Sean's Blog

A couple of weeks ago, a friend sent me a link to a site, GreenDimes. This services, for a minimum of $15, includes the following:

• Automatic removal from major direct marketing lists – includes you and everyone you list for your household
• A simple online tool to manage catalog and non-profit mailings – for other lists you might be on but not need
• Monthly monitoring of your Direct Marketing Association registration – make sure you stay off their list
• A set of personalized postcards to sign and send to more junk mail companies – for mail that comes to you as “occupant” or “resident”
• Ten trees planted with one of our non-profit tree-planting partner – admit it: we need more trees anyway

Not bad for $15. The down side is that staying of the list of mailers is on a per-residence basis, so if you move, you have to buy another kit. (Oh no, that means they;ll plant even more trees when I move and sign up again!) I went the extra distance and spent $36, which includes the above, plus the following:

• One GreenDimes Reusable Bag (pale green)
• One GreenDimes T-shirt (your choice of color and size)
• Two energy-saving Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs

I don’t care much about the T-shirt per se, but it’s something that can be used. I’m sure there’s a slight mark up on some of the items there, but if it benefits that service, I’m fine with that. The reusable bag will be nice, as we have one that we’ve been using now, and it’ll be nice to use less bags at the store when we can. Depending on the wattage of the bulbs, those CFLs will be placed somewhere in the house too. The overall decrease in junk mail will be nice, as I had previously found a for-free service that stopped junk mail, and it did wonders for our mail box. It’s been about 8 months since I had done that, and I end up with almost no junk mail. I figure that with the GreenDimes service, not only will Meghan’s junk mail decrease, we’ll be able to make sure we get less junk mail by using those cards, but some trees will be planted.

In this case, I can’t argue the $36 I spent on the kit. I suppose it would have been better for the environment had I not bought the kit, and then it doesn’t have to be shipped, but you have to start somewhere. Now that I have an account, I can easily just request another, cheaper kit, when we move, and get the benefits of continued lack of junk mail, as well as have more trees planted in the process.

There is also a petition on their site which is for a request for a “National Do Not Mail” registry to give people the option of opting out of unsolicited mail.

So, if you decide you’d like to try this service, leave a comment and I’ll send you an invite. The invite is just to give me a $5 credit on their site, so you could always just sign up on the site without doing so, but it would be nice.

A couple weeks ago, my wife and I purchased a couple CFL bulbs for the apartment. We already had one in our hallway, and we got two 13 watt (60 watt equivalent) and a 15 watt (65 watt equivalent) flood light for a standing lamp. The two 13 watt lights are Daylight CFL bulbs, and the color of the light they display is different and takes some getting used to, but for where they are used, it works rather well.

I went to the URL located on the package, http://www.lamprecycle.org/, and was looking for information about disposing the lights in the case that they burn out or break. Either case is technically unlikely, as I’m not sure if we’ll be in that apartment for longer than the projected life of the bulb (5 years), and they are either in globes or positioned in a way that they can’t accidentally be broken, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. Anyway, after jumping between different URLs and pdfs, I came across a pdf about lamp recycling, which I found on http://www.epa.state.oh.us/dhwm/guidancedocs.html#fluorescent. It listed two places that accept lamps for recycling in Ohio, one of which is located in Bowling Green.

When I visited the website for Environmental Recycling, I found some information about recycling lamps for commercial facilities, but couldn’t find information regarding the recycling of consumer bulbs. An e-mail to the contact person listed in the pdf about lamp recycling yielded prices and types of materials they accept from homeowners, which I now present below. I’d like to point out, that these are only as current as I know them to be, and could change at any time or even differ completely.

• Compact Fluorescent and 4′ lamps: $0.30/lamp
• Electronics and computers: $0.35/lb
• Household hazardous waste: $0.80/lb

So it’ll cost money to recycle the CFLs and computers, but considering the benefit to the environment and the money I’ll technically save in the process, it’s worth it.

Some may say that the threat of exposure to mercury in the CFLs if they break is a hazard that isn’t worth the net gain of them lasting longer or lowering lighting costs. The amount of mercury that is present in the CFLs is about 4mg, which is 100 times less than the of a typical mercury thermometer. The National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) has a pdf regarding the mercury in CFLs, and Snopes.com has a good article about rumors and facts with CFLs as well.

So there you have it: information about CFLs and how to recycle CFLs and computers in Bowling Green, OH.