Home Show

This coming weekend at the Douglas County Fairgrounds is the annual Home and Garden Show put on by our local Home Builder’s Association. There you will find many new things to improve your home and surroundings. What you may not know is that there will also be a lot of opportunities available to see new products and practices on display showing you how to save energy and money. Green building materials, energy efficient fixtures, landscaping with native plants, and water conservation just to name a few.

Even I will be on hand at the show manning a booth promoting back yard composting. In addition to sharing composting opportunities, we will have the newly created and updated recycling poster and brochure available for everyone to pick up. You are invited to stop by and pick up yours and chat with me about any recycling topic you like and get answers to all your questions. If you mention this article, I will have a special gift just for you, the loyal readers of the North County News.

Composting and recycling are just two ways we can save money in the home while saving energy and natural resources. Each week you can come back here to get information and tips on these and many other topics of concern related to waste reduction.

Article seen as published in the North County News as part of a regular "Talkin' Trash" column.

Fundraisers

Every school and non-profit organization out there is working hard and doing their best to raise funds for their programs; selling candy, coupon books, even collecting recyclable material for resale. Yes, that’s right, there is money in recycling. The community needs to be aware of good sources of recycling dollars as well as unscrupulous ones as well.

On the good side, there are dozens of companies out there ready to buy your used cell phones and printer ink cartridges for cash. Before entering into an arrangement however, do your research and make sure that they cover shipping and provide promotional materials for your school or organization. Many folks are using these programs for hundreds of dollars of revenue monthly. In Roseburg, there is a new store called “Rapid Refill” in the Champion One Plaza that buys your old cartridges on the spot, and recycles what is not refillable.

Myrtle Creek Elementary just conducted a community clean up day and pocketed over $800 cash by partnering with a local scrap metal processor and turning in all the scrap brought to the school by the public over the course of one weekend. Make sure you negotiate your price in advance and arrange for your partner to provide the containers if you choose to replicate this in your community.

Some organizations have even had successes in collecting newsprint and selling it direct to the mill. This can be profitable, but you need to have lots of storage available and drop boxes around the community.

The one fundraiser that I would warn you all about is the collection of pull tabs off aluminum cans. Many years ago, rumor got out that the National Kidney Foundation was trading 1 hour of dialysis for each tab turned in. According to them and others in the industry, this was never true. For over 20 years, multiple organizations from Coca-Cola to local dialysis firms have been buried in pop tabs they never wanted and could not exchange for money or services. For reference, it takes over one million tabs to reach $300 dollars. Imagine if it were one million pennies that would be $10,000!

In 1988 Ronald McDonald Houses jumped into the fray and began collecting tabs at their locations as a way for people to dump their hoards of tabs not taken by anyone else. You may give your tabs to them if you ever go to Portland or another community with a Ronald McDonald House. To find one, go online to http://www.rmhc.org/ If someone comes to you offering to take your pop tabs, be wary and follow the money. Many of these folks are hobby junk collectors and simply pocket any pennies your tabs bring in. It would be much more efficient and profitable to collect the whole can for your organization and capitalize on the five cent deposit redeemed when you turn the can back into the store.

The bottom line is there is money in recycling for your organization, but work smart and be efficient.

Article seen as published in the North County News as part of a regular "Recycling Tip of Week" column

Grasscycling

I know we are just now getting over a very interesting week of snow, sleet, and rain, but don’t forget that spring is just around the corner. With spring comes gardening, landscaping, and lawns. Many of us are looking forward to the smell of soil on our hands and the feel of the sun on our backs.

Consider this year instead of cutting and hauling away all your grass clippings, mulch the grass back into the soil instead. This idea is called “Grasscycling”. This is nothing new for some folks, but when we harvest our grass and take it away to the dump or for recycling, we are taking away precious natural resources from our own properties. Your grass needs the old clippings to nurture the roots and promote water retention in clay soils or water runoff in sandy soils.

After the development of suburbs in the 1950’s, and lawns became all the rage, there was a notion that mulching led to thatch. This could not be further from the truth. Mulching promotes a healthy lawn, saves resources, and saves energy (you make less trips to the landfill).

Just remember to keep your blades sharp on your mower. Consider, if you haven’t already, purchasing a mulching lawn mower to produce smaller particles. In addition, promote optimal health of your grass by never cutting more than one-third of height off at a time. This will keep your lawn healthy and happy and will reduce clumping. If you do have clumping, pick it up and spread it around or compost it with the rest of you clippings.

Article seen as published in the North County News as part of a regular "Recycling Tip of Week" column