Finishing up on Recylcing

We are moving on from recycling to ethical eating..but before we do...here is our summary of what and where we recycle:
- plastic bags: Copps ( and 37 other places)
-plastic caps: AVEDA
-#5 plastic: Whole Foods Gimme 5 program
-tennis/athletic shoes: drop off recycling on Badger Road
-fluorescent light bulbs: store we bought them from
-batteries: Mark's work

Please note: for plastic and batteries, our number 1 strategy is to use them less.

Also: we used Free Cycle to pass on things we no longer needed...and to get things we wanted ( Mark just set up surround sound for free in our basement..which he is excited about!)

Photo credit:flickr urbanwoodswalker

Goodbye bags

Here is Mark taking our plastic bags to Copps. We are still trying to not use plastic ( boy is that challenging).

What we are doing
-Bringing cloth bags with us to shop ( we are almost 100% with this)
-Reuse plastic bags for veggies and bulk grains (we have some cloth bags that we use for this)
-Don’t buy food in plastic bags when possible. (This is hard with bread, tortillas, frozen veggies)
-Recycle plastic bags: our closest place is Copps. Although there are 30 locations in Madison.

What is Madison recycling: grocery and retail bags, newspaper bags, water softener salt bags, outer bags from bread and other bags labeled 2 and 4. ( we can’t recycle meat and cheese bags)

What happens to the bags? They are sent to Trex, Inc which makes them into plastic lumber for decks, outdoor furniture and fencing.

More info at City of Madison recylcing

Thanks to Willy Street Coop Feb 2010 newsletter for making this information available and easy to understand (I love Willy St) PS you can shop on line now ( and get your food delivered)

My favorite way to recycle

Once every two years I cut my hair and donate it to Locks of Love. Here I am at Aveda before the big cut. I chose Aveda because of the great work they are doing with recycling. You can take them ALL of your bottle caps ( not just those from their products)



Here's my after look ( photo taken by my son Ben). The surprise...there is no charge for the hair cut if you are donating your hair. Go Aveda!

Recycling Caps

Here is my colleague Jill and I recycling our caps at AVEDA.  Aveda has just opened a shop under our new office making it pretty convenient for us!

Here's Proof

These are all the bottle caps Dave Spitzer ( my son's 4th grade teacher) has collected...so far.

Here is what is awesome about this...my son finished 5th grade this year. This blog connected with one of my son's former teachers....who was inspired to collect his bottle caps ( to recycle at AVEDA)... and he sent a photo to "share the proof".

Teachers rock!

My mom is collecting caps..so is my colleague Sarah. I wonder who else?