into a power strip so you can turn them all on and off by flipping a switch.

If you need help

Symantec, the maker of the Norton anti-virus software, is offering its Green PC Service for free until the end of the month. The downloadable service allows a Symantec technician to remotely log onto your Windows PC and change your power management settings for you. Once you download the service from norton.com/gogreen, you call Symantec to speak to a technician. The Green PC Service normally costs $15.

Replacing old technology

Buying new technology

PC World: 5 Habits for Greener Computing

Filed under: Earth 911 - April 18, 2008

By Emru Townsend

With Earth Day approaching, you’re probably thinking about the different ways you can do your bit for the environment. Well, if you’re reading this, it’s a pretty safe bet you’re using a computer, and computers generate waste in all kinds of ways. But by changing just a few habits, you can keep more stuff out of landfills, save energy, and even tuck a few extra dollars in your wallet. Here are five ideas to get you started.

1. Save Paper and Ink

I receive a lot of press releases and other printed documents that I never read more than once (if ever), so when I can get away with it I print on the reverse side of these pieces, reserving my pristine sheets for letters and other important documents. The savings are tangible: I’ve bought exactly one 500-sheet pack of paper in the last two years.

You can save more paper by shrinking your text and printing two pages side by side on one sheet of paper, if your printer driver allows it. (You’d better have good eyesight, though.) In Windows XP, choose Print, and then select Preferences or Print Setup. Look for an option called ‘Pages per Sheet’, and set it to 2.

If you print a lot from the Web, you should absolutely download a copy of the ad-supported GreenPrint World so that you can trim the stuff you don’t need printed, which saves both paper and ink (or toner).

You can also save ink—easily the most expensive part of any inkjet printer—by printing in draft mode whenever possible. Look for more tips in “The Cheapskate’s Guide to Printing.”

2. Stop Wasting CDs and DVDs

I can’t count the number of times someone has burned a disc just to give me, say, 100MB of data, leaving the remaining 600MB (or, worse, 4GB or more) unused. Rewritable discs cost more and take a little longer to burn, but they’re perfect for passing data back and forth without throwing out all that metal and plastic.

When you’re done with your discs, you can recycle them by sending them to GreenDisk for responsible destruction and reuse. You must pay a small fee—$6.95 for boxes 20 pounds or lighter—but you can also cram in any other electronic waste you have lying around. Though GreenDisk guarantees that the material on your discs won’t fall into the wrong hands, the extra cautious can protect their data beforehand using Aleratec’s CD/DVD Shredder. Despite its name, the CD/DVD Shredder actually pounds thousands of tiny pits into the surface of a disc, rendering it unreadable. Aleratec doesn’t sell it anymore, but it does turn up on Amazon and eBay.

3. Tweak Your Power Settings

If you’re like me, your computer is on all day, but you don’t work on it continuously. Turning it on and off isn’t an option, but a quick trip to the Windows Power Options control panel can shave your usage down a bit. There, you can set your monitor and hard drives to power down when you haven’t been using the PC for a while. It takes only a second for them to power up again, so you can use that time to get comfortable in your chair.

Most important, you can set the computer itself to go to sleep or to hibernate after a certain period of inactivity. Sleep mode is a low-power mode, and as with the hard disks and monitor, it has everything up and running in just a few moments when you want to start working again. Hibernation, in contrast, switches the computer off but saves your current work environment first. As you’d expect, waking the computer up from hibernation takes a bit longer.

Tip: Windows XP SP2 sometimes has a problem making hibernation work when your PC has more than 1GB of RAM–oddly, it generates an error message saying that you don’t have enough resources. A quick visit to Microsoft’s Knowledge Base provides a patch that fixes it right up.

By the way, these tips also apply to your portable devices. MP3 players, cell phones, PDAs, and handheld game machines have settings for powering down or adjusting their screens, Bluetooth, or Wi-Fi settings. Switching off what you don’t need (or even just turning down the screen brightness) extends battery life, which means less recharging.

4. Turn It Off!

Printers, scanners, speakers, monitors—surrounding your computer is a multitude of peripherals that will happily keep on sucking power even when the PC is switched off. It doesn’t seem like much, but even an idle printer is a drain on your utility bill. The simple rule of thumb is to turn anything off when you’re not using it. That includes turning off your monitor (rather than letting it sit in low-power mode when the computer is off), and turning on your printer only when you actually have something to print.

The trouble is that some devices have hard-to-reach power buttons—or worse, no power buttons at all. Power strips such as the Smart Strip can help; the Smart Strip, for example, switches off devices plugged into specific outlets when the computer is switched off.

Also, don’t forget to unplug your phone, camera, or any other rechargeable device as soon as it’s finished juicing up–even though the batteries are smart enough to stop drawing power when they’re full, electricity is still flowing through the cable. Some Nokia phones will even nag you to unplug them when they’re done.

5. Find a New Home for Your Old Tech

So you’re getting ready to upgrade to a new computer, but you’ve discovered that you have no room in the closet for the old one because it’s already filled with a decade’s worth of obsolete technology. What to do? One solution is to recycle your old gadgets by bringing them somewhere where they’ll be disposed of properly. You can find a list of services in your area by checking out Earth 911’s Web site, which tells you where to dispose of everything from batteries to toner cartridges to the 386 you’ve had knocking around since the first George Bush was in office.

Better still, you can Freecycle your old equipment. Freecycle is a network of local mailing lists (there are over 4000 globally, from Andorra to the Virgin Islands) for people who want to give stuff away or are looking for free stuff. Just post a message about what you want to give, and someone will probably offer to take it off your hands—and isn’t finding your old computer a new home better than just having it dismantled?

Whichever method you choose, don’t forget to wipe your hard drive clean first. Use a utility such as File Shredder to delete any sensitive data from your hard disk before it slips out the door.

RedOrbit.com: Recycling of Electronics Slow to Catch On

Filed under: Earth 911 - April 18, 2008

Although many U.S. consumers say they support recycling, a large number are not recycling electronic appliances and other gadgets, despite various programs providing hassle-free ways of doing so.

Dispensing with televisions, computers, cell phones and other electronic equipment by putting them in the trash is becoming increasingly unacceptable. Indeed, some states, such as Massachusetts, have banned the practice altogether. And many local authorities, charities and companies around the country have started arranging free events in which they offer to recycle the old devices.

But despite these efforts, many have not yet embraced the new methods. Stephen Baker of NPD Group, a consumer research firm, has an idea why.

“People aren’t doing it because people are lazy. When it comes right down to it there are no incentives. Most of the time it costs them money and even if it doesn’t, the customer has to be proactive,” Baker told the Associated Press.

According to the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), consumers in the U.S. will spend $171 billion on some 500 million electronic devices this year, adding to the existing 2.9 billion electronic appliances and devices consumers already own. On the positive side, CEA reports the percentage of discarded electronics thrown in the trash decreased from 21 percent in 2005 to 19 percent in 2007.

Many of the new purchases will replace existing devices, with some passing older devices on to friends and family. Others may take a more entrepreneurial approach, selling their old devices on eBay or craigslist.org.

Research firm iSuppli said less than 10 percent of consumers recycle their cell phones, despite programs by major wireless companies such as AT&T, Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel that accept old cell phones at their retail stores. Groups such as greenphone.com will even pay consumers for their old cell phones.

“I had originally been saving mine for my grandmother and the years went on,” said Tracy Sullivan, a marketing specialist who lives in Medford, Massachusetts, as she recalled having to make a big effort to find local recycling options.

“You have to really want to recycle and find the information. It’s there if you go looking for it,” she said.

In Chelmsford, Massachusetts, a city with 33,000 residents, sanitation workers will not collect televisions and computers placed for curbside pick-up after the state banned the trashing of those items.

But Chelmsford is struggling to find successful alternatives. Some local companies will pick up the gadgets for a $10 to $50 fee, depending on the type of and number of devices. Jennifer Almeida, Chelmsford’s recycling coordinator, said the city is looking for lower cost alternatives that she hopes will be launched this summer.

The city’s twice-yearly recycling event allowing residents to discard electronic appliances have been “extremely inefficient,” Almeida said, even when hundreds of devices are discarded.

“It’s a bit of a madhouse,” she told the Associated Press, describing lines of cars waiting with engines running.

“It’s not convenient for residents and it’s just not earth friendly. It’s a whole lot of cars burning a whole lot of fuel.”

Companies such Dell and Staples also offer recycling programs. Dell will pick up its own computers or printers from consumers’ doorstep free of charge, but will only collect non-Dell PCs from those purchasing a Dell computer. Staples collects small items such as keyboards for free at its retail stores, but charges $10 for larger devices.

Linda Wilson, director of technology at Hoffman Agency in Denver, told the Associated Press she was surprised by an enormous bill she received from Waste Management Inc for collecting old computers, some of which her co-workers had brought in from home.

“They said they’d pick it up for free but when the driver got here he said, ‘Didn’t they tell you it’s $10 a monitor?’” she said, adding that the recycler would not guarantee it would remove data from computer hard drives. People are often reluctant to recycle computers out of privacy concerns, since personal data can remain on hard drives despite efforts to wipe them clean.

“You’ve got to be careful,” said Wilson, noting that overwriting a disk several times could help.

Although consumers can often find recycling options by visiting their local authority’s Web site, experts say the options vary widely among different locations.

“I suspect everybody has an option. It depends whether you want to go to the trouble of finding it,” said NPD’s Baker.

In the mean time, an abundance of recycling information on sites such as earth911.org and ww2.earthday.net can be found. Earth Day, which began in 1970 and is scheduled for April 22 this year, promotes awareness of environmental issues such as recycling.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s eCycling Web site also contains helpful information about recycling various electronic devices.

Ashbury Park Press: Clean Ocean Action to Hold Spring Beach Sweeps

Filed under: Earth 911 - April 17, 2008

By Sarah Webster

During the fall 2007 Clean Ocean Action Beach Sweep, volunteers collected all sorts of environmental litter, including a ping-pong paddle, windshield wiper blade and a stereo speaker.

Clean Ocean Action is expecting more than 3,000 participants for its 23rd annual Spring Beach Sweep, being held from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. April 26. The event will cover more than 60 different locations throughout New Jersey.

During last year’s event, volunteers removed 20,000 pounds of debris totaling more than 130,000 pieces of environmental litter, said Clean Ocean Action Executive Director Anna Will.

“The beach sweeps are a powerful way for individuals to make a difference in their local environment,” Will said. “Removing debris from our beaches not only helps to make our experiences at the beach and in the ocean more pleasant and safe, but it also helps protect the fish, shellfish, birds, seals and turtles that rely on a healthy ocean.”

The wildlife that live in and around the ocean are innocent victims of ocean pollution, she said.

By using data cards to collect information about the debris collected and removed from beaches, COA can track changing trends in ocean pollution and support international, national and local efforts that will help protect New Jersey waterways from pollution, she said.

“Earth Day is an opportunity to raise awareness about environmental issues, but it’s also critical that individuals remain environmentally conscious all year long,” Will said.

Here are some tips Will provided on ways to reduce waste and help create a positive impact on the environment:

Reduce, reuse, recycle:

Avoid using disposable items such as plastic straws, cups, water bottles and utensils. Use reusable bags, mugs, and food containers. Recycle as much as possible.

Conserve the drops to save water:

Turn off the water while brushing teeth, take shorter showers, use low-flow faucets and shower heads, and if washing a car, use a facility that recycles water.

Flip the switch to save energy:

Turn off your lights and appliances when not in use. Unplug your phone chargers and remote-controlled appliances, which use energy even when they are not in use.

Don’t be idle:

Turn off your car when idling for more than 30 seconds.

Shop wisely:

Purchase environmentally responsible products, such as products made from recycled materials, nontoxic cleaners, and products with little packaging waste.

Swap bulbs and replace inefficient items in your home. Replace incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent light bulbs. Check www.earth911.org for more info and safe CFL disposal options. Buy “Energy Star” appliances.

Stash the trash responsibly:

Never litter. Make sure outdoor trash cans are covered so trash does not blow out.

Be proactive:

Write manufacturers and retailers to urge them to make and sell recyclable products, use minimal packaging and supply environmentally safe products.

Get involved:

Attend town meetings and discuss your concerns with your local elected officials. Write to your elected officials about your environmental concerns. Join an environmental organization.

Spread the word:

Educate family, friends, neighbors and employers about how they can improve daily habits to protect our environment.

Clean Ocean Action points out that together, we are the solution.

For more information on Clean Ocean Action and the beach sweeps in your area, visit www.CleanOceanAction.org.

Evanston Review: Celebrate Earth Day by Reducing Your Carbon Footprint

Filed under: Earth 911 - April 17, 2008

There’s never been a more urgent time to reduce your carbon footprint. With the U.S. government still opting out of mandatory emissions cuts, it’s up to every individual, business owner and city or state government to take steps. Here are 10 ways to get you started in time for Earth Day.

St. Petersburg Times: 24 Ways to be Green for a Day

Filed under: Earth 911 - April 17, 2008

By Judy Stark and Times Homes, Garden Editor

The truth is, it’s not so inconvenient to do your part to fight climate change. On Tuesday we observe the 38th anniversary of Earth Day. Here are 24 things you can do—one per hour—to walk more lightly on the planet.

That walk is sometimes impeded by unintended consequences. We buy an energy-efficient refrigerator, then worry that we’re loading up the landfills with our castoffs. We feel virtuous about using items made from recycled plastic, only to discover that chemical additives are necessary to make it perform the way we want. We feel good wearing clothing made from recycled plastic bottles until we learn the fibers contain toxins, plasticizers and antioxidants that may harm human skin. The right thing to do isn’t always obvious.

To the longtime mantra “Reduce, reuse, recycle,” add one more R-word: “Rethink.” This isn’t about inconveniencing ourselves, pushing the guilt button or shivering in the dark. It’s about making thoughtful choices so tomorrow is cleaner and greener than today. This Earth is the only one we have to pass on to our children.

6 a.m.

Wakeup time. Take a shorter shower. A typical shower uses 11.6 gallons of water, which makes it the third-largest residential consumer of water each day. Install a low-flow showerhead to limit flow to 2.5 gallons per minute, and don’t linger.

7 a.m.

Save five gallons of water by turning off your low-flow faucet while you spend two minutes brushing your teeth. Ditto for shaving.

8 a.m.

Carpool. Why should four cars spew hydrocarbons into the atmosphere when one will do? And with regular gas exceeding $3.40 a gallon, economizing just makes sense.

9 a.m.

Take your coffee to go in a reusable mug and skip the daily paper cup and cardboard sleeve. Some coffee shops will give you a discount if you bring your own reusable mug.

10 a.m.

Every U.S. office worker uses 10,000 sheets of copy paper each year. (So much for the paperless office!) Think before you hit “print.” Do two-sided copying. Use e-mail or online forms instead of hard copy. Cut up unused printouts for scratch paper, or let the kids use them for coloring.

11 a.m.

Break time. Sip tap water from a reusable bottle, not a throwaway plastic bottle. We throw away 38-billion plastic water bottles a year, made with more than 17-million barrels of oil.

Noon

Lunchtime. Use fewer paper napkins. Each American uses an average of 2,200 two-ply napkins each year, or just more than six per day. Using one fewer napkin per day would keep more than 1-billion pounds of napkins out of landfills.

1 p.m.

Before you get back to work, go to www.catalogchoice.org and get yourself off the mailing lists of catalogs you don’t want. Each year, 19-billion catalogs are mailed to American consumers. That involves 53-million trees and 3.6-million tons of paper.

2 p.m.

Maybe you’re at home today. Make your own all-purpose cleaner. Mix 1/2 cup borax (in the laundry aisle) and 1 gallon of hot water in a pail. (Or use 1/8 cup borax to a quart of hot water in a spray bottle.) Dissolve the borax completely. Use to clean floors, countertops, appliances. For a mild abrasive, sprinkle baking soda on a damp sponge and scrub away.

3 p.m.

As you walk the dog or get your exercise, pick up one piece of trash and dispose of it properly. How many plastic bags, water bottles and beverage cans do you see in the streets? Amazing, isn’t it?

4 p.m.

Visit the home center to choose colors for a paint job. Choose one of the new paints with no VOCs (volatile organic compounds—chemicals that make paint smell like paint and contribute to poor air quality). Most of the big labels offer low- or no-VOC paint: Benjamin Moore’s Aura, Sherwin Williams’ Harmony. ICI just introduced a Home Depot house brand called Freshaire Choice, which claims to have no VOCs in either the base paint or the color additives.

5 p.m.

On your way home (good for you for grouping errands rather than making lots of short trips), stop at the supermarket to shop for dinner. Use a cloth bag instead of plastic or paper. Americans annually throw away 14-billion plastic bags, which are made with 12-million barrels of oil. Seattle is considering charging 20 cents per disposable shopping bag at grocery, drug and convenience stores. Starting Oct. 1, IKEA will no longer offer plastic bags.

6 p.m.

Close the refrigerator door. Don’t stand there with the door open while you think about what to eat. Every time you open the refrigerator door you increase energy consumption by 10 percent.

7 p.m.

Rent and watch An Inconvenient Truth, the movie that galvanized public attention on the subject of climate change.

8 p.m.

Recycle batteries and old cell phones. Visit www.earth911.org or www.call2recycle.org for a list of retail stores (including Home Depot, Lowe’s, Target, Best Buy, Circuit City, many more) that provide dropoff boxes for batteries and phones. At www.911cellphonebank.org, print out a mailing label and get free shipping when you donate an old phone. Don’t throw batteries and phones in the trash: They wind up in the landfill, where they leach toxic metals into soil and water. For the full story on the cell phone problem, go to www.collectivegood.com/news.asp and click on the New York Times story on “The Afterlife of Cellphones.”

9 p.m.

Replace a burned-out bulb with a compact fluorescent, which uses 75 percent less energy and lasts 10 times longer. Don’t like the curly look? Manufacturers now offer CFLs that look like conventional incandescents. Some will work with ceiling fans or dimmer switches; check the label.

10 p.m.

Relax by candlelight, but make sure they’re soy-based candles rather than paraffin, which produces soot and pollutants.

11 p.m.

Use the power-saver or sleep mode on your computer when you’re not using it. The federal Energy Star program says that if all office computers and monitors in the United States were set to sleep when not being used, the country could save $4-billion worth of electricity and avoid the greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to those of about five million cars each year. (Purists will insist you should turn your computer off, saying it takes 100 to 500 trees to offset the carbon dioxide emissions of a single computer left on all year.)

Midnight

Run the dishwasher now, using its “delayed start” function, when energy demand and costs are lower. Operate it only with a full load. It uses the same amount of water and energy whether it’s full or half empty. Skip the “heated dry” cycle, which accounts for 7 percent of dishwasher energy usage.

1 a.m.

Eliminate power vampires, those LEDs that are on all the time and suck energy 24/7. (Walk through the house in the dark some time. You’ll be amazed at how many clocks you have: on the radio, the coffeemaker, the range, the microwave, the portable CD player, the emergency weather radio . . .) Unplug chargers when you’re not using them. Plug items into a power strip you can turn off.

2 a.m.

Use a programmable thermostat to adjust the temperature while you sleep. No need to heat or cool the house to the max during the night, or during the day when no one’s home. Turn the thermostat up two degrees in summer, down 2 degrees in winter. Find ways to be comfortable that don’t involve burning more fossil fuel.

3 a.m.

If you have a lawn irrigation system, run it on the days and hours that comply with local watering restrictions, typically one day a week before 8 a.m. or after 6 p.m. Watering during the hottest part of the day wastes water.

4 a.m.

You’re awake listening to a dripping faucet or a running toilet. Fix them. A faucet that drips one drop per second wastes 2,700 gallons per year, and you’re paying for it.

5 a.m.

Recycle. If your city provides it, put items out for curbside recycling. If not, find local recycling dropoff spots and load up the car. Supermarkets provide recycling bins for plastic and paper bags and foam egg cartons.

Scientific American: U.S. Consumers Still Slow to Recycle Gadgets

Filed under: Earth 911 - April 17, 2008

By Sinead Carew

Green may be the new black, but many U.S. consumers are not recycling old electronic gadgets despite promises by multiple organizations for hassle-free ways to get rid of electronic waste.

Putting computers, televisions or cell phones in the trash is increasingly frowned on, and states like Massachusetts ban discarding many electronics in garbage cans. As a result, some local authorities arrange free recycling events and companies and charities around the country offer to recycle old devices.

But while most U.S consumers say they approve of recycling, a large number are not actually doing it. Stephen Baker of consumer research firm NPD Group has an idea why.

“People aren’t doing it because people are lazy. When it comes right down to it there are no incentives. Most of the time it costs them money and even if it doesn’t, the customer has to be proactive,” said Baker.

U.S. consumers will spend $171 billion on 500 million electronics devices in 2008, adding to the existing 2.9 billion pile-up of items such as televisions, computers and cell phones, according to the Consumer Electronics Association.

Lots of these gadgets will replace existing items. Many people say they keep old devices with a view to passing them on to relatives. Their more entrepreneurial and Web-savvy counterparts often sell used gadgets on sites like eBay.com and craigslist.org.

But while the percentage of old electronics thrown in the trash can dropped to 19 percent in 2007 from 21 percent in 2005, according to the association, U.S. consumers still ditch millions of device such as TVs and computers with their coffee grinds and candy wrappers.

BIG EFFORT

Major U.S. mobile providers Verizon Wireless, AT&T Inc and Sprint Nextel accept old cell phones at their stores. Groups such as greenphone.com even pay to take phones that are no longer in use. But still less than one in 10 consumers recycles a phone, researcher iSuppli said.

“I had originally been saving mine for my grandmother and the years went on,” said Tracy Sullivan, a marketing specialist who lives in Medford, Massachusetts, and recalled having to make a big effort to find local recycling options.

“You have to really want to recycle and find the information. It’s there if you go looking for it,” she said.

In Chelmsford, Massachusetts, sanitation workers will not collect a computer screen or a TV from the curb because of a state ban on trashing those items. But the town has struggled to find alternatives for its 33,000 residents.

Its recycling coordinator, Jennifer Almeida, described twice-yearly recycling days when residents drop off gadgets as “extremely inefficient,” even if they reap hundreds of devices.

“It’s a bit of a madhouse,” she said, recalling lines of cars waiting with engines running for the event to begin. “It’s not convenient for residents and it’s just not earth friendly. It’s a whole lot of cars burning a whole lot of fuel.”

Local companies offer to pick up gadgets with fees ranging from $10 to $50, depending on the type of devices or their number. Almeida is looking for a cheaper curbside pick-up alternative that she hopes will be available this summer.

Companies such as computer maker Dell and retailer Staples also offer recycling. Dell picks up its own computers or printers from your doorstep at no charge but only collects non-Dell PCs from consumers who are buying a Dell computer.

HEFTY BILL

Staples takes in small items such as keyboards free at its stores but charges $10 each for bigger items like computers.

Linda Wilson, the technology director at Hoffman Agency in Denver, said she was surprised by a hefty bill when Waste Management Inc came to pick up old computer gear, some of which her co-workers had brought in from home.

“They said they’d pick it up for free but when the driver got here he said, ‘Didn’t they tell you it’s $10 a monitor?”‘ said Wilson, who also noted that the recycler would not guarantee it would wipe data from computer hard drives.

Reluctance to recycle often stems from privacy concerns, as personal data can still lurk on hard drives even if the drives are wiped clean. “You’ve got to be careful,” said Wilson, who said that overwriting a disk several times could help.

Wilson, who recalls finding electronics recycling more convenient in San Jose, Silicon Valley, said she has since found a local Denver church that holds a twice-yearly free recycling event. But this still takes some effort.

“I have probably four printers in my basement that I have to get rid of and just haven’t taken the time,” she said.

Yet there is an abundance of recycling information on the Internet at sites such as earth911.org. Earth Day, which started in 1970 and is scheduled for April 22 this year, will promote awareness of environmental issues such as recycling at http://ww2.earthday.net.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency also displays a lot of useful information about electronics recycling at http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/osw/conserve/plugin/recycleit.htm.

While consumers can also find easy choices on their local authority’s Web site, analysts say it doesn’t help that recycling options vary widely from location to location.

“I suspect everybody has an option. It depends whether you want to go to the trouble of finding it,” said NPD’s Baker.

Petosky News-Review: Just How Safe are Energy Efficient Light Bulbs?

Filed under: Earth 911 - April 15, 2008

By Marci Singer

A congressional mandate banning the sale of common incandescent light bulbs by 2012 has been approved but it leaves many consumers asking just how safe these new efficient lights are.

According to the U.S. EPA, mercury is an essential component of many energy-efficient light bulbs. The two most common types of energy-efficient lighting that contain mercury are fluorescent bulbs, including compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) and high intensity discharge (HID) bulbs.

Although lighting manufacturers have greatly reduced the amount of mercury used in lighting over the past 20 years, they are not yet able to completely eliminate the need for mercury. The EPA Web site states that “while mercury-containing bulbs contain small amounts of mercury (an average of 5 milligrams or about 1/100th of the amount of mercury found in a mercury fever thermometer), they are one of numerous sources that collectively impact the environment during disposal.”

The amount of mercury in a CFL or other fluorescent light bulb typically ranges between 3.5 milligrams to 15 milligrams. The amount of mercury varies depending on the type of fluorescent light bulb, the company that makes the light bulb, and when the fluorescent light bulb was made. The amount of mercury in a single fluorescent light bulb is small. However, collectively, large numbers of fluorescent light bulbs contribute to the amount of mercury that is released into the environment. EPA encourages the recycling of all mercury-containing light bulbs.

The Web site also states the use of mercury-containing bulbs for general indoor lighting makes good environmental sense. “These bulbs are significantly more energy-efficient than incandescent bulbs because they require less energy to provide lighting. Electrical generation from coal-burning power plants also releases mercury into the environment. The use of fluorescent bulbs in place of incandescent bulbs lowers energy use and thus reduces the associated release of mercury from many power plants. Fluorescent bulbs are also more cost effective because they last up to 10 times longer than incandescent bulbs.”

Households and consumers can contact their state or local environmental regulatory agency for information about proper disposal options such as disposal in your household garbage if no other options are available. If your state or local environmental regulatory agency offers no other disposal options except your household garbage, place the fluorescent light bulb in two plastic bags and seal it before putting it into the outside trash, or other protected outside location, for the next normal trash collection.

The EPA is working with manufacturers and major U.S. retailers to develop, implement or expand recycling options. Household hazardous waste collection facilities usually accept these lamps. You can find more information about these collection and/or recycling programs at Earth911.org.

Fluorescent light bulbs contain a very small amount of mercury sealed within the glass tubing. If a bulb breaks, EPA recommends the following clean-up and disposal guidelines:

Before Clean-up: Ventilate the Room

  1. Have people and pets leave the room, and don’t let anyone walk through the breakage area on their way out.
  2. Open a window and leave the room for 15 minutes or more.
  3. Shut off the central forced-air heating/air conditioning system, if you have one.

Clean-Up Steps for Hard Surfaces

  1. Carefully scoop up glass fragments and powder using stiff paper or cardboard and place them in a glass jar with metal lid (such as a canning jar) or in a sealed plastic bag.
  2. Use sticky tape, such as duct tape, to pick up any remaining small glass fragments and powder.
  3. Wipe the area clean with damp paper towels or disposable wet wipes and place them in the glass jar or plastic bag.
  4. Do not use a vacuum or broom to clean up the broken bulb on hard surfaces.

Clean-up Steps for Carpeting or Rug

  1. Carefully pick up glass fragments and place them in a glass jar with metal lid (such as a canning jar) or in a sealed plastic bag.
  2. Use sticky tape, such as duct tape, to pick up any remaining small glass fragments and powder.
  3. If vacuuming is needed after all visible materials are removed, vacuum the area where the bulb was broken.
  4. Remove the vacuum bag (or empty and wipe the canister), and put the bag or vacuum debris in a sealed plastic bag.

Disposal of Clean-up Materials

  1. Immediately place all cleanup materials outside the building in a trash container or outdoor protected area for the next normal trash.
  2. Wash your hands after disposing of the jars or plastic bags containing clean-up materials.
  3. Check with your local or state government about disposal requirements in your specific area. Some states prohibit such trash disposal and require that broken and unbroken mercury-containing bulbs be taken to a local recycling center.

Future Cleaning of Carpeting or Rug: Ventilate the Room During and After Vacuuming

  1. The next several times you vacuum, shut off the central forced-air heating/air conditioning system and open a window prior to vacuuming.
  2. Keep the central heating/air conditioning system shut off and the window open for at least 15 minutes after vacuuming is completed.

USA Weekend: Five Things You Need to Know About Recycling Old Gadgets

Filed under: Earth 911 - April 13, 2008

By Kelly DiNardo

  1. Make smart purchases to begin with. “Support manufacturers who do take-back programs,” says Kim McKay, co-author of True Green at Work. Companies like Dell and Hewlett-Packard are among those that repurpose old products.
  2. Get paid to recycle. If your computer, cellphone or PDA is in working condition, sites such as MyBoneYard.com, GreenPhone.com and eBay’s trade-in site, eBay.EZtradein.com, will pay you or give you reward points to put toward purchases, says Josh Dorfman, author of “The Lazy Environmentalist.”
  3. Donate it. Schools and non-profits often use “retired” gadgets. Many police departments and shelters have cellphone donation bins. ReCellular.com helps consumers donate old cellphones. Donating benefits you, too, as a tax write-off.
  4. “Freecycle” it. The online community at Freecycle.org connects donors with recipients to reduce landfill waste and strengthen communities. “You’re on a listserve, and you can tell them you have an old computer or TV you don’t want anymore,” Dorfman explains. “It only goes out locally, so nothing gets shipped. They come to you and pick it up.”
  5. Recycle it. “If it’s broken and you can’t reuse it, donate it or freecycle it, head to Earth911.com,” Dorfman says. “They’ll give you drop-off locations to recycle your e-waste.”

CatChannel.com: Single Mother Seeks Playful Kitten, Must Love Dogs

Filed under: Pets 911 - April 10, 2008

By Laura Lee Bloor

Isn’t it extraordinary how the Internet has revolutionized the way we interact? Thanks to websites like eHarmony.com and Match.com, we can fill out questionnaires online and, in a matter of minutes, review a list of potential dating partners.

We sift through the results and narrow our focus to only those in which we’re interested, saving dozens of awkward, “Sorry, you’re not my type,” conversations. If only finding the perfect cat were this easy …Fortunately, it is.

Several websites not only help you find your soul mate cat or kitten, they also can help you locate a lost pet, find pet-friendly housing and report animal cruelty. One such example is PETS 911.com.

“We’re basically a match-maker,” said Tracyann Mains, program manager for PETS 911. “We match your needs to the cat’s needs.”

PETS 911 partners with more than 8,500 animal shelters across the country to help lost and adoptable cats and other animals find homes. When you come to the site, you enter your zip code, and a list reveals available cats with detailed descriptions about their personality at shelters in your area. You also can enter specific preferences, such as male or female, older or younger, etc. Currently, more than 15,000 cats and kittens are listed as available for adoption in PETS 911’s database.

Don’t be surprised if you find a purebred cat among the cats available at a particular shelter. About 25 percent of shelter cats and kittens up for adoption are pedigreed, which surprises a lot of people, Mains said.

Unfortunately, of all the cats that enter shelters, only about two to five percent are reclaimed by their owners, she said. However, PETS 911 has helped tens of thousands of cats and kittens find homes since it began in 1998.

“I can never get tired of hearing over and over again that the job you’re doing is saving lives,” Mains says.

Another match-making Website is Petfinder.com, where 65 percent of all U.S. adopters first “meet” their pet, says Betsy Saul, co-founder of the website. Her husband Jared Saul is the other co-founder of the site, which began in 1996.

Ashley Warren of Morehead, Ky., adopted her cat Skeeter in November 2007 after she read about him on Petfinder. She needed a cat that was friendly with other animals and children, as she has a Pomeranian, seven sugar gliders (two are hers and the other five are temporary rescues that she’s fostering), and a toddler son. Fortunately, Skeeter fit all her requirements.

After Warren saw Skeeter on Petfinder, she called the animal shelter to arrange meeting him.

“We played at the shelter, and I fell in love with him,” Warren says.

“Petfinder adoptions tend to be stickier—work out better—than other adoptions,” Betsy Saul said, citing other examples as newspapers or going straight to your local shelter.

At Petfinder, you can enter specific criteria you want in your ideal cat or kitten. That way, you only receive cats that meet your particular lifestyle qualifications, she said. Currently, there are more than 105,000 cats listed as available for adoption, and about 30,000 of those are your average domestic shorthair cats and kittens.

With that many options, how could you not find your dream cat or kitten? And if you already have one cat or a dog, Saul wants you to consider adopting another one. If one out of every eight pet owners would adopt another pet right now, we could empty the shelters nationwide, Saul said.

TheStreet.com: Earth-Friendly Ways to Chuck Your Analog TV

Filed under: Earth 911 - April 10, 2008

By Eileen Gunn

The coming shift to digital from analog TV doesn’t need to be an anti-environmental boondoggle for the consumer-electronics industry.

The Federal Communications Commission is changing our national television transmission next year from an analog signal to a digital one, saying the move will free up airwaves for police and fire transmissions.

The home-entertainment industry, meanwhile, is creating a lot of ballyhoo around the transition to hawk new products and services.

The Consumer Electronics Association released a consumer survey back in December, showing that 50 percent of U.S. households now own a digital television. The association self-servingly predicts that 32 million more digital TVs will ship this year and estimates that 79 percent of those will be high-definition. A slowing economy, of course, could quickly take the rosy tinge off of those very optimistic statistics.

Even so, that’s potentially a lot of older televisions being retired in a short time.

The EPA says that the cathode ray tubes in conventional TVs contain enough lead to classify them as hazardous waste.

It’s worth putting some thought into whether to replace your old set and how to do so responsibly. And if you do upgrade, remember that getting rid of the old one in an eco-sensitive way requires more care than simply carting it to the curb.

Here are some things to consider on the eve of the digital revolution: You don’t actually have to replace your television.

If you are one of the 58% of television owners who have subscription television, you have no worries. Cable providers such as Time Warner and Comcast already deliver their programming via a digital signal. Satellite services like the Dish Network and Directv do, too.

If you don’t do cable, you can buy a digital converter box at stores like Best Buy and Circuit City for between $40 and $70. The Department of Commerce is even offering $40 coupons to mostly defray that cost.

If you do indulge in a fabulous new TV you can do it in an eco-friendly way by paying attention to energy efficiency and other details.

Start by taking the Sierra Club’s Green Screen quiz, a quick 10-question exercise that will tell you all kinds of things you didn’t know about television technology and energy consumption.

LCD screens are the most energy-efficient, for example, but that doesn’t mean that all upgrades to LCDs are eco-friendly. If you trade in a modest 20-inch cathode-ray TV for a whopping 42-inch flat screen, it’s the equivalent of upgrading from a conventional sedan to a Hybrid SUV: While your choice might be efficient for its size, you’re still using more energy than you were before.

Energy Star provides buying guidelines and lists the TVs that meet its standards, which include using 30% less energy than regular TVs.

If you want to go further, MyGreenElectronics lists televisions by brand and model number and points out their green credentials, such as energy efficiency, resource conservation, use of recyclable materials or the reduced use of hazardous materials.

After buying your new TV, try to recycle your old set.

Television makers lag computer companies in setting up programs to take back their own goods. But programs are slowly coming online.

Sony will take back its electronics including TVs, via a program is has with Waste Management. It seems to be a work in progress. MyGreenElectronics had a more exhaustive list of drop-off locations than Sony’s own Web site.

Sharp, Panasonic and Toshiba have formed a recycling joint venture that at the moment recycles televisions in Minnesota. The venture is supposed to expand over this year and next to include Connecticut, North Carolina, Oregon, Texas and Washington.

Royal Philips Electronics is one of several TV makers that are still recycling holdouts, a stance Greenpeace drew attention at the end of March, when it posted a giant robot made from electronic trash outside of the Dutch company’s shareholder meeting.

Other groups are picking up some of the manufacturers’ slack.

Office Depot sells recycling boxes for $5 to $15 that you can fill with electronics including TVs and bring to your local store outlet.

And several environmental and anti-waste Web sites can help you find a free recycling program near you, including Earth911, the National Center for Electronics Recycling and the Electronics Takeback Coalition, which makes recyclers take a pledge of environmental responsibility.

One of the advantages of digital TV is, of course, a cleaner picture with sharper color. With just a little responsible consumerism you’ll be able to clearly see the green in yours.

Wausau Daily Herald: What’s Up: Business Offers In-Home Care for Electronics

Filed under: Earth 911 - April 6, 2008

Home computer on the fritz? Can’t get your new high-definition television and surround-sound system to work right?

Electronic and Computer Solutions of Wausau wants to help and can fix a number of problems with one trip into your home, said Norbert Normand, electronics technologist for the new business.

“We do a lot of work where we just go in and rescue a computer that has viruses or a person has done something to it,” Normand said. “We service the computer, and by the time we leave the home we’ll check out their home entertainment center and get rid of a microwave.”

The business offers troubleshooting, upgrades and will rescue PCs and Macs, Normand said, and its staff of seven can offer assistance more affordably than national electronic chains, with estimates typically running about $10 to $25.

“Our niche is we’re more flexible and a lot less expensive,” he said. “We’re bringing a large-city but personal approach.

“We’ll do a service call for $40 and rescue their computer, and they still can buy groceries and things. This could really help the community. You really feel the impact when you see people who really have no place else to go.”

Electronic and Computer Solutions will make house calls throughout the Wausau area and from Merrill to Edgar to Stevens Point, Normand said. It’s regular business hours are 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays and 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. Sundays, though it offers tech support by phone 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

“We work with the individual person until they’re set,” Normand said.

To learn more or to schedule an appointment, call 842-9036.

What’s up with Hanke’s Supervalu in Wittenberg?

The grocery at 100 W. Reed St. is taking an active role in keeping “America Green.”

The store has begun accepting clean plastic bags and shrink wrap that can be deposited in a recycling bin next to its main exit. The plastic will be shipped to Green Bay twice a week to be recycled, said owner Dale Hanke.

“We encourage all of our customers to bring back your plastic bags,” Hanke said. “With your help, we can make a difference.”

In addition to customers who bring in bags to be recycled, all vendors who deliver to the store are required to place their plastic case wraps in recycling bins.

For tips on recycling and other environmentally friendly practices, visit earth911.org.

What’s up with UBake of Rib Mountain?

Todd Utecht of Utecht Bakeries has announced the opening of an 11th UBake franchise store, located in Rockford, Ill. Utecht opened his Rib Mountain store in 1993 with the intention of providing customers with “delicious, home-baked breads and goodies that they don’t have the time to make themselves.”

“It’s hard to find the time for baking, but freshly baked breads and cookies are such a treat,” he said. “We provide the frozen doughs and pastries; so just pop ‘em in the oven and relax. No mess, no clean up.”

The UBake stores also provide a variety of dried goods, including more than 100 fresh spices, 25 varieties of pasta, hundreds of candies and dried-fruit snacks, frostings and Amish noodles, plus bulk food items and bulk field-fresh fruit in season.

The Rib Mountain store can be found at 4408 Rib Mountain Drive. UBake also has stores in Appleton, Brookfield, Green Bay, Greenfield, Janesville, La Crosse, Madison, Oshkosh and Racine.

Tampa Tribune: Sebring High School Is Going Green

Filed under: Earth 911 - April 5, 2008

By Mandy Sheets

The classrooms at Sebring High School will have a new addition when students return from spring break—a blue bin for recycling paper.

“Think about all the worksheets that are done at schools or the notes students take,” said Christy Reed, recycling program manager for Highlands County. “All of it had to be disposed of as garbage, but now they are going to be able to recycle it.”

The recycling program began accepting office paper in December and carts away three semi-trucks full, about 10 tons, every week.

Every ton of paper recycled saves more than 3.3 cubic yards of landfill space, according to Earth 911.

Reed said last year the recycling program exceeded $267,000 in revenue from the sale of recycled material, and her goal this year is to have more than $300,000.

“This year we have more opportunity for revenue because we are collecting for office paper, which was previously considered junk,” Reed said.

Reed said she is trying to expand the program to more businesses, and the county will provide the supplies to any business that wants to start recycling.

Blue containers are placed next to each employee’s desk and, when those fill up, employees dump them into a hamper with two removable sacks that can be taken to the recycling bins located throughout the county.

Sebring High School will be the first in Highlands County to incorporate the paper recycling program, but Reed said she hopes to spread to more schools before the end of the school year.

Sebring’s city offices recently started recycling paper at City Hall, the police station and public works office.

“We generate a lot of paper here, and recycling it is the right thing to do,” said Scott Noethlich, assistant city administrator. “Not only is it good for the environment, the county gets money for all the paper it recycles, and the city’s tipping fee is lower when we go to the landfill.”

Diane Kauffman, human resources officer for Sebring, dumped a lot of papers into her blue container Friday afternoon at Sebring City Hall while cleaning off her desk.

“I have a lot of paper, so I like being able to recycle it,” Kauffman said. “It’s just a manner of getting used to recycling instead of throwing it away.”

The county has also changed its plastic recycling policy and will now only accept plastic bottles. Types 1-7 of plastic bottles are accepted; types are noted on the bottom of bottles. Plastic bags can be recycled at local grocery stores.

Reed said the change was made because of storage issues. For example, to recycle egg cartons, the county must have an entire semi-truck full of them, and Reed said the program does not have the space to collect that volume of material.

Bob Shearwood said he recycles everything he can and regularly visits containers located throughout the county.

“I just can’t stand throwing things away,” Shearwood said. “I just wish I had a place to recycle glass.”
Reed said glass recycling will be added when the county builds its asphalt plant.

Recycling supplies, including containers and hampers, are available from the county by calling
655-6477.

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette: Plugging into Recycling

Filed under: Earth 911 - April 5, 2008

So you finally gave in to your daughter because she couldn’t live another minute without a hot new iPod Touch. Which means you’re going to have to find something to do with the old iPod Nano you bought her last Christmas.

You already have a drawer full of cell phones from which you’ve upgraded, a dust gathering computer in the closet and a stack of dead video game systems, clunky ancient VCRs, even more ancient stereo equipment and DVD players that were marginally cheaper to replace than to fix.

And in less than a year you’ll probably get rid of that analog television because in February 2009 it won’t get high-definition signals without cable or satellite dish service.

You’re sufficiently environmentally conscious to know you can’t just chuck any of that stuff in a Dumpster because it will end up in a landfill, leaching toxic metals into the groundwater.

Here are some useful ways to get rid of outmoded electronics

  1. Consider donating computers and other electronic equipment that still works to a charity or a nonprofit. If you don’t have a particular donee in mind, the Environmental Protection Agency can help. You can download a document from the agency Web site with detailed advice on how and where to donate, plus a list of additional links to sites that can provide more information.The agency’s Plug-in to eCycling program, a partnership with electronics manufacturers and retailers, provides information on donating and recycling electronics. It has links to nearly two dozen EPA Plug-in Partners—retailers and manufacturers including Best Buy, AT&T, JVC, Panasonic, Office Depot, HP and Motorola. The agency is careful to say it doesn’t endorse any particular commercial services or products.

    If your equipment isn’t worth donating, you can recycle it through municipal or statewide programs, such as one of the 19 regional solid waste districts in Arkansas or through manufacturers and big-box retailers.

    No matter where you send your items, be sure you erase all personal information first and, if possible, include the original software and licensing information so that subsequent users can take advantage of them.

  2. The Regional Recycling and Waste Reduction District, formerly t