Recyclable materials include many kinds of glass, paper, metal, plastic, textiles, and electronics. Aluminum (e.g., cell phones and computers). Although similar in effect, the composting or other reuse of biodegradable waste – such as food or garden waste – is not typically considered recycling. Materials to be recycled are either brought to a collection center or picked up from the curbside, then sorted, cleaned, and reprocessed into new materials bound for manufacturing.

In a strict sense, recycling of a material would produce a fresh supply of the same material, for example used office paper to more office paper, or used foamed polystyrene to more polystyrene. However, this is often difficult or too expensive (compared with producing the same product from raw materials or other sources), so “recycling” of many products or materials involves their reuse in producing different materials (e.g., cardboard) instead. Another form of recycling is the salvage of certain materials from complex products, either due to their intrinsic value (e.g., lead from car batteries, or gold from computer components), or due to their hazardous nature (e.g., removal and reuse of mercury from various items).

The Green Trash Can is a small group of Oceanographers, Biologists and Environmental Researchers, all with a driving focus of promoting global recycling, sustainable living and developing a GREENER planet. To learn how you can help the environment, or to join their team, visit http://www.greentrashcan.com/

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FSC Certification

Any product made of pulp or paper has the potential to be certified as long as the wood used in the product originates from FSC-certified sources. Wood is an important material for all paper manufacturers. The FSC certification system allows these professionals to know they are doing the right thing, and taking business away from other companies that may still be supporting illegal, unsustainable, unverified logging activities. The intent of the FSC system is to shift the market to eliminate habitat destruction, water pollution, displacement of indigenous peoples and violence against people and wildlife that often accompanies logging.

Just like other forest products, in order to use the FSC logo as an “environmental claim” on paper, the product must have flowed through the FSC “chain-of-custody” from the FSC-certified forest, to a paper manufacturer, merchant, and finally printer who have FSC chain-of-custody certification. To learn more about certification, click here: http://www.fscus.org/faqs/what_is_certification.php

Please note: in order to use any FSC trademarks, including the FSC logo, initials “FSC”, or phrase “Forest Stewardship Council” on a printed piece, the printer must have chain-of-custody certification. Without this certification, no claims can be printed regarding the FSC-certified content of the paper.

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Just as an example, the automobile has allowed us to get more done in a shorter amount of time, with less effort. Our trucks can move massive amounts of goods that could never be achieved with the horse and cart. The problem lies in not only the types of non-essential goods being shipped around the place; but also non-essential transport generally; e.g. driving a couple of miles to pick up some milk – and nothing else; or just driving around for the sake of it.

In your home, it’s these human attributes that can become very frustrating when trying to green your family; but bearing in mind these leanings, you can work around them to achieve a desired result.

The following are some ideas you can try – it’s by no means an exhaustive list, but just perhaps another perspective so you can come up with even more strategies specific to your family.

Educate – gently

People don’t like to be told what to do without knowing why they are having to do it. Understanding is the key to aquiescence. Telling your family they should turn off the lights when leaving a room as it’s the environmentally friendly thing to do probably won’t cut it.

Use family times such as dinner to outline the logic behind switching off lights, for example “sure, it only costs a few cents to leave a light on, but it all adds up and much of our electricity comes from the burning of coal, which generates pollution and other damage through mining”.

Your sales pitch for environmentally practice needs to be geared to your audience; whether it’s your partner or children. Probably one of the most important issues to get around is the “but it’s such a small thing” attitude.

The best way to approach this is to get them to understand that millions of people doing little things really does make a difference; either for the better or for the worse.

Softly, softly catchee monkee

With your green awakening, it’s possible you’ll awaken the evangelist within you. It can be an exciting time, but it doesn’t necessarily follow that your family will feel the same level of excitement.

A barrage of green “thou shalts” will probably meet with eye rolling and resistance as it will seem like a lot of hard work; so focus on one change at a time. It may seem like progress is excruciatingly slow; but even 1 change a month is 12 changes a year.

Visual reminders

Laziness doesn’t mean just physical laziness – it also refers to mental processes as well. Additionally, we are bombarded with so much information each day, it can be hard to establish new environmentally friendly habits. This is where visual cues come in.

Some people go as far as putting up post-it notes around the place to remind their family members to switch off lights etc.; but something I learned as a manager in the fast food industry is that too many signs have the opposite effect – people just start to ignore them or become blind to them.

More effective visual cues are ones that actually perform a function rather than issue an instruction.

For example, lets say you want your family to start cutting down on the amount of water being used for showers to 4 minutes maximum. The shower in a home is like a wormhole in space – time becomes a very flexible thing. I know that I often zone out in the shower and what seems like seconds can actually be minutes .

Instead of trying to get your family members to accurately gauge the time they spend in the shower, spend a couple of dollars on a shower timer. There are digital models available, but the one we use is basically just an egg timer on a suction cup. By placing this next to the hot water control in your shower, all it requires is a flick of the wrist to get the timer working.

Location, location, location

If you’re wanting your family members to change a certain aspect of their behavior to be more environmentally friendly, make it easier for them to do so.

The kitchen bin tends to become a receptacle for everything – real garbage, recyclables and items that can be composted. If your recycling bin and compost heap is at the other end of the yard, chances are your family will be resistant to using them. It’s back to the laziness issue.

To encourage the proper separation of garbage, have different bins in the kitchen. If you don’t have room for 3 bins, then having a benchtop tidy for food scraps works pretty well and just a corner of the bench for recyclables will also work.

The location rule also applies to a lot of other cleaning type activities you’d like to see your family participate more in. Keep a full ranging of cleaning tools and green cleaners under the kitchen sink as the kitchen is the area most likely to be where a mess is made.

Getting organized

If you’ve ever done the weekly shopping and then heard the familiar “we’re out of X!” a few hours later; you’ll understand how frustrating this can be if it happens year in, year out. Often another trip will need to be made just to get product X.

There’s a couple of things you can do.

The first is to have a notepad or whiteboard in the kitchen where your family can add items to it as they use the last of them. Make whatever you used is firmly attached to something so it doesn’t wind up in other rooms of the house or the pen mysteriously disappears as they have a tendency to do.

Even the recording of items needed next shopping day can be a hit and miss affair; so buy in bulk those (essential) items you’ll know will get used before their expiry date is up and then maintain a minimum level. This is also a good approach for disaster preparedness.

Covert operations and the subtle switcheroo

As mentioned, change often needs to be a gradual thing. If on your next shopping trip you come back with an earth friendly version of everything; there may be a rebellion.

This can also apply to meals. Reducing meat consumption is a major positive step in cutting your family’s environmental impact – but by reducing portions of meat, it needs to be replaced with something else. If you replace it with more of a vegetable that no-one particularly likes; you’ll hit problems.

Meat eaters usually eat meat because they like the taste; so you can try experimenting with mock meat to see if you find a brand that hits the spot. There’s certainly a far better range of mock meat products available today than even just a few years ago.

Sometimes it also helps to hide greener food items in something else while tastes adjust. For example, I always ate white rice and despised brown rice. But when the brown rice had some type of sauce with it; then I didn’t mind it. After a while, my tastes switched and now I’m a brown rice fan – even without a sauce to mask it.

You can also start making the switch in other consumables around the home too. Start of with something like toilet paper and then make other gradual changes and talk about the changes as you make them; the logic behind it. While these items may cost a little more, bear in mind the other savings you’ll be making through having a greener family, such as reduced energy and fuel costs.

While on the topic of energy – substantial savings can be made by being a little sneaky when it comes to heating and cooling. Try turning down the thermostat on your heater and hot water service a little and see if it meets with any complaint. If no-one says anything, try a little more until such time the groaning begins; then backtrack a little. The same sort of approach can be taken with your summer air conditioning.

Make it fun, offer green rewards

Humans learn better through a reward system than punishment.. well, most of us anyway. While I’m a little old school in feeling that children shouldn’t receive special rewards for something they have been instructed to do by their parents in terms of day to day living; there can be some value in using positive reinforcement for issues that are challenging; particularly with younger children.

What is important is the nature of the reward.

For example, rewarding your children for remembering to turn off lights by giving them junk food somewhat defeats the purpose of the exercise. Make the reward more relevant to what they’ve done in an environmental sense. For example, perhaps taking them to a green festival or park and letting them know how their own efforts are reflected in the place you go to. It just gives an added sense of purpose to their positive actions.

Article from http://www.greenlivingtips.com

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For decades, companies have been using direct mail to effectively reach prospects and customers. According to the Direct Marketing Association, over 50% of advertising expenditures now go into direct marketing. When you plan your next direct mail campaign, consider these practices aimed to help the environment:

• Eliminate undeliverable mail by maintaining an updated mailing list. Taking the time to ensure that you have the right contact person with valid address information helps eliminate waste and resource consumption incurred in paper, production, and transportation and recycling of undeliverable mail.
• Target more effectively. Understanding more about your prospects and customers will help you better target your mailings for greater response. Targeting also helps minimize waste by ensuring what you mail is “wanted” mail by the recipient.
• Consolidate your mailings. Rather than mailing several times a week or month to the same addressee, practice “householding”—combining multiple communications into a single envelope. This practice saves on CO2 emissions, paper and transportation.
• Employ the expertise of mailing services professionals on your next campaign.  A provider who is well versed in direct marketing and mailing services can not only improve your campaign effectiveness, but reduce the impact on the environment as well. Whether it is through the use of recycled paper and soy-based inks or by web-based business reply methods, the experts can really help.

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