How to Green Your Recycling

Dig Deeper Into TreeHugger

Dig deeper by perusing some of our thousands of posts.

• Q&A: Recycling Christmas Cards
• Drap-Art is a Barcelona group devoted to the artistic reincarnation of materials. They host a yearly International Creative Recycling Festival.
• TreeHugger passes on the advise of Salon.com on how to recycle your computer.
• Crazy Crayons are remade from the stumps of their departed brethren.
• TreeHugger responds to a reader who asks what she can do with her company’s obsolete CDs.
• The Ecopod is a slick, integrated recycling receptacle and compactor.
• Smallplanet is a Canadian company that makes recyclable baby diapers.
• Swap-o-Rama-Rama is a concept that’s part swap meet, part crafts fair, part public art project.
• “What can we do with our used styrofoam?”
• The brilliant (and sadly now defunct) groundscout.com provided a high-tech way for people to share knowledge of fabulous “garbage.”
• Started by a group of web designers in Vancouver, MaterialLove is a site for exchanging, selling, and giving away useful goods that may not fit in the recycle bin.
• Two entrepreneurs in Philadelphia have devised a techie system that rewards people when they recycle.
• How to recycle a jumbo jet (sort of).
• The world’s richest self-made woman is a Chinese paper-recycling entrepreneur.
• The Product Service System explored.
• Retrobox is a computer recycling service with a model that works.
• Tennis balls are (quietly) reused by the millions in Japan.
• Recycling for the 21st Century is a roundup of some of TreeHugger’s favorite (tasteful) recycled products.
• The clothing company Patagonia has been a genuine pioneer in making high-performance garments from recycled materials, and has recently started recycling old garments into new ones.
• Tattered library books become unique journals.
• Recycled denim can become home insulation.
• Discarded umbrellas become fabulous gowns that look amazing on the runway.
• Denim Therapy gives new life to old jeans.
• Cargabags are recycled wool bags from Argentina.
• Good design makes old T-shirts into great bags or even underwear.
• Freitag bags are made from recycled truck tarps.

Dig Deeper Into Other Sources

TreeHugger is one of many sources; here are some other great ones.

• A Shopper's Guide to Home Tissue Products from the NRDC
• The Adaptive Design Association
• Apple's recycling page
• Cities & Green Living: Recycling
• Compost Guide
• Dell Computer’s recycling page
• Ebay’s Rethink program is an innovative way to put idle computers and other electronics in the hands of those who want them.
• The EPA’s page on recycling and pollution prevention
• The EPA has searchable databases of national and international material and waste exchanges.
• Free Geek -- A Portland, OR-based group that collects and “recycles used technology to provide computers, education, Internet access and job skills training to those in need…”
• The Frugal Shopper -- Recycling tips
• Garden Organic
• GreenBiz.com
• The National Recycling Coalition
• Recycling Tips & Eco-Friendly Advice
• The Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition
• SCRIB -- The Steel Can Recycling Information Bureau
• Top Tips to Cut Waste
• Trash for Teaching
• Waste Online -- U.K. facts and statistics about various types of trash
• Wikipedia’s recycling page also links to focused articles on specific materials.

Books

• Garbage Land follows the trail of trash
• Recycle: The Essential Guide

Where to Get This Stuff

Vote with your dollars and help support the green revolution.

• Branch Home
• CalMax
• Children's Scrapstore
• Computer Recycling Center
• Digital Aid
• Freecycle
• Hudson Valley Materials Exchange
• The Recycler's Exchange
• Youth for Technology