One of the most visible representations of our society’s “going green” is the Compact Fluorescent Lightbulb, or CFL. Those are the curly-shaped lightbulbs, if you didn’t know the phrase.

I just wanted to put out a call to everyone to treat these carefully. They are wonderful products, but they do contain a small amount of mercury, one of the more toxic heavy metals.

Once they burn out, please dispose of them properly. How?

1. Handle With Care. Once broken, the mercury is free to enter the environment. So, don’t do that.

2. Take them to a place specifically designed to recycle them. All Home Depot stores are equipped with a special container and procedure for recycling CFLs, and the Depot does not charge for this service. I give them huge props for doing this.

3. If a CFL breaks, do your best to clean the site thoroughly. The US EPA has a nice fact sheet with details and precautions.

The bottom line is, Handle With Care.

I recycle at home and I recycle at work. I try to keep as much out of the landfill as possible but sometimes its just not possible. Take for instance your personal and financial papers. You could buy a shredder and spend the next week or two loading three sheets at time or you could use a professional shredding service.

Companies contract with these shredding services to pickup your sensitive papers on a regular schedule and have them securely disposed of. Great if your a large company. Not so great if you only need to dispose of papers once in awhile.

The United Cerebral Palsy of Greater Birmingham (UCP) has entered the document shredding market as a way to employ people with severe disabilities. The used to have a silk screen division that I would use and local printers use their Outsource Solutions to handle fulfillment and collating. The company is called Gone For Good: Secure Document Destruction.

I talked with Skip Taylor this morning at UCP about taking care of a few boxes for me and he said they would be happy to do it for me and for anyone else who needed their services. I didn’t get a chance to ask Skip if the papers will be recycled or sent to a landfill but I am going to turn an eye just because of the great things UCP does.

Here’s the details. They are located at 120 Oslo Circle in Birmingham are open from 9-11 and 1-3:30 and they will take your few boxes free of charge. You can contact them at 205-943-5252.

They will give you a donation card (or they should) and you should feel obligated to make a donation. If you don’t feel you can make a donation then you should probably take you papers to a non-secure location like the one run by the Alabama Environmental Council.

The UCP of Greater Birmingham is a fantastic program that needs our help so take advantage of their services.

Stopped by the Vestavia Library yesterday. On their Featured Books shelf, close to the main counter, is a whole collection of “Green” books. I was pleased to see them out in front, instead of buried in their respective sections. The books hit on greening home and work, “How To” books for families, some philosophical books on why we should reduce our impacts, and even one on more environmentally-friendly lawn care.

“The End of Nature” by Bill McKibben was there, too. It may be a tough sell in that neighborhood.

All this is part of the continued messaging coming out of our future “Library in the Forest.” I’m glad they’re continuing to put these issues front and center in more and more places. Hopefully, residents will come to see environmental responsibility as less threatening and less “radical left fringe”, and come to understand it as something that we all benefit from, individually and collectively, and as a City.

Tonight’s “60 Minutes” showed a compelling piece on how the good intentions of ‘green-minded’ modern society can be perverted for a price. Electronic waste from the USA is being ‘recycled’ in backwater China, under conditions that we hear about but rarely see. The story is not new, but these details are.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4586903n

In a toxic twist, China is having to build more incinerators to handle its fast-growing mountain of trash, including waste imported from more developed countries (read: United States). Emissions from those incinerators will ultimately impact our health right here in North America.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/12/business/energy-environment/12incinerate.html

So, what is the well-intentioned recycler to do? Ask questions, and consult the watchdogs. As the “60 Minutes” piece shows, trusting the vendor alone may not be enough.

On a more positive note, the City of Vestavia Hills is hosting its first-ever “E-Cycling Day” on September 19*, in partnership with Advanced Disposal and Technical Knockout. Technical Knockout, which specializes locally in recycling electronic waste, has an excellent record, and has received good reports from groups such as the Alabama Environmental Council.

*Very Important: September 19 is also National Talk Like A Pirate Day (thank you Dave Barry).

I just read an article about a company with an exciting product. The company is Concrete Repeat and is a division of Southern Benchmark. The owner of the company didn’t want to pay to have some old concrete sent to the landfill so he pilled it up at his home. His wife suggested that he use that material in his business and Concrete Repeat was born.

Clean concrete is resized and turned into segmented wall systems for home and business. The walls look good, are green and save the customer money. This is yet another example of a company that took waste from their business, saved money by not sending to a landfill and in the case of Concrete Repeat made money by repurposing the waste.

Is there something you could be doing in your business that will save you money and give you another product? Keep looking, it may be as close as your waste stream.

Everyone needs a small win every now and then. It is what keeps us on track when we diet, get in shape, stop smoking or going green. Something that helps us gain confidence for the big fight. I had one of those small wins today.

We have been discussing vampire power at work this week. Vampire power is the power that is being used by those power blocks that are part of the power cord. Even if your electronic device is off the block keeps sucking away the power, costing you money.

Some of these blocks are unavoidable. I found a way to decrease the amount I was using. I upgraded.

Follow me here. I had a home wireless network of a cable modem, one hub, and three apple airports to keep two computers and three iphones connected to the outside world. I needed all this just to penetrate the fortress that are my homes walls. This equipment was as much as 10 years old and inefficient.

I replaced this with one wireless cable modem that covered the whole house. I added an airport express to give my desktop computer wireless access. The rest went away.

Lets do the math. The modem cost me about $130 but I was paying $5 a month to the cable company to rent their basic modem. That will pay for itself in time. I still have two bricks plugged in but I was able to get rid of three others. How much is this saving me? I’m not real sure and I’m not real concerned. It has got me thinking of what else I could do around the house and the office to save myself some money. Each small win is going to build on each other.

Take some time to look around the house and the office and see what you can do. Are there some upgrades in technology you can make? Can you put all the “bricks” on a power strip and turn the strip off each night? Find your small win and keep finding them. If we all do it, it will make a difference in all our lives and keep those vampires away.

As with any new business or habit it all starts with the first step. And sometimes it is hard to figure out what that first step should be. Going green is the same way. We want to hit the ground running and make a big impression on our bottom line, on our community and the world. But what to do first? I am here to tell you…

Buy a blue bucket.

Simple, sure. Effective, yes!

Place the bucket next to your garbage can as a reminder to recycle and use it. You can do this at work and at home. And while you are at it place recycling bins in each office and common area. The blue bucket will be a visual cue to everyone to recycle and in a short amount of time you will develop a habit that will send you to the next level.

ReSolutions sponsored our first ever Linens & Towels drive this past Saturday. We setup the drop-off in the Trinity UMC parking lot and received used towels, pillows, comforters and many other household items. I was very pleased with the diverse group of people who responded to our call. We kept our marketing effort low key to keep from being inundated during our first event but we still had donors come from areas we did not expect. I also received calls state-wide from people who wanted to get involved.

The drive may be over but not the need. We are still accepting linens and towels and we are already planning our next drive for later this summer. The Community Furniture Bank is also accepting furniture and household items.

Thanks to all those who gave, who passed along information and supported our drive.

UPDATE: After assessing the donations we are happy to announce that we received 61 bags of various sizes that will help 50 families.

Shawn

Imagine that you had a place to live but you couldn’t afford furniture to sit and eat on, beds to sleep on and basic kitchen utensils and appliance to prepare food with? Many families in Alabama go are living this way.

And what if you where getting your life back together and the only way you can rent an apartment and get your family back together would be to furnish it? What if you had no means? That is what the Community Furniture Bank is doing for families across north central Alabama.

On Saturday, March 7 from 9-12, ReSolutions LLC is hosting a Linens & Towels Drive to help the Community Furniture Bank fulfill their mission. The drop off location is at the corner of Oxmoor Road and Dale Street in Homewood. This is in the parking lot of Trinity United Methodist Church.

Do you have old sheets and towels from your parents’ house, from a no-longer-used guest room or some that no longer match your decor but you just can’t seem to throw them out? Bring those clean, used towels and linens and donate them to help families set up new homes. You will be helping others and you will be recycling.

About the Community Furniture Bank

Many families in Alabama are currently living with no furniture or other basic household items. They sleep on bare floors, and eat there too. Without pots and pans and basic kitchen utensils, they have no means of food preparation. The Community Furniture Bank, with your donations, can help.

The Community Furniture Bank is a non-profit organization that specializes in the pickup, storage, and delivery of donated furniture, appliances, and other household goods. Donated items are transferred directly into the homes of those in need, as opposed to being sold in the open market.

Contact:
The Community Furniture Bank
(205) 942-2727
chris@communityfurniturebank.org
www.communityfurniturebank.org

In my family we like the sarcastic and funny greeting cards much more than those sappy ones. I prefer blank cards that I can write my own message than a serious card.

As with most holidays my family and I exchanged some pretty funny valentines cards this year. But this year was different. It hit me that the lifecycle of these cards is just a day or two and then they are sent to the recycle bin or worse, the landfill.

There’s got to be a better way. My wife and I have discussed recycling cards from past years or I could follow my 6 year olds lead and make a card. Whatever we do I think we can find something better. The cards may leave our holidays but I am sure the sarcasm will stay.