Reuse & Recycle

New York City, in just its five boroughs, has a population of over 8 million and in an area smaller than most states; you can just imagine how much waste is created on a daily basis.  Recycling in New York City is mandatory and has been since July 1989.  Before that date, starting in 1986, recycling was voluntary and as it began to catch on, recycling-educating materials from pamphlets, decals to TV and newspaper advertisements flooded the area up until 1997, when all five boroughs and all 59 districts were recycling all of the same materials. By this time an impact was being made in recycling waste right up until the events of September 11th, 2001.  After the 9/11 tragedy forced budget cuts were implemented for the Department of Sanitation.

It’s hard to believe that a city as populated as New York City has always been, that it took until 1881 before the first sanitation collection agency was formed.  The agency was formed in an effort to clean up the city’s littered streets and to stop the general population from disposing of their waste directly into the Atlantic Ocean.  In 1881, the Department of Street Cleaning was formed and the New York City Police Department was no longer responsible for the waste problems.  It is basically the same department today with the exception of a 1933 name change into the Department of Sanitation.

Prior to the formation of the Department of Sanitation, more than three quarters of all waste from the city of New York was simply dumped into the ocean.  Just a decade later, in 1895, the very first recycling plan was implemented by Commissioner George Waring in which his plan separated household waste into three categories; there was food waste, rubbish and ash.

The only category of the three that could not be re-used was ash, and it and whatever materials came from the rubbish category that could not be re-used were put into landfills.  Food waste, which went through a process of being steamed, they found, could be turned into fertilizer and grease materials that were used to produce soap.  The category of rubbish was collected and re-used however possible and only as a last resort, ended up in the landfills.

New York City had filled to capacity six landfills and needed to keep them closed from 1965 to 1991, which left open only one active landfill; Fresh Kills in Staten Island, which remained the only trash-accepting landfill until it closed for good in 2001.

Other than the temporary end of recycling due to World War I in 1918, New York City has kept a steady flow of recycling going for more than a hundred years and at one time ran twenty two incinerators and eighty nine landfills.

Recycling continues today in New York City as a mandatory action for all residents, schools, institutions, agencies and all commercial businesses.

Traveling with the family can be a joyous experience and there is no reason to leave your recycling attitudes at home; you can do your part even when you’re far from the comforts of home.

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!

Are you planning a trip?  Whether it is a trip for business or pleasure; you have options and with just a little research you can find a hotel that is environmentally friendly!  There are “Green” Hotels in which the hotel does all it can in order to recycle, reuse and reduce.

Some of the ways hotels are becoming environmentally friendly are by letting guests know that they will only clean the room upon request; that cuts down on the amount of laundry that needs to be washed, electricity that needs to be used to vacuum and the man power itself, that it  needs in order to accommodate for daily cleaning.

Hotels can also request that you re-use your towels rather than having them laundered every day.  There are programs in some hotels that have bins for recycling glass, plastic and aluminum set up for easy recycling by the guests as well as the employees.   Just by making these bins available gives no excuse for why recycling can’t be a success.

Hotels that are on the “Green” list are in the forefront of ways to recycle and they are finding that more than 70% of their customers not only abide by their energy and cost saving measures, they have helped to develop them.  Many hotels and motels have put suggestion cards in the rooms for their guests to fill out and have implimented some of the ideas that came right from their consumers.

If a hotel is a popular spot for banquets and meetings, changes as simple as using pourers for sugar and pitchers for cream have been able to cut down on the waste of individually wrapped sweetners and individual cups of cream.  There is also less left over to add to the unused, end-of-the-day waste.  Some facilities have gone as far as to place notices on tables in meeting rooms and some restaurants to advise customers that water will be poured, upon request.

There are some ways hotels are joining in the cause for an environmentally friendly product that most hotel guests will never see.  There are water-saving devices that will save the water that is flushed by about 75%, never affecting the flush in any way, but making quite a difference with the utility costs.  Devices such as the toilet tank fill diverter and tiny parts that fit into the head of a shower to cut down on the water useage will not be noticed by the guests but make a big impact on the environment.

Hospitality venues that are using these kinds of measures to cut back on our waste and are environmentally contientious should be the places we choose to stay.  If we, as concerned consumers, take a stand and only patronize hotels and motels and B&Bs that are taking the idea of recycling to heart and have made changes to help the Earth, the more hotels will realize that we know how to exercise our choice and will do so even when we are away from home.

We all have appliances that break down or stop working with any kind of effeciency and the question becomes, where do we turn from here?  Well, I have some suggestions and these suggestions will keep in line with the idea of energy conservation and recycling.

There are home products and products for the office that have been rated and earned the ENERGY STAR rating, which means that they are within the effeciency guidelines of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Energy (DOE) as being cost effective and/or producing less waste.  These agencies have deemed certain products as energy efficient and where ever you purchase appliances or heating and cooling systems, electronics and office equipment, by choosing a product that has the Energy Star mark, you are purchasing a product that is going to work with the efforts to recycle, reuse and reduce.

Many newer homes start off with energy efficient appliances and systems that are a savings right from the start, but not every one is that lucky to have brand new equipment.  It’s always good to keep in mind that when you are replacing an item, the best bet is to get the updated version which will almost automatically fall into the ratings of Energy Star and you’ll know that you will be doing your best in the effort to use less energy and produce less waste.

All of the retailers from the largest appliance chains have products that are Energy Star approved.  Whether you are shopping at Lowe’s Home Improvements, Sears, Best Buy, Costco or the Home DePot, you will find a great selection of energy star rated options.

Because of the need for more and more options that will back the recycling effort in the United States, using Energy Star approved appliances not only makes sense but will end up, in the long run, saving the consumer on monthly expenses.  How can helping the environment and saving money be a bad thing?

Please remember when you are making any home improvements or replacing any broken or out-dated appliances to only purchase those items that have the Energy Star rating and keep the process of recycling going.  It’s always better to keep up with something, like recycling, when you don’t even know you’re doing it!  Energy Star products will keep you in that frame of mind.

Also, if you are looking to upgrade your windows in your home there are Energy Star rated windows that, when installed properly, will be a great asset to your home in the struggle to control the high cost of heating.  Look for double pane windows and be sure that all of the surrounding area of the window is not allowing the cold air in, because if it is, then you can bet the warm air is leaking out and there’s, “No need to heat the whole neighborhood,” as my father used to say, everytime one of my sisters or I would leave the back door opened, when we were growing up.

There are so many ways to integrate recycling with arts and crafts and still have hours of entertainment and maybe make a few holiday gifts.

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.