There are many places that take bicycles for recycling and reuse. Not all of them will come to your place and pick them up but they certainly do have drop off locations. Some places may collect a small donation for taking your bicycles so that they can use your donation to buy parts needed to put them back into service.

Rental and sharing outlets for bicycles would be good leads for recycling and reuse. For example, some cities in coastal areas rent bicycles for visitors along their beaches. Places like these would probably need used bicycles regularly.

Image by cobalt123 via Flickr

Recycling and reuse of bicycles can also be accomplished by making jewelry of the spare parts. There are ball bearings in the wheels that can make nice jewelry. Brake cables, spokes, and any other metal or shiny parts can be used to create designs only limited by the imagination.

Remove plastic and rubber parts if you are putting unwanted bicycles through recycling and reuse of the metal. This would be the case for bicycles that are unserviceable and you want to recycle the metal frame and parts only. Take the stripped bicycles to any metal recycling center where people take aluminum cans, copper tubing, and other unwanted metal items for meltdown, reuse, and recycling.

Recycling and reuse of bicycles is also promoted by teaching owners to repair and refurbish them. Anyone who knows how to work on bicycles will tell you that the basic repair and replacement of parts is not that difficult. No special tools other than those found in most households are needed.

Even if special tools are needed, there are many organizations that rent or donate workspace for those wanting to get involved in recycling and reuse of bicycles and repair their own. These spaces usually have all the tools needed plus in most cases there are on-site experts to help you. Some organizations also contribute to the recycling and reuse of bicycles by offering bicycle repair classes.

Recycling and reuse of bicycles is great for charitable causes. Consider that the populations of many developing nations use bicycles as their primary mode of private transportation. There are some global outreach programs that help recycling and reuse of bicycles by transporting their collections of unwanted bicycles to these countries and distributing them to needy families. There are also organizations that donate bicycles in the impoverished urban areas of their own countries.

Related articles

• A Canadian gift that is proving a lifeline (cbc.ca)
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The flattening of boxes greatly increases space efficiency in a bin. This does not just apply to cardboard boxes, but also includes any paperboard (cereal or pet food) ones as well. Crushing cans before recycling is much more easily done if it is possible to remove both the top and bottom lids first. Foil products are easily flattened by hand.

Periodically crush your garbage bag down to its true size – you will find that it does not need to be placed on the curb as often. Fewer trips to the dump means less fossil fuel consumed and reduced curbside idling – idling is known to be terribly inefficient and more polluting than vehicles on the move. Garbage collection fees are more easily maintained by the company due to reduced costs per bag, and some companies even offer a discount for those who produce less waste. Also worth noting is that the household will go through fewer plastic garbage bags.

Some kitchen waste disposal units tend to put unnecessary pressure on overtaxed sewage plants. A much better option is to practice composting or vermiculture methods instead. Composting organic waste reduces household trash by approximately 30%. Go one step further by reusing various plastic bags to isolate smelly meat, bones and pet waste. By controlling odors in the garbage, the bag will not have to be put out on the curb as often.

So, imagine that if your waste and recycling was now half the size that it typically was before. That means in theory the waste pickup service would decrease costs by 50%, the landfill would be receiving half of what it used to, fewer trips to the recycling depot, less pollution…

Well you get the picture. It is easy to make a difference and we can all start at home. Right where we are.

Happy New Year!

It’s not too late to make your recycling resolutions.

The holidays are finally over and we can all hopefully begin slowing down and getting our lives back to normal.

If your home is like mine, the holidays left you with a huge mess. Empty boxes and torn wrapping paper litter the floor after the kids excitedly open their gifts. It’s so tempting to gather it all up and through it in the outside garbage bin.

But this is a great opportunity to not only recycle, but to reuse. Almost all of the wrapping paper and boxes can be recycled, so consider keeping your contribution out of the landfill. And for the reuse possibilities…they are practically endless. I’m pretty sure that most of the ribbons I use have been used for several years. And many of the boxes that hold the gifts are great to use for packaging gifts next year. Do you realize that many stores now CHARGE you for a gift box? Sheesh, I’ll save mine for next year, thank you. Not to mention the gift bags. I LOVE getting my gifts in those pretty little bags. Especially since I know I will be using it for someone else’s gift somewhere down the road. Do you know how much those things cost? They are outrageous. No way would I throw them away. They are too valuable.

Now what are we to do with the tree? If you use an artificial tree, it’s a pretty easy decision. You fold it up and store it for next year. Simple. And if you are lucky enough to live in a warm environment and purchased a live tree including the root ball, you can get to work planting it in your yard to enjoy for years to come. But what about cut trees? Most communities offer some sort of Christmas tree recycling. The lucky ones have curbside pickup to recycle their trees. The rest of us need to decide what to do. What convinces me to haul the tree to the recycling facility is a couple of things.

I was willing to haul it home after I purchased it, so I can just as easily take it to be recycled.

Some communities use the old trees to shred and cover pathways and trails through parks. This helps to repair and reduce the damage we create as we enjoy our hikes.

Some communities turn the old trees into mulch and then provide it to the public for free! What a deal. Spring is just right around the corner, by the way.

So that pretty much covers what we can do to reduce our holiday effect on the environment. Now it’s a new year and we can begin thinking about getting a fresh start.

Some resolutions to consider:

- Resolve to begin recycling if you don’t already. You can start small. This site provides a wealth of information about getting your recycling efforts off the ground.

- If you already recycle, step it up a notch. If your curbside recycling service doesn’t accept a particular item (like glass or cardboard), resolve to begin taking that item to the drop off facility in your area.

- Resolve to purchase more products packaged with post consumer recycled materials. The higher the percentage listed on the package, the better.

- Resolve to purchase more items made from recycled materials. Paper towels, toilet paper, napkins, and many other paper products fall into this category.

- Resolve to purchase more items in bulk, thus reducing packaging waste.

- Resolve to create at least one creative craft using something you might otherwise throw away. This is fun, gets your creative juices flowing, can reduce stress, and is a g reat way to spend some quality time with your family.

In 2005, a record-high 51.5 percent (51.3 million tons) of all paper consumed in the U.S. was recovered for recycling. The American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA) hopes to increase that number and has set an ambitious goal of 55 percent recovery by 2012.

Every American can do his or her part. Although each community’s recycling programs may be different, you can generally recycle newspapers, corrugated containers (cardboard), direct mail, magazines and catalogs. Check with your local municipality to find out what you can and cannot recycle.

The AF&PA Recycling Awards were created to recognize outstanding individual, business community and school paper recycling efforts. In 2006, the program was expanded to include a category for schools.

This year’s award winners are:

Ed Hurley Memorial Paper Recycling Award (for individual achievement)

• Joel Ostroff, Macon County, North Carolina

AF&PA Business Leadership Recycling Awards

• Small Business: Bluegrass Regional Recycling Corporation, Richmond, Kentucky
• Large Business: Brewer Science, Inc., Rolla, Missouri

AF&PA Community Recycling Awards

• Small Community: North-field, Minnesota
• Large Community: Seattle, Washington

AF&PA School Recycling Awards

• Classroom: Heber Springs High School, Heber Springs, Arkansas
• Schoolwide: Mountain Home High School, Mountain Home, Arkansas
• College & University: tie between the University of Colorado at Boulder in Boulder, Colorado, and the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon

“This year’s Recycling Award winners have exhibited innovation and social responsibility,” said AF&PA President & CEO W. Henson Moore. “Their accomplishments in recycling have set new precedents.”

Reprocessing can turn recycled paper into other paper products numerous times before the paper fibers are too weak to use. White office paper retains much of its value and goes into products such as tissue, paperboard, stationery, magazines, new office paper, and various other paper products. Mixed paper, which includes glossy and colored paper, envelopes, and sticky notes, is less valuable than white paper but also can be recycled into various products. Newsprint and corrugated cardboard can find new lives as the same or similar products. White ledger paper, computer paper, corrugated cardboard, newspaper, paper packaging, envelopes, and other mixed papers can be recycled in most areas.

There is no reason not to use recycled papers. They print as well as virgin papers, work well on laser printers, and can divert millions of pounds of printed waste away from the landfills and back into the mainstream.

Recycled papers save our valuable natural resources, save energy, save our trees, create less toxic bi-products, and help our over-crowded landfills.

Using 100% post-consumer recycled papers and less bleaching agents also means less chlorine and that is the next major issue to creating a healthier atmosphere to live in. Chlorine causes Dioxin which, when mixed with other compounds, causes cancer. What is that cost to our medical bills and to ourselves?

Buy recycled paper and print on both sides. When using paper in the office, print on both sides of the sheet and recycle the paper when you are finished. By recycling one ton of paper, you can save 17 trees, almost 7,000 gallons of water and more than three cubic yards of landfill space.

Let us go into some techniques to recycle!

Make recycling bins readily available; make sure your home and office have a recycling bin that is just for papers! Keep them out in the open and label them properly!

Recycle your empty ink and toner cartridges. Almost eight cartridges are thrown out in the United States every second of every day. That’s almost 700,000 cartridges per day.

Look for recycled products for when you buy things Do not take a plastic bag home from the supermarket but take a trolley or a own bag with you.

Recycle your old newspapers!

Reuse your morning coffee cup!

We need to address these issues more actively. Our waters are polluted, our air is contaminated, and our landfills are so clogged that we have to send our waste downstream. Let’s wake up, and do something about the problem, buy recycled paper now, before it’s too late. So do follow some of the recycling techniques that I have suggested to have a better place to live in!

Children, who are already feeling that they don’t have any control over their environment, will just become more frustrated when a toy breaks in their hands because it is poorly made.  Always keep in mind the age and physical development of the child when buying a toy.  There is nothing worse than a child picking up a toy that is out of their age-range and they end up breaking it because they’re not developed enough to regulate their hand strength.  Children are not capable of making the right choices for their own age group, so it is up to the adults to do that for them.

When buying gifts and toys for holidays and celebrations, remember to take a deep breath and know that what you end up buying will be played with, probably in a rough manner, , so you’ll want it to last.  What’s the sense in spending money on something that is made so poorly it falls apart after the first time out of the box?  (I guess you could always revert back to the box-idea and give them that to play with!)  But the toys that last are usually the ones that are made from good, solid materials; like wood.  Wood is such a great material to make things from and as long as it’s FSC-certified, you won’t have to worry about harmful toxins coming off when the child is teething and the bonus is that it could last for several generations (reinforcing that reuse idea, all the more).

You may even be able to get some of the original money set out for the product by selling it on Craigslist or eBay.  If you’re thinking of selling it at a yard sale, just know that you won’t come close to getting the “value” of it because the yard-sale-mentality is to get what you can for as little as possible, but you still can get something monetary back if you do this.

Find toys that will last for a long time and can either be passed down through the generations or re-sold for a little pocket money.  Keep in mind that when it comes to children and toys, more is not better and making informed purchases based on the child and the quality of how the toys are made, are in the hands of adults.  Most toys and games come with an age range printed on the packaging and it is important to not buy gifts that a child will not be capable of playing with for a few years.

When you’re staying in a hotel or B&B, let the management of the hotel know that you will be reusing your towels and there is no need to have the bed linens changed daily.  With a family, towels can get mixed up and there is an easy way to prevent that; from home, get a couple of safety pins and some beads.  Put beads on the safety pins, one design for each family member and when you get to the hotel, simply pin each towel with a beaded safety pin to identify the different ones.  Just reusing your towels for a few days will greatly impact the time and money that goes into running the laundry everyday.

Be sure to turn off all lights when you are leaving the hotel room, and any TVs or radios that may be plugged in and running.  It’s easy to be distracted in a space that is not your home and it would be just as easy to forget the ways you conserve energy at home when you’re not there.  If you find you leave the room with a light on, leave yourself a note right by the door, reminding yourself to check the lights before you walk out the door.  There are some hotels that even do this for you, where they have a magnet that they leave on the door, at eye level, reminding you if you’ve turned off the lights.

Bring your own soap, shampoo and conditioner and leave the little bottles to be reused by guests who do not remember to bring their own.  Soap travels really well in a plastic sandwich bag with a zip-lock and besides, wouldn’t you want your own choice of soap smells?

Along the same lines as remembering to turn out the lights, remember to turn down the heat/AC that will be running when you’re not in the room.  And a further way to keep the room temperatures comfortable is to remember to close the drapes when you’re out of the room, most hotels have heavy drapes that will keep a cool room cool longer, if they’re closed.

Instead of leaving the light (and fan) on overnight, bring a little nightlight with you and you will save a lot by not running a rooms full light (and fan) on while you sleep.  Have a permenant marker with you and assign one of the plastic cups to each person in your family when you arrive at the room.  There is no reason to have dishwashing services when the plastic cups are sanitary and are perfectly capable of being reused.  Avoid room service for the same reason, there is no need to have excess dishes to wash that would normally not be used.  When you eat in the restaurant, they’re already doing the dishes there.

Remember that you can still have all the home values you practice at home when you’re on the road with your family.  Keep recycling!

One of my favorite crafts is to decopauge.  The materials needed to do this are simply old magazines, a pair of scissors, some white glue and something to decorate.  I’ve seen people use this art medium on every kind of article from wooden boxes up to queen bed head boards.

Once you have the item (or items) you want to decorate you can put them aside and start flipping through the magazines for pictures and words that jump up at you or help convey something you want to say.  The great thing about this craft is that there is no “wrong” way to do it.  Some people will use an entire advertisement including the background in the ad and others may cut out the person or object from the background.  The idea is to have a piece of a page to be layered upon the object to be decorated.

After you have enough pictures and words cut out you can start to decorate your object.  The ideas and creativity, from this point on, are endless!  Use all cut outs of flowers and birds to decorate your project, cut out every picture of a dog and see how many you can find and use all of them to decorate your recycled project!

Arrange your clippings onto the surface of whatever it is you’re going to reuse or decorate and put a layer of glue over the entire project.  Using white glue or Mod Podge will give you a clear coating over your art and when that layer is dry, coat it again, and so on.  The coatings of glue will protect your artwork and if you use a gloss-finish, it will have a nice shine to it, too.

I started making “Blessings Boxes” for the Christmas gifts I would give to my children’s teachers.  I would reuse an old shoe box, and cover the entire outside of it with cut out pictures from magazines.  The main objective was to cover up the shoe brand on the outside of the box with the pictures and words.

The idea behind the “Blessings Boxes” was that throughout the year, when there was a blessing in their life, maybe a ticket stub to a baseball game or a movie shared with a friend, birthday cards, get well cards, etc. they were to place these blessings into the box.  The best part is that, during that year, when they had a day where they would feel blue or needed a smile, they knew they could always open their “Blessings Box” to be reminded of the beautiful things that have happened in their life.

These gifts were the talk of the elementary school the first year I made them and I will say that at the very beginning of every year after, my children’s teachers would let me know how beautiful they thought my creations were and (wink, wink) they wouldn’t mind getting one for themselves!

The best part is that I never spent extra money making one of those gifts!  It was a success all due to being recycled materials.