Recycle your CFLS for free

The Home Depot has expanded its in-store compact fluorescent light bulb recycling program at locations nationwide.

Customers can bring any expired, unbroken compact fluorescent light bulb to the returns desk at any one of the more than 1,900 locations.

The energy-efficient bulbs contain a small amount of mercury and, if tossed in the garbage, the mercury can be released into the air or groundwater.

The recycling program is an extension of the company’s Eco Options program, a classification system that allows customers to easily identify products that have less of an environmental impact.

According to the retailer, 75 percent of households live within 10 miles of a Home Depot location making the program the first national solution to CFL recycling.

We Add Up!

WE ADD UP is a global campaign using organic cotton t-shirts that literally “counts you in” in the fight against global warming.

Every shirt is printed by hand with a unique number. YOUR number represents your place in the sequential global count of all the people who are taking steps to help stop climate change. As the count grows, we demonstrate to the world that “WE ADD UP.”

On the back of each shirt is a word or phrase that describes an action almost anyone can take to reduce their carbon footprint - the contribution their lifestyle makes to greenhouse gases - such as, Unplug, Lights Off, Carpool, Hybrid, Bike, Buy Local, and 18 others. You choose which action you are committed to doing and get counted in. No one can do everything. Everyone can do something. And, WE ADD UP.

The goal is to get millions of people around the world counted in and committed to helping stop global warming. With our combined effort, we can create a healthy, thriving world for generations to come. So, get counted in. Because you + everyone else = change.

Tooo Cool Tea Cup Lights

Check it out!

Exxon Mobil Getting out of Retail Gas Business

Interesting. My favorite gas station, a full service Exxon in town, recently closed - and is becoming a burger joint.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corp said on Thursday it is getting out of the retail gas business in the United States as sky-high crude oil prices squeeze margins.

Those branded service stations may be the most public aspect of Exxon's business, but they account for a small part of the company's profits.

Out of the roughly 12,000 Exxon Mobil branded stations in the United States, Exxon, the world's largest publicly-traded oil company, owns about 2,220.

Exxon plans to sell those service stations over several years. They include about 820 stations that it also operates.

The company will maintain the Exxon and Mobil brands, Exxon spokeswoman Prem Nair said.

Consumers will still be buying gasoline at stations that carry the Exxon and Mobil names, but they will not be owned by the company.

Service stations have struggled, even with $4-a-gallon plus gasoline prices because they have not been able to pass along to customers their additional costs from soaring crude oil.

The Great White Way Goes Green

From Grist
Posted by Sarah van Schagen at 4:34 PM on 11 Jun 2008

Mamma Mia! Broadway is going green. Inspired by An Inconvenient Truth, producer David Stone (who recently greened his hit musical Wicked) met with other Broadway big-wigs and the folks at NRDC in an effort to get the theater industry singing a more sustainable tune.

There may be five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes in a year, but how much of a difference could this greening make? Well, they say the neon lights are bright on Broadway ... In addition to swapping in CFLs, ideas shared at the meeting included reducing paper use, increasing recycling efforts, and incorporating the use of electric timers.

Look for more details in the future as Annie gets her green.

Co-op America's Responsible Shopper

Check out Co-op America's Responsible Shopper!

This great site provides you with the real story about abuses by well-known companies, gives you actions to promote corporate responsibility, and helps you green your life and world.

Search hundreds of company profiles by name or by industry and quickly compare the corporate responsibility records of companies within industries.

Act to change corporate behavior: choose from dozens of campaigns to help curb corporate abuse.

Green your shopping, your home, and your world.

Vote Blue (Not Green) This Time

It's time for Project Pet's Precious Pet Calendar Contest, a fundraiser for Project Pet! This is a fun election - you can buy votes! (Sorry, folks, Hillary's not in THIS race!)

Each vote is only $1, and all of the money goes directly to Project Pet, a non-profit rescue organization that saves many of the animals sent to Midlands shelters. Winston is a Project Pet dog, and I'm a big fan of the organization. (Gotta love this award-winning HOWLoween picture, huh?)

No worries - Winston's competive days are over. Personally, I couldn't TAKE another contest, and Winnie wants to go out a winner! But I do have a "dog in the race," beautiful Blue, who "owns" a green colleague.

Please consider supporting Blue and Project Pet today.

A CLEVER and Useful Green Idea

How clever! You get a placemat and napkin holder all in one compact piece, and they're made from recycled rubber! $19.00 each at Branch.

Recycling Bins Are Not for Boa Constrictors

That's a clean load," says John Wilson, looking over a pungent mountain of garbage - smashed cardboard and grocery sacks and plastic bottles disgorged from the back of a compactor truck.

"Clean" is a relative term in the recycling business.

At Rocky Mountain Recycling's sorting plant in South Salt Lake, workers can tell at first sight if four tons of recyclables hide nasty surprises like decaying grass clippings or poopy Huggies or punctured jugs of motor oil.

Most of us are willing to separate our morning newspaper from the coffee grounds. But some still don't get it or test the limits, throwing in yard waste that won't fit in the garbage can, leftover lumber, car hoods, dinner plates.

Read the rest of this great article!

Create Your Own Unlikely Alliance

Have you seen the We Campaign ads where people who disagree on everything come together to solve the climate crisis? On a couch?

I just sent the We Campaign my own suggestions for an "Unlikely Alliance." My alliances were Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston, Bill O' Reilly and Keith Olberman, and Barack Obama and John McCain.

Submit your own unlikely alliance(s) here.

For Frugalists, Bargain Hunting is a Lifestyle

Okay, the food thing is a little over the top even for me, but working at the landfill, I can attest that people do throw out some really good stuff.

For these extreme anti-consumers, your trash is their food, furniture
By Allison Linn
Senior writer/MSNBC

It’s an unseasonably cold day in Seattle, and Rebecca is standing in her kitchen, preparing for her regular Sunday afternoon outing. As she gathers her backpack and grocery bags, her dog sniffs around excitedly, anticipating the long walk and treats that await.

In the course of their errands, Rebecca and her dog will visit several stores and coffee shops, a bakery and a chocolate factory. But instead of walking in the front door, she plans to head out back and go Dumpster diving.

Rebecca, 51, owns a small duplex and has a job running an art program for a health care organization. She’s also an artist in her own right whose accomplishments include a piece that hangs in the Seattle Art Museum.

And she gets 99 percent of her food from the Dumpster.

“It’s so easy to eat for free,” she says. “The only things I buy are butter and milk.”

It’s no secret that American culture is a consumer culture. We like big cars, big houses and big bags of things bought at big malls and big-box retailers. On the opposite end of the spectrum are the few people who call themselves anti-consumerists, freegans, frugalists or just plain Dumpster divers. Whatever the moniker, these people delight in drastically reducing their consumer spending, finding life’s essentials at bargain prices or paying nothing at all.

“I like getting stuff free. It’s like a treasure hunt,” says Ran Prieur, 40, who lives in Washington state and whose extremely frugal life includes occasional Dumpster diving. “It’s kind of similar to what you get from gambling.”

Read more.

The Story of Stuff

I just discovered the coolest site: The Story of Stuff. Check it out. GREAT stuff!

From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It'll teach you something, it'll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.