BEAUTYCYCLE those Bottles, Tubes, and Palettes

Did you receive a new eyeshadow palette for the holidays with 2023's hottest new shades, and want to move on from last year's colors? Or are you taking advantage of the new year to clean out your bathroom cupboards for a fresh start? Or perhaps there was that moisturizer you tried that you didn't like, so it just got stale in the back of the drawer?

Beauty products are often super hard to recycle correctly or at all. If you're thinking that your shampoo bottle is entirely plastic, and therefore gets recycled, check again. 

Take a look at both your item's package and review your municipality's rules. Do they limit you to certain markings (ex. #1 and #5 plastic)? Or certain container shapes and sizes (ex. greater than 3" diameter round bottle)? 

You may find that your package isn't just glass or plastic, or it has no recycle marking, or is too small. And if you threw it in the recycling, you were Wishcycling. Or like me: you've given up on anything without a marking and threw it straight in the trash.  

Nordstrom wants to help. They've created BEAUTYCYCLE, a program that involves take back boxes for your empty makeup, hair care, and skin care packages. Then they do the hard work of sorting, cleaning, and separating to make sure the materials get recycled. You'll find these boxes in the beauty departments of Nordstrom stores, and you may also find them at the entrance of your local Nordstrom Rack.

The boxes are labeled with what all they take, so do one last check before depositing your empties in the box. (Yes, please get your containers mostly empty first.)

As examples, this type of eyeshadow palette could go in! (A mix of plastic and metal and too small for traditional recycling.)

Or this small primer tube. (Multi-layer plastic and foil.)

Or even this larger moisturizer pot. (Large enough for standard recycling, but thick multi-layers and no marking.)

They are taking aggressive goals to take back 100 tons by 2025, and per Nordstrom Cares, they've made good progress as of 2021:

Why does it all matter? Because over 120 Billion (yes with a "B") of beauty units are made every year. 

So best possible option? Choose products that come in cardboard packaging; this may mean switching to products like solid shampoo and soap bars. 

Have a favorite brand that you don't want to switch from? Message the company to appeal to them to switch out their packaging. If they don't hear from customers, they don't know if matters to you. We're starting to see more and more brands switch to updated options like "less plastic" and "refillable", and it's because of consumer appetite for better options.

In the interim? Bring your glass, plastic, and metal, and mixed material packages to a Nordstrom near you and BEAUTYCYCLE. Learn more here.

Prime Packaging

Did you do it? Did you cave and go nuts on Prime Day? Does your porch look like this??

Never fear. So did I. And you don't have to fill your recycling bin with all those boxes. And you *can't* fill your recycling bin in most municipalities with bubble envelopes or that plastic pillow padding.

First choice - reuse! One medium sized moving box at U-Haul costs $1.50 and and you'll pay up to $5 for the same size at less economical places like Office Depot, so it's nuts to only get a single use out of them. If you don't have a use yourself, offer them up to a friend, neighbor, or free site.

reuse
Medium-large boxes, plastic and paper filler material are great for moving and seasonal storage! Small boxes and bubble mailers were my biggest surprise that I was able to find neighbors who wanted them, but they're great for people with small businesses or who like to mail gifts.

recycle
Have you heard of Ridwell? Ridwell is a Seattle-area company designed to compliment your regular recycling - with packages as low as $10 per month. They take all sorts of items like batteries, light bulbs, thread, styrofoam and plastic film. Plastic film includes both those padding pillows as well as many plastic packaging wrappers.

Ridwell is doing a free pickup of Amazon packaging 7/22-8/1 to help with Prime Day specifically!

upcycle
I'm still in love with this cat castle.

We'll see if I can get T on board. ;)

Cleaning Up after Christmas

We all have those strings of holiday lights that have finally failed. Or you keep looking for that one bulb that went out and have given up.

The great news is strings of lights can be recycled - the bad news is they can't go in your regular bin. They end up getting deconstructed for their components, like the wire inside.

There are *numerous* programs in the broader Seattle area that take them. Act quick! Some of these are only recycling lights through mid-January.

Seattle
West Seattle Recycling (West Seattle)
Recycling Depot (Georgetown)

Multiple Locations
Ace Hardware
Girl Scouts of Western WA
McLendons Hardware
Recology

South of Seattle
Point Defiance Zoo / NW Trek / Metro Parks Tacoma
Tacoma Recycling Center
University Place Recycling Center
Uptekk

Mail-in Programs
Christmas Light Source - You pay postage but get a 10% coupon for future light purchases. Proceeds from recycling benefits Toys for Tots.
Holiday LEDs - You pay postage but get a 15% coupon for future light purchases.

Sources: 
King Country Solid Waste Division
King 5 News

Shhh... Victoria's Secret is out

I stopped into Vickie's this weekend (bras are one item I won't be thrifting), and was pleasantly surprised to see this sign. You bring in old bras to recycle and get a $10 credit towards a new bra. With the cost of VS bras, this is a decent discount of 15-20%.

VS isn't the only mainstream store trying to reduce the impact of your new purchases. Just a couple other examples:

• H&M will give you a discount voucher for recycling textiles of any brand.
• Madewell will give you $20 off jeans when you bring back old jeans, which they then recycle into housing insulation. 
• The North Face will give you $10 when you donate clothes or shoes of any brand, which the then use for disaster relief or micro-businesses. 

There are more and more programs like this popping up. While we still have too many new clothes and fast fashion items entering the system, this is a great way to participate in recycling, especially for those items that you want to purchase new.

Re-PC: Recyled, Refurbished, and Retro

Electronics recycling can be quite expensive or difficult if you are going through your regular trash service. For example, at my town's recycling events, monitors and TV's aren't accepted, and other electronics incur a standard landfill fee. But many electronics can be refurbished or responsibly broken down into components for scrapping.

Re-PC is an electronics recycler with 2 locations in SoDo and Tukwila, that allows individuals to recycle electronics for free: simply drop off the items you no longer want. If you have a working item that still has value (think: laptops that are only a couple years old), you can sometimes sell them to recoup some costs.

In addition to the recycling, Re-PC is also a store where you can purchase anything from new overstock, to refurbished items that others have traded in, to as-is components.

This is absolutely an awesome option for when you don't need or want to pay for new. T purchased a cheap monitor here for our home security cameras. It was going to be sitting in a closet and used rarely, so why do we need the prettiest or best resolution, latest and greatest?

This store is also great for older models: need tapes for your mini-DV camera?

Or perhaps your new puppy chewed on your remote?

Think of all the options too for kids in STEM, computer science, or robotics classes and clubs. You can buy them all the components they need to build various projects with much less risk. Just a few examples of the components they have. Keyboards for just $2:

CPU's loaded with Windows 10 and at a deep discount:

Motherboards and processors:

Whether you are getting rid of items or shopping, an electronics recycler near you can save you $$$.

Holiday Aftermath

Did your friends and family go nuts this holiday season? Did you end up with a bunch of gift cards that you're getting around to spending?

Did you know that these cards can't go into many curbside recycling programs, but they can in fact be recycled? Most gift cards are made out of PVC (#3 plastic), and if your town is like mine, the recycling program only accepts certain #s of plastic and in certain shapes (like bottles or tubs).

Not only did I have an awesome holiday (I love the "experience" aspect of gift cards) but also, my company likes to give us little gift cards as rewards. So these puppies are stacking up.

Possible options?

1) If you haven't exposed the code on the back, like I have on the cards below, you may as well reload them for gifting to others. If you've exposed the code, skip to option 2. :)

2) Recycle at the store. Some stores will take back their own gift cards for recycling. Otherwise, seek out bins at entrances of stores like Best Buy.

I love Best Buy's recycling station, because not only do they accept gift cards, they also accept other items that seem odd to dispose of: CD jewel cases, toner cartridges, outdated cables, and more.

Happy Spending!

Cell phone ADDICT

I'm a middle-of-the-road cell phone addict. I don't have to have the latest greatest new model the day it's released, but I average about a phone a year anyway, never making it through my 2-year contract, because they make these devices so breakable and drown-able. I won't live without my smart phone either. It covers my phone, news, video game, music, online banking, and other needs, all in one tiny addicting package.

The problem with the phone-a-year culture? The devices are not only expensive, but also contain rare earth elements that contribute to mining-related environmental concerns and a foreign dependency on China. (Note: green technologies like electric cars use these same elements. Understanding the mining concerns makes a good case for closed-loop recycling.)

Unless regulations are changed, or cell phone providers incentivize returning phones when you are done with them, it's up to each of us to make the right choices when we get next year's phone.

Check out my sad collection: 4 phones that were sitting in my nightstand drawer after years of dropping, drowning, or otherwise killing them.

The good news is there are so many convenient options for moving your old phones on. For dead phones like mine, recycling is the answer. Your provider may offer recycling, and if not Best Buy does. Simply walk up to the customer service counter and they'll take them from you. The rare earth elements can then be reused for future devices.

While you're there, Best Buy also has recycling stations right at the front entrance. Do you have a collection of old jewel cases from back when we burned CDs instead of using flash drives? They can take them! Have a stash of old cables from older phones and devices? They can take those too! And... did you know used up gift cards can be recycled too? They typically aren't accepted in your home recycling can, so in the bin at Best Buy they go.

For working phones, keep one as a backup in case your new phone meets a horrible fate, but there's no need to hold on to more than one. Donate with your carrier or through a non-profit. Some use the actual phones, and some use the proceeds from recycling. Here are just a few:

• Cell Phones for Soldiers - your phones are sold to recyclers or refurbishers and the proceeds go to the troops for calling home
• Hope Line through Verizon - both phones and grants aid domestic violence survivors
• Secure the Call - provides 911-only phones to seniors and domestic violence survivors
• Eco-cell - recommended recycler by many zoos, due to mining impact on gorilla habitat
• Phones4Charity - choose your charity of choice to benefit from your donation

So, come on folks, this is your first spring cleaning task of the year: dig out your old phones that are just sitting in your desk drawer or closet, and drop 'em off at your local electronics store, cell phone carrier, women's shelter, or charity.

Is 3-D printing and knitting the next thing in recycling?

Popular Science just shared this video of this cool family's project:



The video's just a minute long, but if you need to visit it later: the family collects wasted plastic, breaks it down, and extrudes it (pushes it into a thin spaghetti like line) that the children wind into basket shapes. This is a similar process to the 3D doodlers you may have seen as craft toys to build little sculptures.

If you want to support these kids in their awesome upcycling, bookmark their website. It looks like they are still working on getting their baskets up for sale. Still, kudos for exploring the technology and coming up with several basket designs!

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Using a bit of a different method, the Rothy's shoe uses 3-D knitting. A while back a few different people pointed me to this shoe:

What's cool about this shoe and the process is, these are made out of recycled water bottles, which are broken down into super fine threads, then machine knit into a variety of patterns. At $125, these are a splurge for ballet flats, but I'm super intrigued by the upcycling, the technology, and the promise that they are "soft like a sock". Who knew water bottles could be made soft? I may just need to take the plunge and try these as my spring flats.

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From the more crafty to the more high-tech, melting down and reforming plastics into new objects could be a win. I can't wait to see other methods and technologies like this emerge.

Upcycle and Reuse: Shopping Bag Art

With the holidays full ablaze, the shopping bags are especially festive. I first noticed the awesome design for Nordstrom as giant wood cutouts in their window displays. Obviously, I couldn't con them into giving me a giant deer post-holidays, nor would T be super excited to have a giant deer in our home.

Fortunately, I later saw shoppers with the same design on the shopping bags. Problem solved: I've been needing some sweaters anyway. Let's go shopping!

Now that I've acquired the bag (and technically free!!), it's time to figure out what to do with it. 

On to Lifelong Thrift. I write about Goodwill a lot because I happen to have 3 great locations in my work, home, and play areas, but there are so many other wonderful thrift stores. 

We LOVE Lifelong Thrift because they not only have great selection, but they also support a great cause. The proceeds go to Lifelong AIDS Alliance, who provides services to those with HIV/AIDS. 

I headed to Lifelong Thrift and found two picture frames for just $3 each! Spend a few minutes cutting the graphics out of the shopping bag, put the cutouts into the frames, and voila: some fun seasonal art for your home.

Spotlight: TerraCycle

So we all know how to recycle soda cans and junk mail. But what about that odd trash? Like the wrapper from your protein bar, or the empty glass container from your holiday candle? I wouldn't even think twice about throwing these away. 

Well, there's a company that's here to change all that: Introducing TerraCycle. Started by a then college-student in 2001, Tom Szaky, TerraCycle is now an award-winning company doing business in 20+ countries. The goal is eliminate hard-to-recycle waste through recycling, upcycling, etc. 

They have a few different models of doing business, from partnering with municipalities, to installing recycling boxes in businesses, to providing outlets for individual participation. 

For individuals, you want to look at their "brigades". These are partnerships with specific brands to get their waste returned to them. From your perspective, you can either drop if off at the store when you buy more or print a free shipping label to ship it to the manufacture.

Here are just a few examples of the current Brigades:

• Bausch + Lomb contacts - send in your used contacts and the plastic packaging. Especially big if you use daily disposables!
• Yankee Candle - bring in 5 empties to the store, and get $5 off your next candle. 
• GoGo Squeez - send in your pouches and caps, and you also accumulate points to donate to a favorite non-profit or school.
• Nespresso pods - bring your empties to a Sur la Table store and they promise to make you a coffee drink as a thank you!

And here are just a few examples of the impact they are making (in # of units recycled): 

• Larabar wrappers: 7,507,287
• Brita filters: 33,159
• Capri Sun pouches: 216,792,671
• Writing instruments: 2,882,877

What an awesome amount of waste diverted from the landfill! TerraCycle is regularly adding more partnerships, so sign up for any products you regularly use, and check back periodically for more brigades. 

Upcycle: DIY Corks

Have you been collecting your corks like I have, in the hopes of one day doing a Pinterest project with them? Crack out those glue guns! I finally got around to making some trivets, and they are going to make my holiday table much more festive.

All you need is: 

• a few dozen corks, wine or sparkling wine types both work. 
• saw (optional)
• a hot glue gun
• decorative ribbon in your favorite colors

For my trivets, I cut the regular wine corks down, so I could have a few different trivets of varying heights. This also helped with evening out the heights of the corks, since not all corks are the same size. 

Once you have enough corks of similar size gathered, simply glue them together. (The champagne corks are a little less stable, since they have a curvy edge, so I'm gluing a felt base on for added strength.) Then glue a band of ribbon around the trivet as a finishing touch. Viola - they are now ready to rest your pots and pans on!

Not finding a project you want to do, or just not feeling crafty? Both synthetic and natural corks are recyclable. When you go to buy your next bottle of wine, your liquor store or wine shop of choice may have a collection bin. Total Wine's look like this, located right at the store entrance.

What's wrong with this spoon?

If your office is of any decent size, they have likely made the switch to compostable disposable utensils. How can you tell? Well, besides the color being beige or brown instead of black or white, really how we all know is when your "plastic" spoon looks like the clocks in a Salvador Dali painting after you stir your soup.

Now that we've identified we have compostable flatware, we need to make the fragility worth it. Most compostable kitchen products need to go through a commercial composting process. If they're thrown in the regular trash, you may as well have used a regular plastic spoon, as they won't break down much quicker than plastic in the landfill.

So, here comes my lazy girl problem: I'm not going to walk to the kitchen to grab a utensil, bring it back to my desk to eat, then walk back to the kitchen to sort my trash. Not when there's a garbage can right under my desk.

Enter: any paper shopping bag. I simply dump my forks and spoons in there after lunch. Then periodically, I can bring it with me to the kitchen and empty it. If the bag gets soiled, or I'm not heading back to my desk, it can get composted too. 

Effort level? Minimal. 

Spotlight: The Crayon Initiative

After I learned about Clean the World (see my earlier post), I became interested in companies that had identified a waste source and found a way to recycle that waste to be repurposed for a humanitarian cause.

Shortly after, I came across this article, and became enamored with The Crayon Initiative. The Crayon Initiative was started in 2011 by Bryan Ware. A father who frequented restaurants where his children were given crayons, he wondered what happened to the crayons if they were left on the table. He learned that they were usually thrown away, and wanted to prevent all the wax from entering the waste stream - after all, wax is long-lasting and won't break down in the landfills. Enter: The Crayon Initiative, where crayon remnants are melted down and reformed into new crayons. These crayons are donated to children's hospitals to keep kids learning and active and feeling like a "normal" kid amidst their illness or trauma. Another cool thing? The molds Bryan uses makes the new crayons "thicker and easier to grasp for young children and kids with special needs."

Want to get involved? Volunteers are needed in San Francisco, you can collect your own broken crayons to send in, or recommend a school or restaurant near you start a collection.

Connect:
http://thecrayoninitiative.org/
https://www.facebook.com/thecrayoninitiative

Oceans: Part 1, Plastic in our Food

We're starting to see more and more stories of our marine life dying with stomachs full of human trash:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/03/160331-car-parts-plastics-dead-whales-germany-animals/
http://awesomeocean.com/2016/01/05/youll-be-horrified-at-what-was-found-in-dead-whales-stomach/

While learning that our ocean giants are being harmed by us is devastating, it was also hard for me to understand my role. After all, I'm not dumping my old shoes and car parts in the ocean...

Here's what made it really sink in for me:
Our fish and seafood are now filled with plastic. Foods I considered to be healthy proteins, filled with Omega-3s etc, are filled with plastic.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/aug/31/fish-plastic-pollution-ocean-environment-seafood
http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/health/case_studies/plastics.html
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/12/12/250438904/how-plastic-in-the-ocean-is-contaminating-your-seafood

When you are trying to eat healthy and can't trust your food sources, you start feeling a bit helpless. Here are a couple things we can do to contribute on a daily basis:

• Purchase beauty products without microbeads. While those little beads don't seem like much, multiply it by millions of people, and it adds up. As of summer 2017, the US is banning production of microbeads in many products, but you can start now!
• Purchase clothing made from natural fibers. When you wash your polyester shirts and microfiber fleece jackets, the "lint" that washes down the drain is plastic fibers. Who knew!

Want to make a bigger impact?

The Ocean Conservancy has many tips, tricks, and tools on their website, as well sign-ups for an beach cleanup volunteer project near you.

Spotlight: Clean the World

A couple years ago, I'm on vacation in a hotel, and I'm thinking "Do I take the soaps home or not?" This seems to be a common dilemma: Is taking things from the room that you didn't use OK? Ross from Friends goes hilariously overboard on this very topic.

What I came to was: the hotel staff are going to replace the toiletries for the next guest, so yes, it's cool to take them. But I wondered, what happens to partially-used toiletries left in the room? That's a lot of soap and a lot of plastic. There must be a way to repurpose those.

Well, of course, someone had already thought of that, and was already handling it in the best way possible.

Introducing: Clean the World. Clean the World is a non-profit that was started in 2009 by Shawn Seipler, a traveling business man who also questioned what happened with barely-used soap bars in hotels. From this question came a company that takes these leftovers from the hospitality industry, remanufactures them, and distributes them to homeless shelters and 3rd world countries to prevent disease.

What's most impressive is this current stat on their site:

CLEAN THE WORLD HAS DISTRIBUTED MORE THAN 30 MILLION BARS OF SOAP TO 100 COUNTRIES.

Want to get involved? If you are in Las Vegas or Orlando, you can volunteer in two hour increments. Or, if you work in the hospitality industry, see if you are already partnering with them. 

Get connected: 

https://cleantheworld.org/

https://www.facebook.com/CleanTheWorld/