Recycling - made easy 
(optimum waste-loss;)

1. General Recycling in your home

2. How to deal with PLASTIC

There are different types of plastic. 
Not all of these go in your regular recycling offered by your city/town. 
LOOK AT THE BOTTOM, FIND THE TRIANGLE - what number do you see? 

# 1 & 2  
CAN be rinsed and put in the regular plastic recycling. (yippee!)

# 3, 4, 6, 7, 8 etc... 
CANNOT be recycled. This should be illegal, but it's not. 
this includes soft plastic, like plastic bags etc..
which is why we need to bring bags to the store when we shop, and choose not to buy products that use these plastics. (Styrofoam and Starbucks' Coffee Lids)

# Gimme 5 !
HERES THE GOOD NEWS:
Now, you CAN recycle #5's 
Thanks to Preserve Products, not only is it recycled, but you can also purchase the products they make from the plastic! 
- And they're truly GREAT Products!
 ! Rinse & bring your #5's to Whole Foods !

3. Composting / Food Scrap Recycling

4. WasteLess: Donate, Sell, Buy Used

  • Give away things you don't need to those who do (schools, hospitals etc)
  • Use E-bay, Amazon, Craigslist etc.. to buy and sell used items
  • Shop at thrift-stores and second hand stores
  • When you purchase NEW things, be sure that you actually NEED it, and will USE it. Then also see if you can choose something that is one or more of these:  fair trade, non-toxic, not tested on animals, made local or for an idealistic purpose, organic, non-GMO, made from recycled materials, made from reused materials, profit goes to a good cause etc...
Visit NYCWasteLess for some more tips

5. Little Tricks to achieve optimum Waste-Loss

Use much less of everything
If you're emptying bottles of shampoo, detergent, packs of printing paper etc faster than you can say Recyclables, then don't despair, the solution is here!
Just use less!... haha... I know, it sounds terrible. But it's actually a simple and very easy thing to do. Here are some examples:

1. Keep a little box for pieces of paper - The "POST IT BOX"
- When you have papers with blank back-sides, keep these for when you print out stuff for yourself, like receipts, tickets, bookings, google maps,  info etc..
- But if the paper is torn, or it's a smaller size paper, just rip it in even smaller bits, and put them in a little box or fancy envelope/folder. Now you've just created your very own POST IT NOTE BOX!
These are perfect for shopping lists, reminders for this and that, love notes etc 

2. SHAMPOO - the oil'n dirt evoker 
I normally don't use shampoo - and if I do, it's very modest, and very seldom. Why!? Because the shampoo itself is a waste and it comes in plastic bottles as well. After a while your hair will go back to it's natural state where it no longer has to over-produce oil (because of all the soap we use). It's actually healthier too! If this is too gross, then just find a shampoo that is more concentrated, and that has less harmful chemicals.

3. LAUNDRY DETERGENT - the unnecessary perfume 
I also don't use detergent - we have machines for God's sake! In the old days they had NO laundromat, only cold water from the creek, maybe some mud or clay, or whatever would give a bit of a scrub. This is how the King's sheets were washed... with clay. I always have clean clothes when washing without any soap, even with cold water! If it's really really dirty, I use 1 tsp Dr. Bronner. 
The sad part is that most people use SO MUCH detergent, that when I wash my clothing at the laundromat, there is so much residue from the previous user, that my clothes will still smell like detergent, even when i don't use any. That means most people over-use detergent like Crazy!

 

ELECTRONICS

Trusted RECYCLERS of Electronic Equipment & Computers:
http://www.4thbin.com/

INFO on electronic recycling in general, articles, posts etc...
http://www.ban.org/

RE-USING COMPUTERS (that work. A beautiful program)
http://www.worldcomputerexchange.org/what-we-do