Enable REUSE

When you think about the issue of reuse, most of us already feel comfortable with the concept as it applies to large scale items:  we trade in our cars (and it's common to buy a used car) and we buy used homes.   However, many of the things we throw away also could be used by someone else; especially unwanted clothes, furniture, household appliances & decorative items.  Just some of the possible outlets for such items are Craigslist, freecycle, Habitat for Humanity, as well as resale, consignment and antique shops.  A friend of mine, after moving, didn't want to bother recycling all the moving boxes so she placed a "free moving boxes" ad on Craigslist and a most appreciative, single mom came and picked them up.  Another friend found a gorgeous china cabinet at our local Habitat for Humanity Re-store (102 Iron Mountain Rd., Mine Hill, NJ).

Many of the disposable products do have reusable alternatives.

One way to reuse old sneakers is a great program I just learned about called Reuse-a-Shoe, started by Nike in 1993, where worn-out athletic shoes of any brand are collected, processed and recycled into material used in sports surfaces.  Patagonia is another company that is big on collecting and reusing resources.  Since 1993, they adopted fleece into their produce line made from post consumer recycled plastic soda bottles and now collect their Capilene, Patagonia fleece, Polartec fleece clothing (from any maker) and Patagonia organic cotton t-shirts for recycling.  Sony, Apple, Dell, and HP  also have take-back programs.    Sylvania has a $15 recycling kit that you can order; you can fill it with up to 15 CFLs and drop it off, at no additional charge, at FedEx Kinkos or the post office.  Similarly, Office Depot offers a $5, $10, or $15 box to fill with old electronics that you can return to the store for recycling.

It doesn't stop there!  Most carpeting is a petroleum-based product and carpet recycling can save 700,000 barrels of oil a year and 4.4 TRILLION BTUs.  FLOR is a company that offers really cool carpet squares, some of which have recycled content.  CarpetCycle is a company that will take your old carpet for recycling.  You can drop off your carpet to them (it's in Elizabeth, just past the airport), or for folks within 1 hour of Newark (like us), they offer a removal service.

You probably already know that eyeglasses can be collected and reused for the Give the Gift of Sight organization.  Collection boxes are available at LensCrafters, Pearle Vision, Target Optical, BJ's Optical, Sears Optical and Sunglass Hut stores or participating doctor's offices.  Cell Phones can also be reused for charity.  There was a collection box right at the store when I got my new phone.

There is so much more....I could go on and on.  I'm finding that, when I don't know how to dispose of something, I simply do a web search and find all kinds of alternatives.  We can do this!