Green Boot Camp: Week Two–Setting Up an At-Home Recycling Center

Green Boot Camp: Week Two–The 411 on Recycling Plastic, Metal and Glass

As I was collecting up boxes yesterday, on Boxing Day, I got to thinking about the origins of this British holiday. For years I thought that British Commonwealth countries referred to this December 26th holiday because of all of the residual boxes from Christmas the day before. But I’ve come to learn that the holiday has nothing to do with modern day boxes–unless you own a big-box store. Many retailers in countries like Canada rely on Boxing Day the way American retailers rely on Black Friday–and that’s to put their finances into the black. No wonder Boxing Day is such a huge shopping event for Canadians, Aussies and Brits alike.

Back in the U.S.A. I actually hit the stores today (the day after Boxing Day), because I had a number of gift cards burning a hole in my pocket. That’s no wonder since Americans spent more than $26 million this year on gift cards, inspiring gift recipients like me not only to hit after-Christmas sales but also to shop on someone else’s dime. (In my case today, that would be my mother-in-law’s dime, since she gave me a Gap gift card.)

Sadly, I forgot to take my reusable shopping bags with me to the mall (Doh!), but I did combine my three-store purchases into one bag, thus creating less waste. (I’m rationalizing here, I realize.)

Anyway, with regards to Boxing Day. I really was collecting up boxes yesterday so that I could bring them to the UPS Store today since, as I’ve written so many times before, my trash collection company does not take cardboard for recycling. (FYI, my contract with this company comes due for renewal this spring, and you can bet I will be switching to a company that does take cardboard.) Tomorrow is recycling day, so to avoid contributing to the 25 million extra tons of trash people produce during the holidays, I’ll be putting out two large bins of cans and bottles from all of our Christmas cooking (my husband made sauce), along with bags and bags of recyclable newspaper.

Speaking of cooking once again I became aware of how much composting food scraps cuts down on our garbage output. Despite hosting a full dinner and having extra house guests this week, we have emptied the trash once only since last Friday’s trash pick up. Maybe, if you’re looking for a New Year’s resolution for 2008, perhaps you could consider trying composting? It’s an easy change to make in your daily life, and it’s something where you really can make a difference in how much trash goes to the landfill.

Now what about some of the extra holiday trash that might not belong in landfills? I’m thinking about electronics and Christmas trees. What are you planning to do with them?

For starters, you can take your has-been electronics to a local Verizon Wireless store, which is collecting them to be recycled. Also, as I’d blogged earlier, there are organizations that will recycle electronics like cell phones for you.

As far as your Christmas tree goes, you can use it in your own backyard as ground cover for now. Then, when it gets warmer, you can cut it up for mulch. Or you can see if your town will do that mulching for you. Many towns set up Christmas tree recycling collection times between now and the first week of January. Check your local newspaper for such times and days, or log onto Earth 911′s Treecycle page to local Christmas tree recycling programs near you.

If you’ve got a fake tree you’re looking to replace, don’t toss it in the trash. If it’s still in good working condition, take it to a local nursing home or hospital to see if they could use it as decoration, or see if a thrift shop would like to add it to its inventory.

Next on my list is taking down all of the holiday greeting cards we’d received this year–I’d taped them up around the entrance to our living room. My plan is to cut out any festive images on those cards and use them as gift tags next year. Then I’ll put the rest of the card in the recycling.

What are some creative ways that you’re keeping holiday items out of the trash this year?

Green Boot Camp: Week Two–Recycling Plastic, Cans and Glass, Oh My

Yesterday, my mother and I went to the supermarket to pick up supplies for Christmas dinner. As usual I grabbed my reusable shopping bags, and off we went. We had many predictable items on the list–salad basics, dessert ideas and milk–so I expected it would be an easy, in-and-out shopping experience. Boy, was I wrong.

Besides the throngs of last-minute Christmas shoppers, what also slowed us down was my newly focused green lens. That is, as I stood in the produce department, searching out the origins of the fruits and vegetables I wanted to select, I couldn’t help but get depressed. Why was it that the lion’s share of items I wanted to buy were from far, far away?

Well, of course I know the answer: Americans have become so used to having in-season fruits and vegetables, even when they are technically out of season, that groceries now ship these products in from all over the country. No wonder the tomatoes, lettuce and tangerines I was considering were from Mexico.

Sure, the apples were from Washington (at least that’s in the United States), but Washington state is a good 2,000+ miles from my home. Studies have shown that, on average, food travels 1,500 miles to your local grocery store, so imagine how much fossil fuel was used in its transport? If we’re all working to live a more green life, then this concept of locavore (which I sort of teased in a previous blog posting) really does make sense.

Back in the produce aisle, I was getting more and more depressed. What was I going to get for dinner?

I ended up picking up some organic greens, under the Giant generic brand Nature’s Promise. The only geographic information I could find on the package was Maryland, which isn’t too far from where I live. I suspect, though, that my organic greens did, in fact, come from some place much warmer than Maryland in December, but I couldn’t tell. And I did end up getting some honey crisp apples from Washington, because I figured they were better than the gala apples from New Zealand. But in the end, I picked up a red pepper grown in Mexico, held my breath and placed it in my shopping cart without looking. I’ll use it in tomorrow’s Christmas meal but I’m not sure how good I’m going to feel about it.

I feel like I’ve just broken some sort of green karma but, as my mother (who was growing increasingly frustrated with my militant produce shopping ways) said, “It’s commendable that you want to be green, but you’ve also got to be reasonable.”

Note to self: do more research on locally grown and available produce throughout the year, and get busy on that root cellar you want to build in the basement so that you can stockpile fresh fruit and vegetables when they are in season.

Green Boot Camp: Week One–The 411 on Paper Recycling

I don’t live on the West Coast, but I completely support the towns and counties in and around Los Angeles that have declared today, December 20th, as Shop-without-a-Bag Day. They’re encouraging residents doing any last-minute Christmas shopping to bring a reusable bag with them to the store today in hopes that folks will get into the habit of bringing reusable bags every day. Yes, this is a green move for the environment but also to protect one of California’s natural gems–the sea lions, which often make the fatal mistake of consuming plastic bags.

Visit the Heal the Bay website for more information on where local residents can pick up free reusable bags.

One of the easiest ways to make paper recycling become second nature is to have supplies on hand and routines in place as they relate to paper disposal. This way when you go to get rid of any paper, it will end up in the recycling and not in the trash. Here’s how I’ve managed to make it easy on myself to always recycle my paper.

Before I started using reusable bags for grocery shopping, I had my groceries packed in brown paper bags. (Truth be told, if I’m running short on time and need to do some web grocery shopping through ShopRite from Home, I’ll still request that my groceries be packaged in brown paper bags.) Because of this I have a hefty supply of these bags, which I reuse as my paper recycling receptacle. I keep the bags stored in a specific kitchen drawer. This means that whenever I need a new bag for recycling, I know where they are–and I’m never left searching for a bag or frustrated because I’ve got nothing to put my recycling in, so therefore I don’t bother recycling. (In addition to brown grocery bags, paper department store shopping bags and the bags that folded shirts come in from the dry cleaner also work well for holding paper recycling.)

In addition to having a designated spot for storing these bags, I also have a designated spot for opening the mail–and it just happens to be near my shredder. This way when I receive one of the six billion credit card solicitations that Americans get every year, I can feed that unwanted mail right into the shredder. When the shredder is nearly full, I’ll empty it into a tie-top plastic bag (a leftover plastic shopping bag, most likely), and then put it out with the rest of the recycling.

For catalogs and magazines, I make a pile and then distribute them to one of the magazine racks I have in our bathrooms. (Nothing like a little potty-time reading.) Then, once a week, when I empty the trash and collect the recycling before trash and recycling day, I’ll thin that reading material, and put them in those aforementioned brown paper bags with the rest of my paper recycling. (I learned this weekly magazine purge trick from FlyLady’s Weekly Home Blessing Hour!)

If I find myself with overflowing amounts of paper recycling, long before trash/recycling day, I try to avoid storing the paper recycling outdoors. Why? In the past, when the paper bags have gotten wet in the rain–and then disintegrated as the recycling collectors picked them up–I usually ended up with a paper-strewn street. I should have called the trash collection company to complain, but instead, I’ve carved out a recycling corner inside, between my kitchen and dining room. It’s dead space, really, so it wasn’t being used well anyway, but sometimes even that space isn’t big enough to store all of our recycling.

That’s why when paper recycling really starts to pile up, I’ll load the bags of paper in the car and take them to the Abitibi Paper Retriever dumpster at my daughters’ school. I’ve mentioned these before, about how schools used them as a fundraising tool. I say it’s win-win: it gives local people a place to recycle their paper, and it provides a green way for the school to raise money for its activities.

So how can you adopt similar habits?

First, create a designated spot where you can store your paper recycling and/or supplies.

Second, get into the habit of regularly contributing to your recycling, either by opening mail near the shredder like I do or clearing out catalogs and magazines on a weekly basis.

Third, always put your paper recycling out on pick-up day.

Fourth, if you find yourself with an overflowing amount of paper recycling, find an alternative drop-off location, such as the aforementioned Abitibi Paper Retriever.

Just these four simple steps done regularly should make paper recycling second nature for you in no time.

Welcome to Green Boot Camp, a 52-week program to help fine-tune or change your habits so that you can live a greener life. As I’d posted a few days ago, each week during Green Boot Camp I’m going to be focusing on a different “green” habit. Why one habit a week? I figure that if we take it slowly and consistently, I’m confident that you will be successful in adopting a more eco-friendly lifestyle without feeling like you’d worked hard at it.

I’m lucky. My green lifestyle started when I was a kid and I began accompanying my mother to her volunteer gig at a local recycling plant. To me this wasn’t work; it was fun.

While there I loved tearing the covers off of magazines and the labels off of mayonnaise jars. Then we’d toss them onto two conveyors belt tongues that fed into separate recycling machine mouths. I was almost giddy as I heard this monster smashing the glass and chewing through paper.

None of my friends quite understood what I did on the weekends with my mother.

“What’s a recycling plant?” I remember them asking me. “Is it for your garden?”

As a kid, if I wanted to get rid of a piece of paper, I was only allowed to do so once I’d used every inch of it for writing down phone messages or math problems I needed to solve for homework.

I still refuse to get rid of paper unless it’s been used on both sides, and as a magazine writer and book author, I get a lot of paper mailed to me—in the form of press kits. I will disassemble these kits and “harvest” clean paper that I can reuse in my printer.

Speaking of which, for the first week, we’re going to focus on improving our paper recycling habits. Today, though, we’re going to talk a bit about how you can reuse paper first before you toss it in the recycling bin.

These days nearly every home has a computer and a printer, meaning that you are probably going through a lot of paper yourself. And if you’ve got kids, you’ve got lots of paper. If they aren’t printing out tons of stuff, like the latest Webkinz they hope to get from Santa, they’re likely bringing home piles of paper from school. This means that without even realizing it, you have a lot of paper that you can reuse before you recycle it.

So the next time your printer is running low on paper, set your timer for five minutes and go on a paper hunt throughout your house. See how many sheets of paper you can find that are printed on one side only and which you can use in your printer. Who cares if it’s colored paper, if you’re just going to be printing out a draft of something. This way you won’t have to use brand-new paper at your first printing.

If you find paper that’s dog-eared and will jam the printer, then turn it into a scratch pad for phone messages, homework help or shopping lists.

As far as shopping lists go, if you’d like to kill two birds with one paper stone, take all of those envelopes that come in the unsolicited credit card offers we all received nearly daily in the mail and begin to use them for writing your shopping list. The benefit of reusing these envelopes is that you can slip your coupons inside the envelope and have your list all in one place

Let me know some of the surprising places you’ve found paper to reuse in your printer.

If your holiday, present-opening days are a lot like mine, then along with the wrapped presents, the holiday music, and your family and friends you probably have a couple of garbage bags lying in wait for cleaning up afterwards. Now think about all of the families that will be opening presents in December and filling up trash bags, and then imagine how much trash we are producing. No wonder an organization Use Less Stuff found that Americans produce 25 percent more trash during the holidays than any other time during the year.

Obviously, some trash is inevitable but perhaps if you keep the notion of reduce, reuse and recycle in mind between now and New Year’s, you can help put a dent in the 25 million tons of garbage the holidays create. Here are some ideas to consider:

REDUCE
For starters, choose store-bought items with reduced packaging. Want to buy someone some new electronics? Steer your shopping towards stores that are doing away with those impossible-to-open plastic clam shell packages (made from bad-for-the-earth petroleum). Stores like Target are replacing them with cardboard packaging. The good news here is not only a reduced reliance on petroleum products but also that you can recycle the cardboard packaging after the fact (not always true with those clam shells).

You can also reduce the amount of paper goods and packaging that you use to wrap your presents. Like promised in an earlier post, I am “wrapping” gifts in reusable tote bags from Wal-Mart. These bags, by the way, are made from recycled soda bottles. See the photo at left for my personal take on using these bags in place of regular wrapping. FYI, that’s a reusable ribbon and a jingle bell adorning the bag. The recipient can reuse both items on another present or for decorating a Christmas tree.

I’m also using part of the present as wrapping, as I wrote about here. If you must use traditional wrapping, why not use “green” wrapping paper, such as the kind made from hemp and post-consumer recycled paper from Paporganics. The company also makes biodegradable ribbon, all of which is available at Whole Foods Market.

When entertaining you can reduce your garbage output by foregoing disposable anything and instead using your cloth napkins, washable tablecloths, and own dishes and flatware. Who cares if none of it matches? You can mix and match to create an eclectic tabletop.

REUSE
If you’re on a budget, why not reuse leftover paper or gift bags from last year—assuming you still have them? We keep a stash of holiday gift bags that we use year in and year out. We have so many that we got a large bin full of them, as you can see in the photo at right.

Wondering what to do with all of those holiday cards you get each year? Use pinking sheers to cut them down into gift tags. Plan ahead this year for next year’s wrapping and gift tags by saving paper, bags and holiday cards.

RECYCLE
Come trash day after the holidays, do your best to separate your recyclables from your regular trash so that as little ends up getting thrown away as possible. FYI, some trash collection companies can take wrapping paper as a recyclable, so check with yours first before sending your used wrapping paper to landfill purgatory.

If you’re unsure how best to handle your wrapping paper after you’re done using it, try this: toss it in the shredder and use it as a cushion when packing away your ornaments—in reused boxes that your gifts came in, natch.

When it comes to your tree, if you’ve gotten a cut one this year, ensure that your tree ends up recycled as wood chips and mulch so it can be reused in someone else’s landscaping. Visit www.earth911.org and type “Christmas tree” into the recycling search window to find out which townships and trash collection companies near you offer Christmas tree recycling in January.

I’d love to hear some of the ways you plan to reduce, reuse and recycle this holiday season.

It’s a busy time in the dictionary world, what with all of the newly announced words that we’ve adopted into the American lexicon–and to which those grand-daddies of word usage have given their official nod. Some have even been crowned “word of the year.”

Like w00t (that’s w-zero-zero-t), “a hybrid of letters and numbers used by gamers as an exclamation of happiness of triumph,” as Merriam-Webster defines it. The ole M-W has just announced that w00t is the word of the year. (Truth is, I prefer 2006′s pick–truthiness.)

Over at the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary: Sixth Edition, they’ve unveiled some words that, like, omigod, I’m sure you use all the time but, like, your fricking mom was always telling you not to use, and you were just, like, “That’s so bogus.” Yes, omigod (channelling Moon Unit Zappa’s “Valley Girl”), fricking and bogus are all officially recognized words now. So is carbon-neutral.

Speaking of “green words,” another Oxford dictionary, The New Oxford American Dictionary, has announced its word of the year–locavore (var. localvore). This word means someone who eats only food that he or she can get locally–sort of like the idea behind the 100-mile diet.

It’s an interesting concept, only eating items available locally, but I’m not sure it’s doable in the suburbs where I live. Off the top of my head I can think of a local dairy farm, orchard and bakery (but it gets its flour and supplies from elsewhere) where I can go to get food staples, but given that it’s winter, I think I’m pretty much screwed in finding fresh local vegetables.

To me being a true locavore, you’ve got to live in a place where the European way of shopping is commonplace. That is you walk to one store for your bread, another store for your cheese, another for your butchered meats and so on.

Where I live, though, to be a true locavore, I would have to do a lot of driving, and I’m sure it would be fricking expensive.

Research shows that it takes 21 days or three weeks to change a habit. If you’re hoping to adopt better habits in 2008 as they relate to green living, I think I can help.

I’ve come up with a 52-week plan to a greener you. Call it Green Boot Camp. Or 13 Habits of Highly Effective Eco-Conscious People. (Why 13? I’ve conceived of 13 themes, out of which I’ve created 52 new habits to a greener you.)

Each week I’ll post a theme and to-do list for a new green habit. Some of the time, this stuff will be new to you. Other times, it will be a refresher course or a new way of thinking of an old habit. During that week I’ll give you multiple postings (about three a week) that are related to that week’s theme.

I’ll cover everything from recycling to redoing your gardening. Of course, there’s a chance that I’ve covered some of these topics before, but I promise that I’ll give you a fresh spin on them to keep your interest up.

By the third week, the habit from week one should have become second nature. By the fourth week, you’ll have two new habits–the one from week one and week two. And so on.

Of course, I should start these postings the first week of January–you know, with New Year’s resolutions and all–but I figured that this would be my early Christmas/Chanukah/Kwanzaa gift to you.

So look for postings in the coming days to get you on the path to a greener you in 2008. In the meantime, I’ll continue to post about green-related pop culture and other topics of interest, along with the habit-changing ones.

One of my favorite parts of the December holidays is shopping for the greeting cards I’ll send to family and friends. Truth be told I’ll often do this card shopping on December 26th of the previous year, when prices are dirt cheap.

Because we were traveling immediately after Christmas last year, I didn’t get to do my annual stocking up. Plus, with my new lean, green approach to living, I felt that this year I needed to have holiday cards that were appropriate to my mission–affordable and eco-friendly. Problem is in this day and age, it’s nearly impossible to find green greetings that don’t break the bank.

I looked at tons of different cards offerings and even had some samples sent to me. But between family, friends and clients, I’ve got over 100 people on my list, and nearly every “green” card option I found cost close to $1 or more per card. Once I did the math, it became clear quite quickly that my holiday greetings might end up being green but they definitely would not be affordable.

So I decided to make my own.

First, I used the drawing tools in Microsoft Word to fashion festive images for the inside and outside of the card. Then I created the design, which would allow me to get two folded cards per 8 1/2 X 11 sheet of paper.

Speaking of paper, I wanted it to be as green as possible, so I picked up a ream of 100% post-consumer waste paper from Staples. It’s not a heavy stock like you would expect with a greeting card, but it’s going to get the job done.

Next, I bought replacement color and black inkjet cartridges for my color printer. (Side note: Staples is still offering a $3 off coupon for every inkjet or other HP printer cartridge that you bring into the store for them to recycle. Because I had two cartridges, I got $6 in coupons, which were applied to my purchase. Also good and green: HP no longer packages its inkjet cartridges in those massive clam shell plastic containers. Instead, the cartridges are housed in a cardboard container, inside a reusable plastic security device that the cashier opened at checkout and then would use again when restocking the ink.)

Then I purchased greeting card-sized envelopes. (Sadly, they were not available in a recycled paper variety.)

Not counting the cost of ink (because I’ll be using the ink long after Christmas has come and gone), I’ll have spent about $25 for possibly 1,000 cards. I say 1,000 because a ream of paper has 500 sheets, and if I’m getting two cards per sheet, well, you get the point. Anyway, that’s about three cents per card–that’s affordable in my book.

In a perfect world I would have used soy ink to print these cards but right now, soy ink is available for commercial use only–meaning I would have had to have my cards printed professionaly, which would have added on to the price. Maybe in the near future the HPs of the world will offer a soy ink cartridge option.

So, considering that I’m printing my cards of recycled paper, I can recycle the cardboard package that the inkjet cartridges came in, the fact that HP will recycle the inkjet cartridges after I’m done with them, and Staples reuses the security package it uses to hold the inkjet cartridges in the store, does this make my Christmas cards carobn-neutral? If it does, I may have just stumbled onto a new and lucrative business venture.

One of the benefits of our new house is that we have three fireplaces–one in the dining room, one in the living room and one in the family room. All three chimneys were swept this fall, and we’ve been using the fireplace in the living room nearly daily (burning those enviro-logs we picked up at Home Depot). Having a fireplace creates a wonderful, homey smell when the fire is burning. These days, that homey smell has turned into a smoke-filled tavern smell, and here’s why.

On Friday we lit a fire in the family-room fireplace for the first time. As luck would have it, a huge downdraft occurred as we lit the fire, forcing smoke into the room. It took about 30 minutes to clear the smoke–open windows, fans running–and then we let the fire burn out on its own.

When we got up on Saturday morning, no one could go in the family room. It smelled like we’d had a fire–and I don’t mean in the fireplace. I swear there is smoke damage in the room, and we’re at a loss as to how to fix it.

In desperation, I washed down the walls, the floors and the furniture using Murphy’s Oil Soap diluted in water. (I’m so pleased that Murphy’s is considered to be a green cleaner. It’s what I was raised to use on wood floors and pretty much every other surface in the house.) When that didn’t work to get rid of the smell, we burned those Oust “odor-evaporating candles” (actually we burned all three in the package), and we kept the windows open again for about 2 hours. After the candles the room smelled like sweet soap, not smoke, but by the time we got up the next morning, the acrid smoke smell was back. It hits you the minute you near the entrance to the family room.

Today, I decided to try some other green ways of getting rid of the smell. This morning, I put out bowls of vinegar around the room, because someone told me it’s an odor neutralizer (though I must admit that vinegar in the laundry did nothing for my daughter’s soccer cleats, which, I’d bet, could win that Odor Eaters Rotten Sneaker contest). Later on my husband put out bowls of baking soda. One of his work colleagues had had a fire in her house, and she told him that baking soda is what the fire-recovery company had used to get rid of the smell. That seems logical, considering so many people swear by their box of Arm and Hammer baking soda in the refrigerator to get rid of odors.

It’s only been a couple of hours, but the smell is still here. I have no idea how long this is going to take to work or if the vinegar or the baking soda will even work.

Interestingly if you smell specific things in the room, nothing actually smells like smoke. It’s just the general je ne sais quai of the room that leaves you smelling smoke.

My concern now is that we’re going to have to fully repaint the room, assuming the walls have absorbed the odor, to get rid of the smoke smell. I’m also concerned my daughters are going to get clever and end up mixing the vinegar and the baking soda together to create their own special kind of volcano that will erupt all over the floor. And you know who will be left to clean it up.

We spent this afternoon stringing lights outside of our home to give it a festive look. While outside I replaced all of the burned-out bulbs in our exterior lights. These were some of the last to still have incandescent bulbs in them. Luckily, we’d recently stocked up on multi-packs of General Electric “Energy Smart” compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL), which come as a five-pack in a cardboard box, so I had enough bulbs on hand to make all of the necessary replacements.

It was during a recent trip to Home Depot when we’d done this stocking up of CFLs, and, while at the store, I couldn’t help but keep thinking about a green contradiction someone had pointed out to me.

In our post-”Inconvenient Truth” world, it seems like nearly every company is doing its part to promote a green message. Whether it’s switching to packages made of post-consumer content recycled materials or creating energy-efficient appliances, you can’t turn on the television, flip open a magazine or walk down a store aisle without seeing those infamous “chasing arrows” or the Energy Star label. Don’t get me wrong–this is all good, and I’m not complaining. In fact, I’m thrilled that so many companies are embracing the green trend. I know that I’ve become a more conscious consumer in what I buy, and often how something is packaged will be the one factor that makes me put a product into my shopping cart or place it back on the shelf.

Which brings me back to my light bulb shopping at Home Depot and that green contradiction. Why is it that all of these “green” light bulbs are packaged in environmentally unfriendly packaging? Have you noticed the same? Even the “Energy Smart” bulbs that I bought are sold this way, when you buy the bulbs individually. That was one of the reasons we chose the cardboard multi-pack.

In the old days light bulbs came packaged in in a light, cardboard-like paper, which was easily recyclable. These days, CFLs come sealed in those evil, PVC-plastic “clam shell” packaging–that rigid container that’s great for displaying products on a store shelf but which is terrible for the environment (made from chemicals, and it’s not universally accepted for recycling with other plastic goods). What’s worse is opening these packages. A nick from a plastic clam shell makes paper cuts seem like a walk in the park. (No wonder some genius came up with a clam shell-opening tool!)

But really, there has got to be a better container for selling CFLs. I mean, even Target is doing away with its PVC packaging in the electronics department, and obviously GE (in which company I do not have a financial interest, FYI) has figured out a way to package its CFL multi-packs in cardboard–I’ve got the proof right here next to my laptop. So when are the other light bulb companies going to have their light bulb moment?

As it is, CFLs cost more upfront than incandescent bulbs, which may dissuade some consumers from purchasing them in the first place (though Wal-Mart is using its influence to convince light bulb suppliers to make CFLs more affordable for the average Joe). But if consumers have to wrestle with a clam shell package just to get out a light bulb–and wrestling is not an understatement since some folks have broken bulbs in the process–then where is the incentive to do the right light bulb thing?

It will be a glorious day when these light bulb companies can fully embrace their product’s “green-ess” and sell it in a recyclable container.

According to a handful of holiday-shopping surveys, there is going to be a lot of gift-card giving this holidays. Here is a sampling of some of the surveys I’ve found.

NCR Corp. just completed a nationwide survey on holiday shopping, aptly titled “Holiday Headaches.” The study examined a number of holiday shopping issues, including gift card purchases and found:

* Two-thirds of consumers will purchase at least one gift card during the holiday season.

* Of those purchasers, consumers on average will buy more than seven gift cards per year.

* When asked which factors influenced the decision to purchase a gift card as opposed to another item from a store, shoppers cite not knowing what gift to purchase (71 percent).

* Nearly half of all consumers also reported purchasing gift cards to avoid returns (47 percent), and another 45 percent purchased gift cards because it takes less time than selecting a gift. According to the BIGresearch American Pulse Survey of 4,069 respondents, 52.1% of consumers say they would rather receive a gift card or cash for Christmas.

From the National Retail Federation:

* Consumers will spend $26.3 billion on gift cards this holiday season, compared to $24.8 billion in 2006.

* The average consumer will spend more on gift cards than they did last year ($122.59 vs. $116.51 in 2006).

* 56.6 percent of consumers plan to buy gift cards this holiday season, compared to other top selling gift items like clothing, toys and books.

* 87.7 percent of shoppers said they will purchase two or more gift cards this holiday season.

Now consider this: according to Earthworks, a company that recycles PVC plastic, gift card disposal contributes to the more than 75 million pounds of plastic that ends up in the waste stream each year. And with folks giving $26.3 billion worth of gift cards, that could add up to tons (literally!) of trash in 2008.

Most gift cards these days are reloadable, meaning that you can add money to them again and again. So, to avoid having your gift card end up as trash, if you get one as a gift this year, don’t turn it over to the cashier once you’re done using it. Keep it to reload later (your gift wallet would come in handy here) or figure out a way to recycle it. Treehugger has highlighted craftspeople who recycle gift cards into decorative items, like coasters.

Better yet, support retailers that are forward-thinking when it comes to their gift cards–meaning, they stock biodegradable ones. Both Target and REI offer gift cards made of a corn-based polymer from Mirel that breaks down in your compost pile.

I’m not sure that you can recycle gift cards into gift tags, the way you can when you take a pair of pinking shears to an old holiday card. So what are some other creative ways to reuse gift cards (outside of putting more money on them) so you can keep them out of the trash? I’d love to hear some ideas.

In preparation for the tons of toys my kids are sure to get this month, I’ve been clearing out their toy closet and video cabinet to make room for the new stuff. Imagine my surprise when I discovered our brand-new board games, still in shrink wrap, from either a birthday or holiday gone by, along with never-been-watched DVDs, also still in their original packaging.

Obviously, these games and movies didn’t really interest my kids, and there’s no reason to hang on to them. At the same time, I don’t want to just toss them either. Luckily, at this time of the year, I know that there are plenty of toy drives going on.

I already knew that national Toys R Us and Babies R Us locations always take donated toys, but the nearest store to me is a solid 40-minute drive away. Given that I didn’t want to spend time driving all over the place to make my donation, I was pleased to discover that the Toys for Tots website offers a search function for toy drop locations, which will make my job of donating these games and DVDs that much easier. I was pleased once again to find that with a couple of clicks of my mouse button, I was able to locate a fitness center, less than two miles away, where I can bring those toys today.

While Toys for Tots is an awesome way to get toys into the hands of needy kids and keep your unwanted toys out of the trash, it isn’t your only option. Here are some other ideas to consider when donating toys. You can donate them to a:

* Thrift Shop
Your toy will provide a double benefit. First, you’re allowing a family that might not be able to shop at the Toys R Us stores of the world an affordable way to buy holiday gifts for his or her family. And by donating your items to a thrift shop, you help it to raise funds through its sales. Look for thrift shops that are connected with good causes, like domestic violence shelters, or even the old standby–The Goodwill.

* Community Fire Department In Southern California, for example, an organization called Spark of Love runs fire-department toy drives.

* AnySoldier.com OK, so these guys aren’t kids, technically, but if they’re in combat, they could sure use some cheering up. Boardgamenews.com recently ran an item about donating board games to AnySoldier.com.

* Church or School’s “Giving Tree” Each year local churches and elementary schools (include the ones my daughters attend) set up a giving tree in the lobby, where you can take a child’s gift wish off of a tree, and buy what he or she asks for. This is a better option if you’d like to buy something new for a kid as opposed to donating something that once was new–and is still in the wrapping, like the toys I have to donate are. I mean, there’s no way of knowing if some kid at the school’s “Giving Tree” has asked for the game Sequence, one of the games I’ll be giving away.

If you have other ideas for donating toys beyond what I’ve discussed here, I’d love to hear them.

Even though my 10-year-old daughter got a new RAZR phone six months ago (purchased with her own money, thank you very much), I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that she’s asking for a new cell phone for Christmas. For starters, to her that RAZR is so, like, yesterday, and having discovered all of the phone’s bells and whistles, she’s ready to move on to a new toy. (Not gonna happen, by the way.)

Turns out my daughter’s technical desires are quite common place this holiday season. According to a recent survey of holiday shoppers, three out of four of them hope that they’ll find at least one hi-tech, digital delight under the tree this year. Cell phones, along with an HDTV and a Nintendo Wii system, are right there in the top 10 product requests. Considering our two-year Verizon Wireless plan allows us to upgrade our phone economically every 24 months only, there are no new phones on our holiday Verizon horizon. But there might be on yours.

If you are considering giving someone a new cell phone this year to replace an outdated one, I’d like to know: what do you plan to do with the old or no-long-desired piece of equipment? Are you going to toss it in the trash or what? That’s what many Americans do, according to a recent Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Report. Problem is–cell phones are considered to be toxic waste.

Like with so many other things that occur once you start thinking green, you shouldn’t throw your cell phones away. Instead, figure out how you can recycle or reuse them. Here are some options to consider:

* Drop old cell phones and rechargeable batteries in a collection box.
No, I’m not suggesting that you short change the Salvation Army bell ringers with an old phone. Instead, look for one of the recycling boxes available in “big box” retailers nationwide.

* Trade them in for a gift certificate.
An organization called “Recellulartradein” allows consumers to trade in their phones for gift cards to buy new electronics. Go to the organization’s website to register your phone and figure out your best option. (According to Recellulartradin press materials, the majority of phones are worth between $5 and $20, though some newer phones could net you as much as $50.)

* Give your phones to a good cause.
Eco-cell, an environmentally focused cell phone recycling and green fund raising company, offers several phone recycling/green initiatives that help local zoos and wildlife parks. You can get more details on the Eco-cell website. Other organizations collect gently used cell phones to distribute to domestic violence shelters, soldiers abroad and other good causes.

* Donate your phone in exchange for carbon-offset credits
TerraPass wants to get cell phones out of landfills and into the hands of folks in developing nations who need them. At the same time, it wants to promote carbon-neutral initiatives. As such, if you donate your phone through the TerraPass/RIPMobile program, you’ll get a TerraPass gift certificate to help you purchase carbon-offset credits or other green products.

Given these ideas, now you can feel good this holiday season that you can buy a loved one an electronic device that’s on his or her wish list, and do the environment good when you dispose of an old cell phone responsibly.