My Green Move: Part One
My Green Move is an exclusive Earth911 two part series documenting the environmental ups and downs of freelance writer Libuse Binder. Follow her from New York to Seattle and pick up some great green moving tips along the way.
Like so many of you, I love to move. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of packing everything you own and taking off for parts unknown. OK, not really, but sometimes there is just no getting around the need or desire to relocate.
This time though, I was determined that my cross country trek from NY to Seattle (first time with these two locations/third time moving coast to coast), would be as environmentally friendly as possible. My first goal was to reduce as many of my belongings as possible in an effort to lower both the cost and carbon emissions generated in transport.
Keep in mind that even if you are not planning a move anytime soon, the idea of responsible net reduction is one that almost anyone can embrace.
Our Mission
In addition to the usual avenues for reuse —Goodwill, local charities, etc.— my husband and I also made it a point to recycle even those hard to deal with items. With the clock ticking towards our departure date, it became progressively more tempting to dispense with our outmoded possessions at the landfill, but we resisted the urge.
It’s New To Them!
We decided that before we deemed our unwanted possessions “junk,” we would see if they were treasures for anyone else. Here are a few tips for a successful sale:
- Plan a date when you know people will be around (in our case, this meant the last day of school since we live on a campus).
- Advertise! Send out an email to your friends, those in your community and/or consider placing an advertisement in a local paper.
- Put up signs. Even if the yard sale has been well-advertised, a little nudge from a sign on the day of the sale, may be just what people need to check it out. And, of course, signs will catch the attention of those passing by.
- Display everything in an attractive and neat manner. You are less likely to buy items in a store when everything is in a heap—the same goes for a yard sale.
- Be prepared to haggle . . . but not too much. Of course, there are always those looking for a deal—hold your ground with prices only if something has significant value. Otherwise, the point of a sale like this is to rid yourself of excess possessions, so let them go!
Our moving sale was hugely successful; we sold about two thirds of our “inventory” and all of our big ticket furniture items.
Dealing With the Leftovers
Once we’d had our moving sale and made a few trips to our local thrift stores, we still had the problem of what to do with the X-Box player that didn’t work, or the CDs that had long ago been uploaded into our iTunes library. We didn’t have room for them in our precious cube of truck space, and we still don’t want to hit that dumpster.
It should be noted that due to both environmental and budgetary concerns, we tried to consume as little space as possible on a carbon emitting moving truck. After some research, I found a company that rents smaller spaces on large trailers, and so we were able to rent the smallest size —6′ x 8′ x 9′— further emphasizing the need for “net reduction.”
Those Tough to Recycle Items
The two main resources that I used to aid me in my quest were Earth911’s recycling locator and Co-op America’s blog, both of which offer links to recycling agencies for everything from CD jewel cases to appliances.
Here are a few tough-to-recycle items we unloaded using the suggestions from these resources (and a little creative thinking):
- Beanie Babies—No idea where these came from. I know they are not mine, and my husband is also pleading ignorance. No matter, we plan to sell them on Ebay. Craigslist is also a good (and free!) place to post items for sale.
- Broken X-Box, Stereo, and Speakers—Used Earth911 to find a place to recycle these. Some electronics stores like Best Buy have recycling “events,” which are days when all broken electronics will be accepted for recycling.
- Other Technotrash—In our case, this included CD jewel cases, various chargers, audio/video tapes and an old cell phone.
- Cell phones are incredibly easy to recycle as well as useful for someone else; Collective Good refurbishes cell phones and sells them for use in a developing country.
- Call to Protect gives cell phones to victims of domestic violence.
- For a fee of $30, Greendisk will send you a box that you can fill with up to 70 pounds of technotrash—totally worth it.
- Televisions—We were able to sell both of our sets, but with the switch to digital slated for later this year, there will be a lot of people interested in upgrading their TVs. Televisions can contain up to eight pounds of lead, and some municipalities have already banned them from the landfill. Start with Earth911 for recycling and reuse options.
- Old Athletic Sneakers—When you are a size 12 (yes, dainty me), these add up quickly when you are talking about cubic feet in the landfill! Luckily, Nike will take back all old athletic sneakers and recycle them into Nike grind, used to make playground and other sports surfaces.
- Books/CDs/DVDs—We found CD and bookstores that bought used CDs and books; I guess this confirms that my husband has good taste in music. Those that were rejected were listed and swapped at Paperbackswap.com and Swapacd.com. You can do the same with DVDs at Swapadvd.com.
- Still no takers? Make sure to recycle those left over DVDs and CDs.
- Lightly Used Litter Boxes and Cat Toys—These went to our local no-kill animal shelter (we cleaned them of course!); animal shelters are in constant need of supplies.
- Batteries—We ordered a recycling kit from BatterySolutions.com for both single-use and rechargeable battery recycling.
Anything Left?
If you still find that you have items to dispose of after all this work, try posting them online for free, or donating the rest to a local charity or thrift store.
After the slim down, I was off to load those 432 cubic feet with all of our worldly possessions. Stay tuned for the next installment to see if our quest to avoid the dumpster was successful. . .
