Kohl's Cares for Kids and the environment

We went to Kohl's last Saturday and I noticed that they also have a Plastic Bag recycling bin at the store. The bin looks like this in case you want to bring your plastic bags for recycling while you're there shopping for good deals.

Plastic bag recycling bin

On top of the recycling bin, I found a flier about Kohl's commitment in helping to keep our environment clean. The flier also suggests a few things a customer can do in order to help.

While at the store, I also found an interesting book (see link below) at the Kohl's Cares for Kids area. It is one of their items for their Kohl's Cares for Kids program and I bought one. I just glanced at a few pages of the book but haven't read it entirely. I got it for only 5 dollars, which is a steal and I am hopping I may learn some other ways on helping to save our environment. But the other reason why I bought the book is that the Kohl's Cares for Kids program donates 100% of the net profit to support children's health and education initiatives nationwide. Ah, I just shot two birds with one stone... just a figure of speech. (No birds or animals were harmed while writing this post.) 


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Plastic Bag Recycling Bins - Home Depot and Wawa

A couple more stores/businesses that provide bins for plastic bag recycling.

Home Depot stores can be found around the U.S. and they also have presence on other countries. According to their website, "The Home Depot has 1972  convenient locations throughout the United States (including the territories of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands), Canada, China and Mexico."

Home Depot Plastic Bag Recycling Bin

Wawa stores can be found in the Northeastern side of the U.S. (portions of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia). It's a convenience store similar to 7-Eleven but they also have Gasoline Stations.

Wawa Plastic Bag Recycling Bin

Paper Recycling - PaperRetriever.com

My kids school started a paper recycling drive during the start of the school year. They are trying to raise money to upgrade the school's playground. In order to do this, they obtained recycling bins from PaperRetriever.com to be able to collect the used paper products.

The recycling bin looks like this and has a picture of a dog carrying a paper. This is the back of the bin and shows a large sign that says "Make Every Page Count. Recycle Paper Here."

This is the front of the bin that shows "Local Fund Raising." To drop paper, you don't need to open the front covers since there are slots on the sides where you can drop the paper items/products.

There are 3 bins at the back of the school and the last time I walked by, I saw 1 bin is already full and the other 2 are about half-full.

The following items are accepted on the bins: Newspapers, Magazines, Office and School Papers, Shopping Catalogs and Mail.
This is the side of the bin where you can drop the paper items. It also lists the type of papers that are accepted (Phonebooks are not accepted). On the side of the paper list, it also list items that should not be included: Plastic, Glass, Metals and Trash.
The are also signs that can be seen around the school campus that directs where you can drop your used paper.
The school had a paper drive week last month and asked each student to bring used paper for recycling. The total weight of collected paper amounted to 6836 pounds. That is about 3 1/2 (short) tons of paper from about 600 students.

We contributed about 80 pounds of paper and old magazines for that week. The drive helped me clear out old bills, statements and magazines stacked in my home office. Most of my bills are now electronic ever since I switch paperless. Here is a previous post about paperless billing and it has the sign-up links for banks, utilities, etc.

One note though. I did shred those bills with confidential information before sending them to school (shredding helps in protecting your identity).

The school's paper drive is still ongoing. All of our junk mail and other paper products are now going to this drive. My regular recycling bin is a little lighter now since I don't put any paper there anymore.

CNN Video: Recycling, Energy Efficiency

The CNN video below shows information about recycling, energy saving and innovation here in the U.S. and in the Philippines.

The 1st part of the video is about billboards. One billboard uses the sun to show that the sea level is rising. Then it shows how the Philippines is recycling billboards to bags. I was in the Philippines last June 2008 and I saw a lot of billboards along EDSA (Epifanio de los Santos Avenue) and C-5 (Circumferential Road 5). The billboards are huge and there are several of them on different roads around Metro Manila. From what I heard, the billboards are changed frequently and with the Philippine presidential election coming in 2010, there will be more billboards to be put up.

The video also shows Terracycle. A few months ago, I wrote that Terracycle is recycling Caprisun pouches into bags and other products. You can view my previous post using this link.

The next parts of the video are about energy efficiency and innovations. It features T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, VA. where they recycle rain water and shows that their school building have solar panels and energy efficient roof and windows.

The Empire State Building's plan for energy consumption is also featured. The plan is to install energy efficient lighting, upgrade the windows and install new heating and cooling systems. These activities will provide around 38% reduction in energy consumption for the one of the most known building in the world.

A.I. duPont Hospital for Children

We brought our son last month at A.I. duPont Hospital for Children for a follow-up on his eye checkup. I have noticed something different when we got there. I saw recycling bins around the hospital (see pictures below). The bins are big and green and has a sign at the top for cans and bottles. At the bottom part of the bin, there is a big art work that encourages recycling.

It is a great idea to put the big art work as it attracts attention. Also, the hospital's patients are children and the art work helps to instill the idea of recycling to the young minds.

We were there on the first week of June for the initial eye checkup and I did not see these bins back then. I'm pretty sure that they were not there because my eyes are really trained now for finding anything about recycling or recyclables.

CapriSun Pouches

CapriSun has teamed up with TerraCycle to reuse the drink pouches into usable products. You can also generate money for your school by establishing a Drink Pouch Brigade. You can visit/sign-up at their website to start the brigade. According to the CapriSun box (as shown below), you can earn $0.02 per donated pouch.

Terracycle reuses the drink pouches to make them into pencil cases, bags, folders, etc. Below are the photos of what the drink pouches can be turned into.

LunchBox

Folder

Tote Bag

Backpack

Visit the following Terracycle links to find more items made from CapriSun pouches, Oreo wrappers and other items that you might be using everyday.

Bag Products

School Products

Burger King uses recycled brown bags

We went to a Burger King drive-thru the other day and my kids wanted the kid's meal because they are giving away Pokemon cards. Upon reaching home, I noticed the side of Burger King's brown bags (see photo on the right). It says "Be Good To Mother Earth!" and has some tips on ways of saving energy. The bag is also made from 100% recycled paper.

As for the energy saving tips, it says:

• Turn of lights, TV, and computer when not in use.
• Help adults recycle cans, bottles, bags and newspapers.
• Don't leave water running when brushing your teeth.
• Walk or bike with your family instead of using the car.

It seems that the tips are directed for kids and it's a good thing because they can be trained early.

The bag also has an icon of a person throwing a trash in a trash bin. This promotes cleanliness and instills that trash should be properly disposed.

Please Touch Museum Recycles

Last Sunday, we went to the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia, PA. This museum has a lot of activities for kids (and adults) to enjoy. My kids had fun during the visit and they keep on reminding me to go back there again.

During our visit, I noticed that they have recyclable bins available throughout the place. The bins look like this and can be easily found because of their big signs.

Here is one of the bins that I found at the Carousel area.

Upon entering the museum, you will see the Liberty Arm & Torch (as shown below) at the center of the museum. This is about 40 feet tall and was made from discarded playthings.
There was also a room behind the Liberty Arm and Torch that displays miniature buildings made from used styrofoam materials (items that came from TV and appliance boxes, etc.). I didn't get a chance to take a picture of it and I checked their website but they don't have any information about it. I'm guessing that it may be a temporary exhibit.

If you are in the Philadelphia area, check out the Please Touch Museum. The kids (and adults) will surely have fun during your visit.

Getting Paid to Recycle - CBS News Video

I saw a video about getting paid by recycling a few months ago but cannot remember which channel I watched it. I happened to drop by the CBS website today and while there, I searched for Recycling videos and I found the video I saw before (see below).

Watch CBS Videos Online

The company that pays you to recycle is called RecycleBank. How it works is that they provide you a recycling cart where you put all the recyclable items. The cart has an embedded Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) chip on it and this is used to track the weight of your items once they are picked up. The weight is then converted into points on your RecycleBank account and you can use these points to redeem rewards on their website.

The video was shown in December 2008 and according to it, RecycleBank is being used at 15 States and expects to be grow to 20 States this year.

Recycling Bag

A couple of months ago, I posted a drawing that my son made ~ Recycle Some More. Here's what my son is doing now regarding recycling. He has his own Recycling bag where he would put pieces of paper in it and will let me know that those are for recycling. As you can see below, he marked one side of the plastic bag "Re[c]ycle".
He also uses the 3R's of Recycling: Reuse, Reduce, Recycle (although he spelled it wrong, I think it sounds the same when you read it). This is what the other side of the Recycling bag looks like.

Ink and Toner Cartridge Recycling - Cartridge World

I found an Ink and Toner cartridge recycling bin at my local library. I have visited a couple libraries within my area and I also found bins like this. 

Here are some facts that I found about Ink and Toner cartridge recycling from the Cartridge World website:

• About 8 cartridges are thrown away in the United States every second.
• Every cartridge reused is one less cartridge thrown into our landfills
• It takes a gallon of oil to make a new laser cartridge
• In North America, over 350 million cartridges per year are discarded in our landfills, and that number increases by 12 percent annually
• Every remanufactured cartridge saves nearly 3 and 1/2 pounds of solid waste from being deposited in landfills
• Remanufacturing cartridges reduces pollution. Almost 90% of empty cartridges are incinerated or dumped in landfills
• 70 percent of used printer cartridges throughout the world are currently being thrown out
• It can take as long as 450 years for a cartridge to decompose in a landfill
• In one year, if the world's discarded cartridges are stacked end-to-end, they would circle around the Earth over three times.

The bins are part of a recycling program that is run by Cartridge World. They provide the bins to schools or non-profit organizations to help them raise money. 

Cartridge World has over 1600 stores worldwide. They can refill inkjet cartridges or remanufacture toner cartridges in their stores. Reusing printer cartridges helps saving the environment and with the tough economy, it can save you some money, too. You can visit their website to find a store near you.

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!!!!

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.

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

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

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.

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.