Plant pot recycling

At Mother Earth Gardens, they spell out how we should prep our plastic plant pots so they can be recycled. Here's a list of other garden centers where you can recycle your pots.

From their website:
Plastic Pot Recycling is Back!
The name of this game is cooperation. We'll take single growers pots, 4- and 6-pack cells, and trays sorted by size and free of debris. Please make sure the pots do not contain any wires, rocks, garbage, other plastics, or excessive dirt because this stuff wrecks the process downstream. We cannot take compostable pots or consumer plastic pots purchased empty. Feel free to ask us if your pots fit the bill, we need to work together to keep this program going!

It's a gorgeous garden center and its loveliness makes you want to buy it all!

Cool homemade wooden dogs for your yard, made by my neighbor.

3 Rs: Reuse, reuse, reuse!

What's better than recycling? Reduction. What else is better than recycling? Reuse!

Here are three recent instances of reuse in my life, which netted me 2 wonderful solutions and 1 awesome new item.

1. At the Coon Rapids Recycling Center, they have a TerraCycle recycling station for chip bags, juice pouches and cookie, granola bar and candy wrappers, but people are always putting in things like crouton bags, cat food bags and other foily packaging that TerraCycle doesn't accept. So we wanted to put up a sign, but there wasn't a good way to hang it or post it. I dug around in the scrap-metal dumpster and found these two white aluminum pieces, screwed them together, then attached them to the metal cart. I'm not very handy, so using the power screwdriver to do this little project was an accomplishment! And the set-up does the trick for this situation.

2. Our plastic soap pump, left, broke after many years of use, so I looked for a replacement, which was only a couple of bucks, but would've required me to make a special trip to Michaels or Jo-Ann Fabrics. So, since I'm lazy, I just waited for something to come along. And lo and behold, I soon came across this plastic pump from a bottle of hand sanitizer, which works well as a replacement.

3. And lastly, I visited ARC's Value Village because I had a coupon, and got this gorgeous orange Pyrex casserole. Isn't it sunny and cheerful?!

Opting out of MORE phone books

I posted last July about getting off the delivery list for Yellow Pages. Then today 4 Dex books showed up at my house, so I went here to opt out of those, too. Are you frustrated with all those phone books getting dropped off at your front door? Opt out of them!

Beer bottle caps are recyclable

I've heard the question of whether metal bottle caps are recyclable a lot, and I finally have a definitive answer. Metal bottle caps and lids such as those on beer and jars of pickles are recyclable, but their small size is a problem -- at the materials recovery facility (MRF) they tend to fall through the screens and sorting machines and end up as trash. So there's one thing you have to do to get them recycled: put your metal caps into a steel can and then smoosh the top so the metal caps/lids don't fall out. Then the can and its contents will get recycled. Voila!

Checking out the new Fulton Farmers Market

Yay, I'm so glad the Fulton Farmers Market is up and running! It's awesome to have a farmers market right in our neighborhood!! It's every Saturday from 8:30 until 1 at 49th and Chowen in the Lake Harriet United Methodist Church parking lot.

Our friend Kris owns Gai Gai Thai, a brand new mobile food business.


The lovely and talented Courtnay, cooking up some delicious chicken! Gai Gai Thai uses chicken from Kadejan, beef from Thousand Hills Cattle Company and tortillas from La Perla.







And of course I had to check out the waste situation at the market ...

And by "check out," I mean dive right in. Here's that same barrel with the organics pulled out.

This one was full, too, and is nearly empty without the organics.

They need recycling bins for cans and bottles, too.

Bashin' some trash.
Two 33-gallon bags of organics out of the trash. There was more organics to pull out, but I'd only brought two compostable bags. I talked to several farmers market board members, all of whom were enthusiastically supportive of starting organics collection at the market. So hopefully in the not too distant future I'll be reporting on this blog that it's started!

Cute family!

Spreading the love

In the last post, I wrote about my workhorse of a car, always hauling things here and there. Well, in recent days I finally reciprocated some love: replaced a burned-out headlight bulb and also got a new set of tires (a pothole punctured the sidewall of one of my tires). The latter errand turned out to be a very fruitful one.

I went to the Discount Tire store in Bloomington. The guys were very helpful and super nice. Tire Technician Adam taught me all about corrosion on my rim (which he buffed out) and how a tire gets inflated and balanced.

My rim after Adam buffed out the corrosion.

Corrosion build-up on my tire.

New tire without build-up.

Adam mounting my rim onto my new tire.

This machine simulates road conditions and tells the technician how to balance the tire.

And Salesman Adam and I talked about recycling and composting after I saw their trash bin full of office paper. He asked about getting curbside composting at his Minneapolis home because he had lived in Seattle, where curbside organics collection is widespread. Then I said I'd bring some paper-recycling bins, which I put in place myself because the store was very busy at the end of the day.

Before



After

I also went to the Cub Foods next door, which had just put recycling bins in every single check-out aisle two days previous. Front-end supervisor and recycling enthusiast Kelsey was very excited about the new bins and the addition of bottle & can recycling bins to the employee breakroom and in the offices. She said the new store manager was very supportive of recycling efforts (support from the top is crucial), thus the rollout of all the new bins. We talked about how some signage would help customers figure out where they should put their discards (right now the bins aren't marked).

They're in every single check-out aisle! Excellent! The recycling program is implemented on a store-by-store basis, Kelsey said, depending on whether a particular store's manager makes it a priority and makes it happen.

And I was pleased to see they now offer a compostable container (on the left) for deli foods.

My wheels, my workhorse

Dear Diary, it was another typical week for me:

Sunday 10:30 a.m. She packed me to the hilt with Styrofoam.

5 p.m. Styrofoam unloaded. Good because the squeaking sounds were beginning to get to me.
5:30 p.m. I get loaded with plastic film and bags from the Linden Hills Festival, then 3 bags of mixed plastic containers from Leslie were added.
6:30 p.m. Plastic film, bags, containers unloaded.
7 p.m. I get loaded with organics. They're stinky!
7:15 p.m. Organics unloaded.
8:30 p.m. I then get loaded with garage sale items (those lamps will never sell), shovels and buckets for compost and one flat of plants for Carolyn.
Monday 11:30 a.m. shovels, buckets used and then reloaded.
6 p.m. Garage sale items unloaded


6:05 p.m. I get loaded with organics, plastic containers and plastic bags from the vet clinic.
8:30 p.m. Plastic containers, bags unloaded, then more organics get added.
Tuesday 8 a.m. organics unloaded. I can breathe freely again!
Wednesday 9 p.m. Plates, mugs, silverware loaded to be used at GreenCorps training

Thursday 8:30 a.m. Plates, etc. unloaded.

4 p.m. Plates, etc. reloaded, this time dirty.

8 p.m. 3 bags of #5 plastic containers, 3 bags of plastic bottle caps for Aveda, 3 bags of milk cartons/juice boxes for recycling by Eureka Recycling, 3 bags of corks (above) loaded.

Friday 12:45 p.m. Bottle caps and milk cartons unloaded. In their place I've got blocks of Styrofoam, a cat litter box and a big bag of organics.

3:15 p.m. #5 plastic and corks unloaded at Whole Foods. It's raining and she left my trunk open.

Saturday 10 p.m. Now she's moving stuff around and folding my seats down. Ah, she's loading up a bicycle.

Sunday 3 p.m. My trunk is filled with organics. They smell ripe! But oh do I feel useful!