Recycling

This Thursday, April 22, is Earth Day! At Marin Mommies, we've decided to make it "Earth Week" and focus on conservation, green living, and the environment every day this week. Look for environmentally-themed posts here through Friday, as well as a calendar of Earth Day events for families throughout Marin and the Bay Area.

One of the most immediate and simplist things you can do for the environment is to recycle. But sometimes the task of recycling becomes a little more difficult than just sorting the plastic bottles from the glass and flattening those cardboard boxes. What do you do with batteries? Old worn out Crocs? Flourescent bulbs? Real Simple magazine has a handy online article that literally tells you how to recycle or reuse anything, aptly named "How to Recycle Anything."

As December nears a close and the New Year begins, the time comes to dispose of your Christmas tree. It's a sad but inevitable fact of life that your tree has to go at some point, unless of course you have an artificial Christmas tree, in which case you can probably stop reading right here.

Fortunately, your local disposal agency is usually more than happy to take your dried out old Noble Fir off your hands and do the green thing with the tree by recycling it. If for some reason you can't leave your tree out by the curb with your yard waste, you can drop it off at a number of different locations, including most fire houses, throughout Marin County.

Here's a rundown of Christmas tree disposal details for communities in Marin, courtesy of marinrecycles.org.

Curbside Collection

Marin Sanitary
For Larkspur, Greenbrae, Kentfield, Las Gallinas Valley, Ross, San Anselmo, San Rafael, Fairfax, and Ross Valley (Sleepy Hollow and Oak Manor): Trees collected at the curb on your regular yard waste pickup day during the month of January. If trees are greater than 6 feet in length, please cut them in half. Remove all metal stands, plastic tree bags, and ornaments. Flocked trees will not be accepted.

Mill Valley Refuse
For Almonte, Alto, Belvedere, Corte Madera, Mill Valley, Homestead, Strawberry, and Tiburon: Trees along curb on any regular greenwaste collection day, starting the week after New Year’s. Trees taller than 5 feet in length must be cut in half. Flocked trees are OK. All apartment building tenants should contact their manager. They will set up one day for all
Christmas tree collection.

Novato Disposal
During the week of January 11 customers may place whole trees at the curb the night before their regular collection day. Additionally, trees may be cut to fit inside your yard waste container for collection on your regular service day. Remove all lights, tinsel ornaments and stands. Flocked trees will not be collected.

Sausalito/Marin City
Bay Cities Refuse customers in Sausalito can put trees at the curb on your regular greenwaste pickup day January 4–8 or January 18–22. Customers in Marin City can put trees at the curb on your regular green waste pickup day January 8 and January 22. No metal stands or flocked trees and remove all ornaments.

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By know you've probably heard that SIGG, the Swiss manufacturer of expensive and stylish aluminum water bottles, hasn't exactly been honest with consumers. After years of claiming that their bottles were BPA-free (which is why so many of us bought them in the first place), SIGG last week revealed that the liners in all their bottles manufactured before August 2008 in fact contain—you guessed it—BPA. SIGG insists that tests show their liners to be non-leaching, but the damage is done. I'm not going to go over the whole sordid story here; there are plenty of places online that do that already, like Huffington Post blogger Simran Sethi.

If you're like many of us, you probably own one or more pre-August-2008 SIGG bottles (which you, ironically, bought to avoid having to use BPA-filled plastic ones). So what do you do with them? Fortunately, SIGG is attempting to make good in light of this PR disaster, and will exchange your old bottles for new versions with their BPA-free "EcoCare" liners.

Visit SIGG's website for instructions on how to return your bottles, and to download a shipping lable and return form. You'll have to pay to return the old bottles, and the program is good through October 31, 2009. Of course they remind us that the old bottles have been "proven not to leach," but at this point it's probably a good idea just to get the new ones.

If you don't feel like going through all that, then you may be in luck: apparently Whole Foods and REI stores will take exchange the old SIGG bottles for either a new model or store credit. That sounds a lot easier than packing the bottles up and shipping them back at your expense. In Marin and the North Bay Whole Foods stores can be found in Mill Valley (415-381-1200), San Rafael (415-451-6333), Petaluma (tel (707-762-9352), and Sonoma (707-938-8500), and REI has outlets in Corte Madera (415-927-1938) and Santa Rosa (tel (707-540-9025). Phone numbers are included because it's always best to call and confirm first, isn't it?

We asked Marin Kids & Maternity Consignment's Melissa Hereford to tell us a little about the back-to-school bargains that can be found at their retail store on West Francisco Boulevard in San Rafael. They try to live up their motto, "Saving the planet, one outfit at a time" by offering a great selection of gently used (or "new-to-you") children's apparel and more, much of it perfect for back-to-school! Marin Kids & Maternity Consignment is also a great place to sell your old children's clothing and maternity wear. They're located at 814 Francisco Boulevard West and open Wednesday–Sunday, 10 am–6 pm. Visit them online at www.marinkidsconsignment.com.

Owned and operated by Marin moms, Marin Kids & Maternity Consignment in San Rafael can be a great, budget-friendly resource for gearing up for back to school. The store has clean, well-maintained play areas for your kids, so shopping does not have to be so stressful with kids in tow. To us, this means you don't have to feel the pressure to buy the entire fall and winter wardrobe in one shopping trip. You can stop by as the seasons change to see what's new—we add to our racks every day as new items come in. Watch as winter clothing appears on the racks and stock up for the hot months ahead with summer gear on sale.

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It was when packing my son’s snacks for kindergarten that I became acutely aware of just how wasteful storing and transporting food can be. I’d find myself putting his snacks in different plastic sandwich bags, which of course all got thrown out either at school or at home (after we found the baggie containing 3-week-old rotten carrot sticks under the seat of the car).

Figuring that there had to be a better way, I started looking for a better way to pack snacks and sandwiches for school. Enter the reusable snack wrap. The concept is pretty simple in essence: a mat or pouch made of eco-friendly material like organic cotton or phthalate-free plastic that can be used to store food, then cleaned and used again and again, rather than thrown away. Here are some of my favorite reusable food bags:

In this special "Earth Week" guest post, Melissa Hereford, Marin mompreneur and owner of Marin Kids and Maternity Consignment in San Rafael, offers a few reasons why buying gently used items (and selling or donating yours) is good not only for the wallet but for the environment, too.

Her motto is "Saving the earth, one outfit at a time," and she takes the idea seriously!

As we approach another Earth Day, we find ourselves focusing more and more on the recycling movement with our children, the future of the planet, and the limited space in our landfills in mind! Buying gently worn and gently used items is not only about saving money. That is a wonderful aspect of the practice, but it seems to be ever more important to reduce all the waste inherent in both manufacturing and retail. For example, when you buy gently used items, you: