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Austin’s Single Stream Recycling Is Almost Here

August 5, 2008 By Leave a Comment

In January, I reported that Austin’s recycling program was getting a make-over.  For those of is in central Austin, this program is in sight.

The new recycling cards will look much like our garbage carts only with a blue lid and are scheduled to arrive in October 2008.

The following items can be placed in these new carts together: Plastic bottles (#1 and #2), glass bottles and jars, aluminum cans, steel/tin cans, newspapers, magazines, catalogs, junk mail, office paper, boxboard (such as cereal and shoe boxes) and corrugated cardboard.

The City does ask that you help with this new program by placing paper items in a paper bag before placing them in the card and breaking cardboard down so that it loosly fits in the card or living it in stacks next to the cart.  The new item that can now be recycled with this program is the cereal box type of cardboard.

From the Dept. of Solid Waste Services:

———————————

P. O. B o x 1088
Austin, Texas 78767

July 30, 2008

Dear Neighborhood Association,

Beginning in October, City of Austin residential customers will have a new
way to recycle-Single Stream Recycling. Single Stream is an improved, more
efficient way to collect your recycling. Paper, plastic, glass, aluminum and
metal cans will all go into one cart with no sorting. Single Stream also
means more items will be accepted; rigid plastics #1-#7 and boxboard which
includes cereal and soda boxes.

Solid Waste Services (SWS) will begin the distribution of the new 90-gallon
recycling carts in October 2008. Because the carts will hold more material,
collection will occur every other week, meaning fewer trucks on the road,
reduced emissions and improved air quality. In addition, this new method of
collection will provide greater safety for our employees.

SWS is very excited to provide this improved service. To help community
leaders like you get the word out about Single Stream, we have created an
informative video and have staff available to speak at your next
neighborhood association meeting. If you would like to request a speaker,
please visit austinrecycles. com and fill out the brief ‘request for speaker’
form. If you would simply like for us to send you the Single Stream
Recycling video and information, please call 974-6421.

Neighborhood associations are an integral part of ensuring any city service
is successful.

We look forward to working with you on informing your neighbors about the
new and improved way to recycle-Single Stream.

Sincerely,

William E. Rhodes, P.E.

Director, Solid Waste Services

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Recycled Material Chandeliers

June 10, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Hopefully this will inspire you to find creative ways to make use of used materials!

  1. En Pieza’s Ballpoint Pen Chandelier
  2. Madeleine Boulestei’sx Teacup Chandelier
  3. The Tide Chandelier made from assorted debris.
  4. Ali Siahvoshi’s Silverware Chandelier
  5. Stuart Haygarth’s Party Popper Chandelier
  6. Recycled Coffee Stirrers Chandelier
  7. Anneke Jacobs’s Chiquita Banana Chandelier
  8. Bulbs Unlimited used light bulb Chandelier
  9. Fraternity Chandelier?
  10. And I certainly hope they didn’t use recycled materials on this one, but wanted to include it anyway, the Tampon Chandelier by The Guerilla Girls.
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Fact or Fiction: Global Warming

June 3, 2008 By 1 Comment

I’m going to deviate from my norm of Austin real estate topics to hit on another environmental topic that I’ve been pondering lately. It’s HOT here in Austin. Not just warm but seriously HOT. Is it global warming? If so, what is the cause and how can we deal with it?

The findings of a recent survey surprised me. It seems that fewer Americans believe that global warming is an actual phenomenon now than several years ago.


Source: PEW Research Center

For me, it was the opposite. I was skeptical from the beginning talks of global warming but it now makes a great deal of sense to me. I just needed time to gather facts and make my own educated judgment. What I have yet to pass judgment on is whether it is caused by human or environmental factors. For now, I suspect it is a mix of both. With a history of cycles of ice ages and hot ages, it seems that we are entering a hot age. Yet it seems that this change has actually been noticeable in the past 5-10 years which leads me to believe than human factors are interfering with the natural cycle by speeding things up


Source: PEW Research Center

Do you accept global warming as a problem?
What steps do you believe in to fix it?


Source: PEW Research Center

I’m sure that there is no quick fix, however, making sustainable decisions to reduce landfills and emissions is an obvious start. Planting trees still sounds like a great idea to me. After all of the forests around the world that have been seized in order to create our great civilization, it certainly seems like replanting trees to clean the air and produce oxygen is an obvious and relatively easy decision. There’s talk, and then there’s action…

So what do you do to save the world?
How can we save the world in Austin?

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Welcome & Thank you to ECO-SAFE!

April 11, 2008 By Leave a Comment

ecosafe.pngI happened by one of my Chris Brogan’s blog and noticed a pretty little “ECO-SAFE” badge in his side bar. I had the options to “Send the page to email,” “email a PDF,” or “save as a PDF.” What a brilliant idea! So of course, you will not find this option on my side bar!

I keep my own documents stored on my hard drive in PDF format as much as possible. One of my most proud undertakings this year was to set up my office with an electronic document server to cut down on both the waste my office produces and the stacks, boxes, and cabinets filled to the brim with paper. The more minimalistic way of life that seems to be increasing in popularity leads to environmental benefits in more ways than we have yet realized. Don’t want to have that big, ugly file cabinet in the corner of your office? Scan everything to PDF and use a document management system! I’m using the uber-powerful Microsoft Sharepoint at my office but recommend Paperport to home users.

Cutting down on the paper you consume is the next step to recycling. First, we’ve learned how to recycle, now we learn now to produce fewer materials that need recycling.

And if you have a website, try out one of ECO-Safe’s Merit Badges. They come in three graphically pleasing designs. The one in my sidebar is likely to be their most popular option. There is also a horizontal-type…

ecosafe3.pngAnd this beautiful fully-graphical one.

Why is this such a big deal? You can read all about it on Eco-Safe’s website. Here are some quick figures from Eco-Safe, but be sure to visit them to read all of their great reasons to go electronic PDF!

“American’s throw away 85% of office paper, which means out of everything you print, more than 4 out of 5 pages, will go right into the trash. By not printing things that you will eventually throw away, you simply save trees. Each year the average American uses 2 trees worth of paper products (one tree makes roughly 8,400 sheets of copy paper). So if you were to only use copy paper and no other paper products, out of the 16,800 sheets of paper that you print on, you will throw away 13,440 of them. When you multiply that by the number of internet users worldwide the numbers are absolutely staggering. “

ecosafe2.png

Wishing you the best of luck, Eco-Safe!

And please…

  • print as little as possible,
  • use the back side of un-needed prints as scratch paper (especially when printing for your eyes only)
  • recycle all paper, including junk mail
  • use electronic documents, like PDFs, whenever possible.
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Big Screen to Big Green

March 26, 2008 By Leave a Comment

So you finally purchased a glorious flat-panel, big-screen TV so you can watch HD Television in mammoth proportions. But at this point, where to get your HD hook-up should be the least of your concerns. What do you do with that old standard definition TV?

If craigslist fails you, you still have options. Don’t leave the old TV to rot in a landfill when you have so many recycling options available to you. Check out Earth 911′s website at http://earth911.org. There, you can type in what you want to recycle and where you are to find a recycling center near you to recycle the old TV.

earth911search.png

To have your TV completely recycled from the plastic to the lead to the gold components, take it to your nearest Goodwill, Salvation Army, or specialty recycling center like ERT, Inc. or M&K Recovery Group.

Use Earth 911 to find out where to recycle other materials and electronics such as cell phones and fluorescent bulbs as well!

If you missed them, here are links to previous posts about Austin’s new recycling program, recycling phone books, recycling cell phones, fluorescent bulb recycling, and recycling in Austin.

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Austin Recycling Gets A Makeover

January 25, 2008 By 2 Comments

Looks like curbside recycling in Austin is getting a lot easier thanks to success from a pilot program using 60-gallon recycling carts and not requiring sorting! Soon, instead of the small blue bins required for recycling pick-up, 90-gallon trash-like carts will be used. They will be distinguishable by their blue lids and recycling will be collected every-other week. Fill ‘em up because you will no longer be required to sort your #1&2 plastic and cans from paper and corrugated cardboard, and new items will be accepted including non-corrugated cardboard and a wider range of plastic materials.

The goal of this new program is to increase citizen participation in Austin’s Solid Waste Services Recycling by making recycling easier and more convenient.

Links:
News 8 Austin Coverage
Austin’s Solid Waste Services
All-in-One Pilot Program

Aria Schoenfelt McIntosh
BridgeOne Properties & Corias Homes, Inc.
ariaschoenfelt.com
ariakristen@gmail.com
(512) 771-1776

Copyright Aria McIntosh
Custom Home Builder, Realtor(R), e-Pro
ariamcintosh.com
blog.ariamcintosh.com
coriashomes.com>coriashomes.com
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