Green Minimalism: Electronics

So you cleaned out. Where can you take all the stuff?

If you've got a bit of time on your hands, there are some better options that just bagging up everything for the trash. Particularly for pieces of electronic equipment, recycling is a better option than sending things to the dump.

Once or twice a year, my city hosts a recycling program and generally for free (there's a small fee for those ridiculously huge TV's and computer monitors), they will just take the items for recycling. It's worth asking your community about it!

Also, many tech stores have recycling or trade-in programs. Again, there's sometimes a small fee for huge TV's or computer monitors, but certain stores will give you a gift card equal to that fee.

Here's some links for a few of the major recycle programs:

• Best Buy (note from website: they do not recycle harmonicas. Good to know)
  
• Office Depot
• Staples

And if you live in a larger community, you can check out additional options through the Electronics Recycling Directory.

Helping the Clutter

This post is a cop-out. I really want to write about how people are making my life very complicated right now (not bad, just complicated), but I can't figure out how to do that without sounding like I resent having people in my life.

So instead, to bring around the concept that the stuff in our physical realms affects our emotional world, I return to Feng Shui! I'm not an FS purist, but I think certain principles apply to our everyday environments.

My favorite piece of the article- "Do I use it? Do I need it? Do I love it? Does it invoke a positive memory and make me happy? If your answer is no, then it’s time to go."

Second favorite- "Remind yourself that you are opening yourself and your space to new passions, interests and opportunities. You might also ask a friend who is not emotionally attached to your stuff to help you."

PS- If you live near me & know me, I'm more than willing to be the friend who is not emotionally attached to your stuff. :)

My Lunchbox

Every now and then, you'll find some item you end up using roughly 252 days of the year. I bring my lunch to work for several reasons:

1. It's a LOT cheaper to pack leftovers than to buy a $6 lunch every day
2. For me, it's healthier & I feel better. I can control what goes in my food & the portions I give myself. Today was a prime example. I got a huge hamburger from a local restaurant. I had heartburn for like 4 hours. I learned my lesson.
3. I have a seriously cute lunch box!

I found this little piece of fantastic at Khol's while Christmas shopping last December. My previous lunchbox was breaking into little bits of padding & zipper, so I figured it was time to replace it. From the BYO brand (Bring Your Own), it's made out of neoprene and stretches quite well to be able to fit all kinds of plastic containers. It's quite sturdy, has great handles, looks super cute and when you bring it home, (this is my favorite part) goes flat. I like my lunchbox.

Idea: Use Half?

Of the three R's (reduce, reuse, recycle), recycling is definitely the most popular, but the other two are gaining momentum as people become more aware of simple ways to do them.

For reducing, one blog I read recently advocated trying to use half of your normal amount of consumable household products (sorry I don't have a link). As initial examples, they mentioned hand soap, dish soap, laundry soap, toothpaste, shampoo and household cleaners. That makes sense to me, especially if half the amount will still do an adequate job. So in the last few days, I've been trying to cut the amounts of these products since extending the life of consumables means less trips to the store to buy replacements which means simplification. The hand soap & dish soap went pretty well with half, but I'd probably have to settle for 2/3 with toothpaste and shampoo.

The other items this blog mentioned cutting by half: toilet paper & number of times you flush. Yes, I can see how cutting back toilet paper could make sense in some situations. However for flushing, the little poem on the blog "if it's pee, let it be, if it's brown, flush it down" was just a bit disgusting for me. I support conservation, but I'm not ready for that yet. Someone invented the flushable toilet for a reason.

And for a reusing idea....this pic is from a friend-

(hey, if you can get the cats to go along with the 3R's, you're on to something!!)