Reuse-day Tuesday, 3 Ring Binders, Plastic-ware and Coffee Grounds

Thanks for visiting Twilight Earth for your Reuse-day Tuesday news for December 2nd,2008. Reuse-day Tuesdays are set aside to highlight the often forgotten sibling of the Recycle, Reduce and Reuse Triplets. This week, 3 ring binders, plastic-ware and coffee grounds.

Plastic-ware: This has always bothered me, and about a year ago I started bringing home the plastic-ware that I was using at work for lunch. The stuff in indestructible and can be washed in the dishwasher. I now have a collection of plastic-ware that almost rivals my silver-ware. My point? Please reuse your plastic-ware, and when you get to the point when you have just enough, stop using the virgin stuff. I’m waiting for the day when technology catches up and plastic-ware can be recycled. Even if it takes to the end of my life, I’m sure I’ll still be using the same Sporks.

http://www.atelier-v.ch/umdenken/sites/22.html

Lever Arch Files and Ring-binders:

I found this idea on a great website called Recycle This. What Recycle This does is pose the question, like “how would you recycle this?” Commenter’s then write in with their suggestions. Here are a few.

• Are we talking about binders? Give them to schools, or use them for scrap-booking or something.
• You can use a part of the binder as a hanger for your towel. As illustrated on the website of Atelier-V in their book Umdenken.http://www.atelier-v.ch/umdenken/sites/22.html
• We have launched the worlds first stationery recycling program for ring binders and lever arch files, whereby we separate the component materials and re-use or recycle each of them, check out our website. www.stationeryrecycling.com

I know this is a problem for me. I have about a dozen of these binders that just take up room. I think my wife and saved them from the landfill, at work over the years. The Stationery Recycling.com is an ingenious idea, but they are in the U.K. Does anyone know of anything like this in the States?

Coffee Grounds:

This isn’t so much a land fill issue, as it is a “There is so much more I can do with it” issue. Personally, I use them for composting, and perking up the house plants. Coffee Grounds are like cocaine for plants, and I’ve revived many a dying houseplant with them.

1. Soften and add shine to hair. When washing your hair, rub coffee grounds through wet hair and rinse. For brown hair, coffee grounds add highlights.
2. Fertilize plants. Old coffee grounds are nutrient-rich for plants that thrive in an acidic soil.
3. Add used coffee grounds to the pots of indoor plants.
4. Work used coffee grounds into your garden soil before seed planting. After your plants start to emerge, work in coffee grounds near the plants. Used coffee grounds are said to repel snails and slugs as well as adding nutrients to the soil.
5. Use coffee grounds to repel ants.
6. Keep cats from using your garden as a kitty box by spreading used coffee grounds and orange peels throughout flower beds.
7. Deodorize a freezer. Place a bowl with used coffee grounds in the freezer to remove unwanted odors. Add a few drops of vanilla to coffee grounds.

Please join us tomorrow for World Wide Wednesday, where we will discuss what other countries are doing (or not doing) in reference to the Environment.

As always, keep up the good fight and Alter the Eco!

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Related posts:

1. The Bay vs. the Bag: 1 Million Plastic Bags in SF Bay Every Year
2. Despite Warnings, FDA Approves Chemical in Plastic
3. Those Things We Choose to Reuse, are Those Things That Define Us.
4. Do You Want to Do More Than Recycle? How to Precycle.
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