Out with the old... tree, that is

It's that time of year again. Time to reclaim your living room and throw out that holiday tree. You won't miss it too much. After all, you'll be finding it's needles until next Christmas. Here's the news release from New York's Strongest:

Sanitation Begins Christmas Tree Recycling on January 5th
Sanitation Commissioner John J. Doherty announced today that the Department will begin its annual Christmas tree curbside collection and recycling program on Monday, January 5, 2009. The program will run through Friday, January 16th.

Residents should remove all tree stands, tinsel, lights, and ornaments from holiday trees before they are put out at curbside for removal. Trees must not be placed into plastic bags. Clean, non-bagged Christmas trees that are left at the curb between Monday, January 5th and Friday, January 16th will be collected, chipped, and made into compost. The compost will be processed and subsequently spread upon parks, ball fields, and community gardens throughout the city.

In January 2008, the Department collected over 160,000 discarded Christmas trees.

"The Department is very pleased to offer this special recycling service. Providing collection and recycling options for residents is environmentally valuable and benefits our neighborhoods. Working in conjunction with the City's Parks & Recreation Department allows residents to take part in the recycling process and permits them to even reuse their composted Christmas trees to fertilize for the spring. Compost is a natural fertilizer and is an excellent soil enrichment that promotes the healthy growth of plants and grass," said Commissioner Doherty.

The Parks & Recreation Department will be hosting Mulchfest 2009 on Saturday, January 10th and Sunday, January 11th from 10 A.M. to 2 P.M. at more than 80 sites throughout the city. To find citywide locations, visit the Parks & Recreation website at www.nyc.gov/parks. The citywide service allows New Yorkers to drop off their holiday trees at designated parks for mulching and event attendees can pick up free mulch. All lights, ornaments, and decorations must be removed from the trees prior to drop-off.

For more information on Christmas tree collection and recycling and/or Mulchfest 2009, visit www.nyc.gov/sanitation or www.nyc.gov/parks or call 3-1-1

We'll be getting ours out to the curb this Sunday. Not to beat the rush, or to be the cool ones who do it first, but to end the constant struggle between Pumpkin's natural curiosity about an indoor pine tree and the dubious structural integrity of a $4.95 tree stand. At this point, the stand has become less a water dish for the tree, and more a water dish for the cats. Disposing of the tree will be our first act of simplifying in 2009... until the end of the year when we do it all over again.

Amazon takes away your pain, gives you money.

Amazon has launched a "Frustration-Free Packaging" initiative to save you frustration and money. Get a load of this: In the spirit of the lazy environmentalist (“I'll be green, just don't expect me to alter my habits”), Amazon worked with manufacturers and has found a way to:

• ...give you the same great quality products
• ...let you order the same (same shipping, same process)
  
• ...deliver these products in packaging that results in less waste
• ...get rid of "did-they-make-this-barbie-%#@$%ing-secure-enough!?" twisty-ties
• ...get rid of "I-need-a-boxcutter-to-open-this-boxcutter" blisterpacks
• ...even save you a few pennies at the same time

Check out this video that shows two adults who have pirate ship fetishes. The time savings is less motivating to me than the savings in sanity (I hate blisterpacks) and the reduction of waste. Saving money is never a bad thing either!



Check out Amazon's full list of frustration-free packaging. I'm telling you, one of these days I'm going to come home and find that Amazon.com has sent me some cookies and a homemade blanket. What a sweet bunch of folks...

CityScoops: Does your mail have cupcakes?

Oh please say you didn't throw this magazine out! I have absolutely no idea how this magazine comes into our house, but I usually thumb through its 11 pages and see what's going in. It has a couple of feature articles and some few mini reviews, what's hot, etc. Sometimes it goes right into the recycling bag, but JC decided to check out this issue. I see her going through some coupons (like the ones that come in the blue val-pak envelopes) and her eyes got moist and she said with a smile, "Columbia... you're never going to believe this..." Preparing myself for disbelief, I sat down and drew a deep breath. She holds up something more mighty than a wonka golden ticket -- a coupon for a free cupcake at the (recently mentioned) Buttercup Bake Shop on West 72nd street! If this magazine is in your house, tear off that plastic protective sheath, run (don't walk) to west 72 and thank me later.

Columbia recommends the Lemon or Chocolate Chocolate.
JC seconds the lemon recommendation and also suggests chocolate with vanilla icing.

Link: Buttercup Bake Shop
Link: City Scoops

Recycle? Reduce!

While making dinner, I bumped my leg on the recyclables bag that hangs from a cabinet knob. It was overflowing. Again. I didn't feel any satisfaction this time in our 'green' efforts and didn't get the 'green glow.' While we are recycling, there is still quite a bit of waste. I began wondering if there was a way to reduce the amount of waste we have, recyclable or otherwise. One way might be to utilize more fresh fruits and vegetables in our cooking. That is not always the cheapest option, especially for a family now living on one income. When planning meals for next week I want to think more about the produce on sale and how we might center the meals around those items. Surely there are ways to be environmentally minded and frugal. If so, we'll find them!

Posted picture used under creative commons license from Flickr user caseyswest.

Pitching the Menus

Google ads, don't you listen to our woe?? I went on this morning and saw an ad on A Home in the City for "Menutopia" -- serving menus to all places in the city. Why would you tempt us and our cost-minded readers with ads of encouraging the delivery boy to beat you??

Okay the truth is, sometimes you have to order in. I thought that JC's idea to get rid of the take-out menus was perhaps a little bold, but we should do as we say and we pitched the whole lot. A friend saw them in our recycling bag and looked at me like I'd lost my mind. He paused for about a second, and then said, "ehh, there's still menupages."

Even if you have no intention to stop ordering in, you can get rid of the clutter (binder / folder / pile / etc ) and go digital. Now if I can just stop them from sliding those tempting menus under our door we'll be all set.

A Small Step and a Green Glow

Last week while playing Beat the Delivery Boy I decided to whip up some pancakes and eggs for dinner. The recipe I use for pancakes makes too many for Columbia and I to eat in one meal, so he gets a stack for breakfast as well. I was having an internal debate over what to do with the hot flapjacks as I was making more in a skillet:

I'm not turning the oven on and wasting the electricity... if I tent them like my sister always does I'll be wasting aluminum foil... Wait! I can tent them with foil and then use the same piece of foil to cover Columbia's stack for breakfast! The foil will be able to be recycled in the morning!

I was so proud of myself! I found a way to reduce waste and electricity, reuse a resource and then recycle while still making a quick and tasty dinner. While it's not the biggest step, it's something and every little bit helps make our planet a better place. And with that "green" glow about me from being a little more environmentally conscious, we barely needed to turn on the lights that evening. ;)

Posted picture used under creative commons license from Flikr user playbeasy.

Don't pitch that pine! (Part II)

DW has brought it to my attention that the City of New York has much better things to do that jam our curbed trees into the local landfill. How could I be so naive? So curb those trees, New York! Here's a note from the mulchfest site:

How to Recycle Your Tree if You Miss Mulchfest
The Department of Sanitation will collect for composting clean holiday trees left at the curb from Thursday, January 3 through Wednesday, January 16, 2008. Make sure all lights, ornaments and stands are removed before setting trees at the curb.

I stand corrected. And the best part is, I don't have to schlep my pine to the park today.

Don't pitch that pine!

How would you like to help New York City grow? How about reducing space in your local landfill? What's that? You do? Well, you're in luck, for all you need this weekend is one pine tree, much like the one in your living room.

Bring your Christmas tree (sans ornaments and lights, pine needles optional) to a mulchfest site this coming weekend.

• Locations in all boroughs
• Jan 5th and 6th
• 10am - 2pm.

For more info and to find locations near you, check out NYC's mulchfest site.


Picture taken by me, 2007

HP delivers on ink cartridge recycling made easy

I've had an ink-jet printer for years, and had the highest ambitions to recycle the empty cartridges. Staples once had a "free ream of paper for an empty cartridge" promotion at one point, which I meant to capitalize on. I never did of course. I've become such a paper nazi over the past few years, that the 88-brightness copy machine paper would have caused more unused clutter in the house anyway. I'm sure there's an empty set of CMYK sitting somewhere in my house with a dust layer an inch thick.

I bought a new printer a few months ago, and this weekend had to replace the ink. Lo and behold, attached to the new cartridges were folded up envelopes asking me to send back my empties!

Step 1. Cut a hole Place 1 or 2 empty HP inkjet cartridges in this envelopes without additional packaging or notes.
Step 2. Carefully seal envelope (no licking, just sticking -ed.)
Step 3. Mail postage paid envelope back to HP.

Sure, there's no reward, but it takes about 3 seconds longer than putting it right in the trash. And then the the warm fuzzy which lasts a lifetime (or at least as long as it takes to print a full sheet photo at max resolution).