Reuse for Recycling Bins

Arcata Garbage Company has recently distributed brand new dual-stream recycling toters for curbside recycling collection to Arcata households. Until this time curbside customers have been using a hodgepodge of bins for containing their recyclables at the curb. It is anticipated that the distribution of new toters will leave behind a wake of now obsolete plastic totes and crates, many of which bear the Arcata Garbage Company logo.

Curbside recycling customers are encouraged to find a new use for their old plastic bins. However if unwanted, the Arcata Community Recycling Center’s (ACRC) 9th and N Street drop-off yard is poised to accept these bins for repurposing.

This winter the rollout of Arcata’s curbside recycling program will continue to include multifamily housing establishments. Space for recycling storage may be minimal in these residential arrangements. ACRC will make clean, repurposed recycling bins available to Arcata residents in such a situation free of charge at the Reusable’s Depot Thrift Store to help alleviate storage issues. Please call 445-4321 for more information about this reuse opportunity.

Minimize Holiday Waste

ACRC Education Specialist Patti Johnson tells us about the 5 Best Gifts You Can Ever Give

It’s December, which means sharing celebrations and gifts with friends and family. Unfortunately, it can also mean the generation of lots of trash. According the Environmental Protection Agency Americans throw away 25% more trash between Thanksgiving and New Years. This equates to about a million tons a week! Generating more trash translates into more natural resource consumption on a planet that is already over taxed; and more landfilled trash which means the creation of even more methane gas as organics slowly decompose underground. And what’s the problem with methane? It’s a greenhouse gas 20% more volatile than the other climate choking carbon gases. This is not exactly celebratory news. Nonetheless it is a fact. I’m not going to get all eco-humbuggy and tell you not to celebrate or give gifts. Instead I would like to invite you to green up your Holiday. The goal is to give gifts with the least amount of packaging or none at all and to make purchases that meet the 4R gift giving criteria: returnable, refillable, reusable and recyclable.

The Five Best Gifts You Can Ever Give:

1. Give an Experience
Sharing yourself with another human being is one of the best gifts you can ever give. It cost only your time and does not require any packaging! When my kids were young every year one of my girlfriends would give me a coupon for several nights of babysitting in exchange I would give her use of my washer and dryer on those nights. It seemed like such a small thing but it gave us both so much. Here are some more of my favorites:
• A massage
• Music lessons
• A themed hike (count banana slugs, look for salamanders, find the tallest tree)
• Host an evening fire at the beach
• Share a sport or hobby
• Pet sit or Dog walk
• Clean the house
• Prune trees or Roses
• Wash the car
The list is really endless!
Not sure you have time to share yourself; you can still give the gift of an experience. Numerous places offer certificates to purchase or you can create one with the tickets attached. Just be sure to ask the stores for a paper certificate, one that can be recycled once used. Those little gift cards available everywhere this time of year are really colorful & perky but can’t be recycled once used.
• Movie or concert tickets
• A round of bowling
• A pass to a state park
• A certificate for a massage or hot tubing


2. Give a Plant
Plants give us so much compared to the little care they require. Indoor plants help purify the air, and, of course, all plants absorb carbon from the atmosphere. Growing your own food, even the smallest amount, is one of the healthiest things you can do for yourself and the planet. The average American’s annual carbon footprint is around 20 tons. Each year we would each need to plant about 16 trees to offset this. So give a plant because every little thing we can do counts. Of course the size and type of plant will depend on the recipient. Keep in mind that native plants may also help our friends the bees, which ultimately is a gift to us all.
• Fruit Tree
• Seeds and Pots for a window garden
• Indoor air purifiers such as Philodendrons and Dracaenas
• Herbs
• Bird (and bee) friendly native plant such as a Ceanothus (Wild Lilac) or Epilobium (California Fuchsia)


3. Give a Donation
There a several ways to give a donation. You could give a monetary donation to a non-profit or charitable donation on behalf of the recipient. You could invite the recipient to join you in donating your time as a way to support an organization or project. Wrap presents together for Toys for Tots or take the kids to choose a child from their angel tree and together buy the gift donation. If you choose the later pick a quality long-lasting item that also meets the 4R gift giving criteria listed above.

4. Give Something Yummy to Eat
For most people receiving a little gift of food is a nice extra treat during the holidays as long as the food isn’t too excessively sweet, overly rich, or just plain weird! Reach into your own kitchen cupboard to create a small collection of homemade cookies, fresh baked bread, or the recipe and ingredients for a winter soup, though not extravagant, are all nice gifts. Package these food yummies in mason jars and you have met the reusable criteria of the 4R’s of gift giving.

5. Give a Gift that Keeps on Giving
There are lots of ECO gadgets, gizmos and what-cha-ma-call-it’s of all kinds out there for you to buy, but these items keep giving, by saving resources or reducing air pollution, every time they are used. Therefore, they are some of the best items you can purchase.
• A tire pressure gauge (Keeping up on tire pressure saves fuel and air pollution)
• A Refillable Water Bottle (According to research conducted by the Natural Resource Defense Council production of the plastic for the annual American consumption of disposable water bottles produces about 800,000 tons of global warming pollution per year (the amount produced by 8 power plants, or 140,000 cars).
• A Travel Mug or Reusable Coffee To-Go Cup (North Americans consumes 50 million trees a year for paper cups! Trees are elegant and amazing organisms that deserve better than to be pulped into coffee cups.)
• A Reusable Shopping Bag (There is an array of styles and designs to choose from, practical & pretty. But the bottom line is according to research conducted by the Washington Post the U.S. uses 100 billion plastic bags annually, made from an estimated 12 million barrels of oil. Ouch! That is a serious misuse of a very valuable non-renewable resource).

Now that you have the list, and you are conscious of the 4R’s of gift giving get out there and celebrate an excess free Holiday Season. Through a few thoughtful actions we can ease the environmental burden of our holiday consumption.
Greening up your holiday will make this season a merrier one for the environment and that is news always worth celebrating!