Plastic Bag Recycling drop-off at Safeway

We dropped by Safeway a week ago and we saw that they have a recycling bin for Plastic Bags. We have a couple of Safeway stores in my area. Both stores used to be Genuardi's but it was renamed about a year or two ago. Genuardi's is also owned by the Safeway company.

I am not sure where else Safeway is big. We have visited California (in the San Francisco Bay area) before and saw several stores out there. I checked their website and I found out that they have 1,775 stores across the United States and Canada. The store count includes the following stores: Vons, Randalls, Tom Thumb, Genuardi's and Carrs.

Here's what the recycling bin looks like.

I had to take another picture because my son wanted to be part of it.

Reusable Bags (Disney Store and Toys R Us)

It is the Holiday Season and I am guessing that a lot of people are done with their Holiday shopping while a few are still scrambling on what to buy. I believe we are done with our shopping (I hope). The presents are already wrapped and are all under our Christmas Tree.

We did some shopping last weekend and I found a couple of Toy stores selling Reusable Bags. The first two bags shown below are from the Disney Store Outlet. I didn't get how much each bag cost but these bags have nice designs. The children in your household and anyone that's a Disney fanatic will love them. My youngest son likes the Mickey bag because he likes Mickey so much.

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse bag

WALL-E Bag

The next set of photos are some of the reusable bags available at Toys R Us. The reusable bag cost $1.49 each and they also have very nice designs. They have designs that you can use everyday (recycle sign, flowers, butterfly) or designs for the season like the snowy village, snowman and the polar bear below. I saw a halloween themed bag with an orange pumpkin but didn't get a chance to take a picture of it because it was stacked behind all the winter season bags.







If you ever get one of these reusable bags, you should hold your head high and feel proud of yourself for helping save the Earth.

Recycling at Best Buy

I dropped by Best Buy last weekend to get a copy of Wall-E for my kids. I accidentally saw that they have a recycling bin near their door. Best Buy accepts several items for recycling - Cellphones, PDAs, Pagers, Compact Discs, Inkjet cartridges, Used Gift Cards and Rechargeable batteries. According to their sign, a portion of the proceeds are donated to charity.
If you do not have the recyclable item with you, you can bring home a postage-paid bag and use it to send your recyclable item.
Below are the bags that Best Buy provides for Inkjet and Cellphone recycling. Since it's already postage-paid, just put your recyclable item in it, drop it in the mail and you don't have to pay for anything.


(Disclaimer: I am not an employee of Best Buy and I do not own any of their shares. The details above are for informational purposes only.)

Recycle Some More

My son likes to draw and gave me this and asked me post it on the site. He was bugging me last week to post it but haven't had a chance until now.

On the chasing arrows of the recycling symbol, he wrote the words Paper, Can and Plastic. Beside each chasing arrow he drew an item that you can recycle (Paper - a piece of paper with a picture of the sun, Can - an opened can, Plastic - a water/H2O plastic bottle).

I have been encouraging my son to recycle and I have seen him doing this. For example, he segregates paper that he used for his activities and tells me to put them in the recycling bin. He also likes drinking chocolate milk from fast food places and he does not want to throw the bottles on the trash bin. Instead, he brings them home and tells me to include them also in the recycling bin.

In case you want to see some of my son's drawings (taking my chance here to promote his site), you can visit DK Books and Other Stuff!

Have a nice day!!!!

Recycling at IKEA

I have seen recycling at work at IKEA stores and I was only able to take pictures of their recycling programs about a couple of weeks ago. IKEA has been promoting recycling and reducing waste throughout their stores.

One of the things they eliminated is the use of plastic bags. If a customer wanted a plastic bag, they will be charged 5 cents for it. This was started last March 15 and the proceeds on the first year of this program are donated to American Forests (a non-profit conservation organization). The customer is also given an option to buy a reusable bag for 59 cents as an alternative to the plastic bags.

Below are the recycling bins for plastic and paper that you will see throughout the store.
IKEA also has a recycling bin for Aluminum Cans, Glass Bottles and Plastic Bottles.
They also have a recycling center where you can drop off Bulbs (Compact Flourescent, Incandescent and Halogen) and Batteries (L.I.O., Alkaline and N.I.M.H).
For more information regarding IKEA's program, please visit their website.

(Disclaimer: I am not an employee of IKEA and I do not own any of their shares. The details above are for informational purposes only.)

Cellphone Recycling - T-Mobile

We recently upgraded our cellphone through our service provider (T-Mobile). Included with the package are envelopes (shown below) for cellphone recycling or eCycling (electronic recycling).

According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, "Recycling cell phones reduces greenhouse gas emissions, keeps valuable material out of landfills and incinerators, and conserves natural resources. Recycling just a million cell phones reduces greenhouse gas emissions equal to taking 1,368 cars off the road for a year."

Here's an informative video about cellphone recycling.

If you have no other use for your old cellphone, you can either drop it off at eCycling stations or mail it in at no cost to you. For more details about the drop off center locations or where to mail them, please visit the US EPA website.

Reusable bag in the Philippines

This is a 'bayong' which was mostly used in the early days in the Philippines when plastic bags were not commonly used yet.

The 'bayong' is a handwoven bag made from palm, pandan or sea grass leaves. The leaves are then dried and cut into strips before it gets woven into a bag.



The 'bayong' is very durable and will last a long time. I even remember that my lola (grandmother) used to carry a bayong. As you can see on the illustration, it was mainly used for buying items from the market like meat, fruits and vegetables.

Reusable Bags

If you don't like using Plastic Bags, a reusable bag is an alternative for you. These bags are made from recycled materials and can be re-used many times. Below are just some of the reusable bags available in the market and a bag costs around $1 each.

Plastic Bag Recycling

Plastic bags can be recycled and brought back to the store where you got them. Most of the plastic bags that we have at home come from the grocery stores. If you examine the labels on the plastic bags, it is most likely that it has a note that says "Please return to a participating store for recycling." Below are plastic bags from Walmart and K-Mart that shows this note at the bottom of each bag.

Should you decide to recycle your plastic bags, look for bins that look like this. To find a drop-off location near your area, visit Earth911.com or PlasticBagRecycling.org

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Eco-Shape Bottled Water

I bought this bottled water (Poland Spring brand) at one of the

convenience stores around my area and saw a recycle sign on the label.

The label also states that the bottle has an average of 30% less plastic (see label below).

I went to Costo yesterday and saw a similar bottle for the Deer Park brand. I checked it out and both bottles are made by Nestle Waters North America. After checking out their website, I found out that they carry different brands of bottled water and most of them uses the Eco-Shape Bottle. I believe that this is a good move for a big company to promote recycling. But it's still up to the people drinking them to put them in the recycling bin.

(Disclaimer: I don't work for Nestle Waters North America
or Costco and I don't own any of their shares.)

eScrip

We got this from our son's school - eScrip Recycling. From their website and as shown on the package mailer, they accept ink and toner cartridges, cell phones, laptops and Ipods. Part of what they earn on recycling is given to the school or any group having the program.

It's a good way to raise money for the school and the children will benefit on whatever the school buys with the raised money from the program.

Office Recycling

I went to a training facility last week and I found out that recycling is also being promoted at corporate offices.

Shown here are two recycling bins. The one on the left has a green lid with two holes (left hole = glass, right hole = plastic bottle). The blue bin on the right has a sign that says "Aluminum Cans Only."

This blue bin is in the same office and it says:

RECYCLE
COMPUTER PAPER ONLY

Biodegradable Plastic Bag

Here's one biodegradable plastic bag that we got from the Philippines. At first I was surprised about it. Is this for real? Is there such a thing?

I found on Wikipedia that there are biodegradable plastics out there but there are advantages and disadvantages to it. You can read more about it on this link.

4 out of the 44

I mentioned on my previous post about the NY Times Recycling Resource that you'll be surprised on how many kinds of garbage that Japan has. There are 44 of them according to the slideshow. Here is a picture that I took at Narita airport in Japan that shows 4 out of the 44.

From the left: Newspaper/Magazine, PET Bottle (I guess this is plastic bottle), Bottle (glass), and Can.

Hong Kong

Last Summer, we traveled to Hong Kong to check out the sights. One of the places we went to was Ngong Ping Village to check out the Tian Tan Buddha. It's the world's tallest outdoor bronze Buddha measuring 34 meters tall.

Ngong Ping Village is in the western part of Hong Kong's Lantau Island and it can be reached by bus or by cable car from Tung Chung. We took the cable car going there and the bus going back to Tung Chung.We tried the food at the village and it was really delicious. I can't remember the restaurant's name though. After eating, I looked for the Trash can and I found a Recycle Bin beside it (see below).

After the Ngong Ping trip, we went straight to Hong Kong Disneyland so the kids (and adults) can have some fun with the rides and of course with the Disney Characters. It appears that Hong Kong Disneyland is also doing their share of promoting recyling. Shown below is their recycle bin with Jiminy Cricket. I believe this is near the "it's a small world" attraction. And all throughout the park, they have recycle bins with different characters. I just didn't have time to take pictures because I'm.... err..... the kids were enjoying the park rides and other attractions.

The next day we went to Hong Kong Island to check out Victoria Peak. Along the way, I saw recycling bins at one of the mini-parks. (The date on this picture shows that it was taken on 7/2 but it was actually the next day. My camera was set on EST and I forgot to change it when we went to the Asia Pacific).

NY Times Recycling Resource

I found this interesting NY Times area about recycling and I think it's very informative.

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/recycling_of_waste_materials/index.html

View the "How Does Japan Dumps Trash?" slideshow and you'll be surprised on how many types of garbage they have.

I'll continue on finding resources about recycling. I believe this is important to lessen the amount of garbage that are going in the land-fills.

Recycle!!!

Let's all do our part in saving our planet. Recycling is one way of doing it! I will try to find out resources about recycling and put them on this blog.

Please... please.... please.... recycle all items that can be recycled. If your city has a recycling program, please sign up.