Many Americans just have too many clothes — our collective closets are stuffed with mid-range to cheapie clothing brands that we can tire of quickly and replace without breaking the proverbial bank. Like that sweater? Buy it in two colors! Need new jeans? There’s a sale so you can get three pairs! H&M has hatched a crazy-like-a-fox plan to help rid customers of their old duds while giving them incentive to shop for new stuff with a recently announced clothing recycling plan. [More]
recycling
Give Second Lives To Your Old Cell Phones
By 2.3.12
Old cell phones you’ve got piled up in that drawer could do some good for others. There are ample options for donating or recycling the outmoded devices. [More]
Do You Recycle Your Pantyhose?
By 1.10.12
High on the list of complaints about pantyhose is that it just doesn’t last long enough. But from an environmental point of view it lasts too long once a discarded pair moves from your household trash to the landfill. Efforts at recycling can include using old pantyhose to stake tomato plants and make sachets, but there’s a small snag considering that sheer hosiery sales alone exceeded $1 billion over a recent 12-month period, according to the NPD Group, a market research company. [More]
D.C. Residents, Recycle Your Cat Litter Or Face Garbage Snooping, Fines
By 12.14.11
The Washington, D.C. Department of Public Works is apparently so dedicated to enforcing recycling laws that they’re willing to dig through trash to find evidence to issue fines. A resident says she’s been stuck with $2,000 worth of fines, some of which come from a government employee who admits to discovering her violations by snooping in her garbage. [More]
To Battle Drought, Texas Town Will Drink Recycled Sewage
By 8.8.11
If you happen to find yourself in Big Spring, Texas, you could be contributing to the water supply every time you relieve yourself. The town is building a plant that will capture and recycle treated waste water, planing to take treated water that would normally flow into a creek and redirect it into the drinking water supply. [More]
Kodak Wants Your Old Cameras, Electronics
By 6.5.11
If you’ve got a drawer full of old camera equipment, you can turn it into money by selling it to Kodak, which has introduced a trade-in program in which it’s seeking digital and film cameras and accessories, digital video cameras, digital picture frames and printers. [More]
Inventor Makes Fuel Out Of Brewery Waste
By 2.14.11
Beer is known for fueling ill-advised hook-ups and spontaneous bar brawls, and now the waste that breweries produce can result in fuel for operating the plants. [More]
Best Buy Officially Announces It Will Buy Back Your Old Gadgets
By 2.4.11
Like we told you in a Consumerist exclusive back in December, Best Buy is launching a new program that lets customers trade in their old gadgets for a gift card for a fraction of their value, good towards another Best Buy purchase. They say it “future-proofs” your technology. The announcement was emailed to customers last night and will also be publicized during the Super Bowl. [More]
What To Do With Your Old Laptop
By 1.28.11
Once you shove your slow, beat-up laptop aside for a newer model, you need to decide what to do with the older machine. While it’s tempting to take a baseball bat to the laptop, as the guys in the movie The Office did to the copier, there are plenty of useful functions for your digital ex. [More]
Coca Cola Launches Recycling Machine That Does The Sorting For You
By 11.21.10
Situated outside a Kroger in Arlington, TX, is a new structure that resembles a slimmed down drive-thru restaurant or the world’s longest ATM. It’s actually the first of Coca-Cola’s “Reimagine” recycling machines that allows customers to dump aluminum cans and #1 PET plastic containers in all at the same time. [More]
How Gadgets Designed For The Dump Are Killing The Planet
By 11.12.10
Annie Leonard is back with another engaging and frightening look at how our disposable electronics are trashing the earth. The concept is that our favorite gadgets are “designed for the dump,” because they’re “hard to upgrade, easy to break, and impracticable to repair.” For instance, her DVD player broke and the fix-it guy wanted $50 just to look at it. Why bother when you can get a new one at Target for $39? Something about this system has got to change. [More]
Helpful Best Buy Employees Recycle Van Full Of Computers, Delight Customer
By 10.7.10
Mindy writes that she had all of the elements for a disastrous morning lined up: she visited Best Buy with a preschool child, an infant, and a van full of old electronics for recycling. However, she found herself in a parallel universe full of helpful Best Buy and Geek Squad employees willing to accept more electronics than the usual limit and give helpful advice. [More]
Why Are Americans Such Babies About Going Green?
By 7.18.10
When it comes to green technologies, America has historically been a launching point for plenty of environmentally-friendly innovations — the compact fluorescent bulb, wind turbines, lithium ion batteries — only to eventually come up short and pass the buck onto other countries when it comes to implementation. So why are we so bad at going green? [More]
Let's Recycle The Swirling Vortex Of Plastic Garbage Into An Island Utopia
By 7.15.10
The North Pacific Gyre is a giant mass of plastic detritus churning around in the Pacific that isn’t going anywhere soon, and its killing off fish and birds. The birds eat it and it fills up their stomach so that they don’t have any hunger, and then they die of starvation with their stomachs full of plastic. Now one group has an admittedly far-fetched notion to recycle the plastic on the spot via floating factory ships and use the material to build a floating island utopia. [More]
Things To Do With That Obsolete iPhone
By 7.1.10
What Pixar needs to do is make a movie called iPhone Story, about what your outmoded past iPhones do when you’re not looking and how they react to the annual, Buzz Lightyear-like newcomers. [More]
Starbucks Sponsors Contest To Create Green Coffee Cups
By 5.22.10
Not content with offering discounts to customers who bring in their own travel mugs, Starbucks has now thrown its weight behind “betacup,” a contest to “eliminate paper cup consumption through the design of a more convenient alternative to the reusable coffee mug.” Some of the ideas submitted so far include a hemp-based cup (we have some ideas about how to recycle that one), cups made from coconut shells, and inflatable, reusable cups. [More]
Save A Dime At Starbucks By Using Your Own Mug
By 4.20.10
Following last week’s coffee giveaway for anyone using their own refillable mug, Starbucks is making a push to remind people you can get $.10 off any brewed beverage at any of their stores by using your reusable travel mug. [More]
Pay $230 For Recycled Chair That Lets You Advertise Coke
By 4.15.10
Coca-Cola is making up for ensnaring poor little ducks in six-pack containers by making chairs recycled from its bottles — understandably stamped with the company logo — and hocking them for $230, the Atlanta Business Journal reports. [More]
