Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: A How-to Guide for Hard-to-Recycle Items

 A lot of the waste reduction tactics and topics that have been covered thus far on Greener Living focus on the pivotal mindset of the three Rs: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle (and a fourth R, of course: refuse). However, when we are unable or unwilling to reduce the amount of trash we generate in our daily lives by refusing disposable items like single-use plastic water bottles, straws, coffee cups, tissues, and plastic bags—just to name a few—it becomes increasingly important to seek to reuse and recycle our waste whenever possible.

Mentioned briefly in my previous post on Greening Your Hygiene Routine, Terracycle is a unique recycling program worth a deeper look.

Terracycle partners with brands, manufacturers, and retailers to offer free collection and recycling of hard-to-recycle waste like toothbrushes, toothpaste tubes, empty chapsticks, e-waste, energy bar wrappers, and cereal bags. Partnering organizations include Brita, Burt’s Bees, Colgate, Clif Bar, Eos, and Febreeze, among many others.

Some programs are brand-specific, while others are not. The Clif Bar Energy Bar Wrapper Recycling Program, for example, accepts all foil-lined energy bar wrappers in addition to all Clif Bar product packaging.

There are also some free general recycling programs available through Terracycle, such as their e-waste recycling program, plastic cereal bags and cereal bag liners of any brand, and oral care products of any brand accepted through Colgate’s Recycling Partnership.

Be sure to visit each program’s individual FAQ page for more information on what specific products can be sent in for recycling, whether or not said products need to be cleaned prior to sending them in, and whether or not there is a minimum weight required in order for the shipment to be sent. Burt’s Bees Recycle on Us program, for example, accepts only Burt’s Bees brand products ranging from lip balm tubes to wipes packaging to sunscreen tubes, and simply asks that as much of the remaining product as possible be removed and that the products be dry prior to shipping.

For items that are not included in the free brand-specific or general recycling programs through Terracycle, there is also the option to purchase a Zero Waste Box to collect difficult-to-recycle waste that is not accepted by municipal recycling streams or free Terracycle programs. These Zero Waste Boxes allow a wide range of products, like bottle caps, batteries, athletic balls, and beauty products, among many other offerings, to be recycled. However, these Zero Waste Box options are rather expensive and therefore not widely accessible.

As an individual, you can make a difference by signing up for numerous free Terracycle Recycling Programs that meet the needs of your specific patterns and sources of waste. For example, this week I signed up for Burt’s Bees, Tom’s of Maine, Colgate Oral Care, and Clif Bar Energy Bar Wrapper Recycling Programs. I was added to a waitlist and will be informed via email once a spot in these programs becomes available, but in the meantime I will start collecting those sources of waste with the intent of recycling them through Terracycle in the future.

You can make an even greater difference by coordinating community collection boxes at local businesses, schools, or workplaces in order to collect and ship the products more efficiently than on an individual basis. Terracycle even offers helpful resources on how to engage your community in Terracycle Programs. You can also coordinate public drop off points or search for pre-existing drop off locations for certain products.

In addition to recycling opportunities through Terracycle, there are other creative and innovative organizations putting “trash” to good use, like the Appalachian Wildlife Refuge’s mascara wand upcycling program:

As a steadfast non-wearer of makeup, I cannot say that I have done this myself, but a more makeup savvy friend of mine came across this opportunity to re-purpose mascara wands. Specifically, used mascara wands can be cleaned with warm water and soap, placed in Ziploc bags, and mailed to the Appalachian Wildlife Refuge, where they are upcycled and re-purposed for medical care and wound treatment. These mascara wands are useful tools to clean away oil, larvae, fly eggs, mites, infections, mud, and other contaminants from wildlife.

Used wand donations are accepted twice annually, in October and February, and can be sent to:

Appalachian Wild
P.O. Box 1211
Skyland, NC 28776

Or

Wildlife Wands
P.O. Box 1586
Southwick, MA 01077

Check out Appalachian Wildlife Refuge’s website for more information on this upcycling program.

If your local recycling doesn’t accept certain products for recycling and you can’t find a program like Terracycle through which to recycle your waste, consider upcycling your waste into a DIY project. Terracycle offers a page of DIY Project ideas including  jewelry, wallets, garden projects, and holiday ornaments. You can also check out Diply’s 16 Ways You Can Upcycle Your Old Lip Balm Containers for a list of creative ways to reuse lip balm / chapstick containers.

Although I’ve only touched upon a few specific products, I encourage you to take the time to look into upcycling and recycling opportunities for any and all waste you generate in your daily life. With some research and creative thinking, you just may find that many sources of waste in your daily life can in fact be diverted from landfills and be reused or re-purposed into useful and fun creations.

This week as you continue down the path toward greener living, I challenge you to seek out one source of hard-to-recycle waste in your life and either upcycle it in some way, sign up for a Terracycle program, or find some other creative means of re-purposing or recycling your waste. As always, let me know how it goes in the comments section below.

~Sam

Search Sustainably with Ecosia!

On average, an individual with access to the internet conducts anywhere from one to eight internet searches every day. The largest search engine, Google, receives a staggering 40,000 search queries every second which amounts to 3.5 billion searches every day and 1.2 trillion searches per year worldwide, according to Internet Live Stats. That’s a lot of searches, and whether you’re searching from your computer or phone, imagine being able to use those searches for good! Well, imagine no more, because that is exactly what Ecosia offers.

For those of you wondering just what Ecosia is, it’s simple: it’s a search engine that uses its profits to plant trees. When I first heard about this, I thought it sounded too good to be true. However, after some additional research and experience using the search engine, I am officially an Ecosia convert. An exemplar of what a responsible business model should look like, Ecosia is transparent, sustainable, and thoughtful in their operations.

Ecosia is a free search engine that uses its profits, or surplus income, generated from advertisements to plant trees. The act of planting a tree may seem insignificant, but as Ecosia explains on their website, “the forests Ecosia users have planted mitigate climate change, save endangered animals, regenerate depleted soil, and improve the livelihoods of local communities.” That’s wildly significant considering it takes no extra effort on our parts aside from installing the Ecosia extension and/or app and continuing to search the web as usual.

Ecosia is not only environmentally-focused in how they use their advertising revenue, but they are also responsible in their day to day operations with their servers running on 100% renewable energy generated from a solar energy plant constructed in 2017.  Similarly, Google, the world’s largest search engine, has been carbon neutral since 2017. However, Ecosia takes carbon neutrality a step further because with every tree planted they are actively removing CO2 from our atmosphere!

At the time of this blog post, over 60 million trees have been planted using the revenue generated by the Ecosia search engine. More specifically, Ecosia supports over 20 tree-planting projects in 15 different countries including Peru, Brazil, Madagascar, Nicaragua, Haiti, Colombia, Spain, Morocco, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Indonesia, utilizing local partners to plant and monitor the trees on the ground.

In addition to running on 100% renewable energy and actively removing CO2 from our atmosphere through their mission of planting trees, Ecosia is a Certified B Corporation, meaning  they, “balance purpose and profit and are legally required to consider the impact of their decisions on their workers, customers, suppliers, community, and the environment.” B Corporations drive a global movement of people using business as a force for good. There are over 2,780 companies that are Certified B Corporations, with Ecosia included among the list of well-known socially responsible and progressive companies such as Ben & Jerry’s and Patagonia.

Unlike some companies that falsely claim to be acting as a force of good, Ecosia provides transparent evidence and access to their monthly financial reports and tree planting receipts so that you can know exactly how the income from your searches is being used. You can even stay up to date with Ecosia’s reforestation projects by listening to The Ecosia Podcast, subscribing to the Ecosia newsletter, or checking out their blog.

To use Ecosia on a mobile device or tablet, simply download the free Ecosia app. You can also add Ecosia as an extension to Chrome browsers or set Ecosia as your homepage in Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer, Safari, or Edge browsers. For instructions on how to do this, visit Ecosia’s technical support page. Then, simply continue to search away, watching your personal search count tally up (on average it takes about 45 searches to plant a tree) while knowing you are contributing to reforestation and sustainable conservation efforts.

The most important thing you can do on your path toward greener living this week is to not only start using the Ecosia search engine yourself, but to spread the word and encourage others to use it as well. This week’s blog, while not necessarily highlighting a source of waste in our everyday lives, instead encourages a practice of thoughtfulness, intentionality, and consciousness that can inform not only our internet searches, but every aspect of our lives. Whether you start searching with Ecosia or choose more generally to support Certified B Corporations going forward, let me know how it goes in the comments section below.

~Sam

Pernicious Paper Towels: Refuse, Reduce, Don’t Use!!

In the midst of the busy humdrum of our everyday lives, it is alarmingly easy to be unconsciously wasteful. In a culture shaped by the tenets of convenience, and the inherent disposability that comes with such convenience, waste has become normalized, expected, and overlooked. As evidenced by this blog and the sources of waste identified in previous posts, many sources of waste in our daily lives can and should be avoided and replaced with more sustainable alternatives. Today’s topic is no exception: paper towels.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I abhor the use of paper towels. Whether they are being used for drying one’s hands in a public restroom, cleaning up spills, or wiping down surfaces, there is simply no need for them to exist.

As with other sources of unnecessary waste and resource consumption in our lives, paper towel usage comes with some serious environmental ramifications:
-According to Better Planet Paper, in the US alone, 13 billion pounds (6,500,000 TONS!!) of paper towels are used each year.
-To make just one ton of paper towels requires 17 trees and 20,000 gallons of water.
-Additionally, it would require 51,000 trees per day to replace the number of paper towels that are thrown away each day.
And that, is the very essence of the issue here: our acclimatization to, comfort with, and acceptance of our throwaway culture.


Instead of using, wasting, and throwing away countless paper towels, you can progress down the path toward greener living by deciding to do without these wasteful, single-use products.
This can be done by:

1. Simply don’t use them! If you are in a public restroom, choose to use hand dryers or let your hands air dry instead.

2. At home, invest in reusable dishcloths (or repurpose old textiles, such as old t-shirts, into rags). Because dishcloths have a much longer lifespan than single-use paper towels, the impact of their production is much less per use. Additionally, washing your dishcloths using green laundry techniques can further reduce the impact per use. Learn more about the greener and greenest dishcloth options by checking out Green Lifestyle Magazine’s post on the topic.

3. If you do continue to use paper towels (at home or while on the go), be sure to use sparingly. I’ve lost count of the number of times I have looked on in absolute horror as people carelessly pull five or six paper towels from the dispenser and use only a fraction of them to dry their hands before placing the largely unused stack into the trash!!

4. Again, if you continue to use paper towels, be sure to purchase recycled paper products rather than products produced from virgin wood pulp. According to Dr. Greene’s 13 Facts About Home Paper Products, if every household in the United States replaced just one roll of virgin fiber paper towels (70 sheets) with 100 percent recycled ones, we could save 544,000 trees.

5. Although paper towels should not be recycled as oils and other residues can contaminate the recycling stream, used paper towels can and should be composted as long as there are no harmful chemicals on the paper towels after use. Don’t have a compost? Learn how to start one by checking out my previous post on household composting!! 

6. Engage in some guerrilla-style environmentalism by investing in “These Come from Trees” stickers to place on paper towel dispensers. Each sticker deployed saves about 100 pounds (a tree’s worth of paper) every year by raising our levels of consciousness regarding paper towel waste. I ordered a 50-sticker pack for $10 and am eagerly awaiting their arrival...

Overall, the aim of this week’s post, and of this blog in general, is not to shame anyone for their current choices or practices, but to instead raise awareness as to the environmental ramifications of said practices and offer more sustainable, greener alternatives. So, this week I urge you to commit to a paper towel free life. The first steps may be as simple as buying a reusable dishcloth or letting your hands air dry the next time you are in a public restroom. As always, please let me know how it goes and feel free to share any thoughts, considerations, or concerns in the comments section below. In the meantime, best of luck on your journey toward greener living.

~Sam

Plastics Purge Part IV: Plastic-Free Food Storage

Greener Living’s plastics purge series continues this week with Part IV where I delve into non-disposable plastic and plastic alternatives to single-use food storage products including  Ziploc bags, plastic cling wrap, and single-use to-go containers.

Since beginning this blog nearly seven months ago, I have endeavored to eliminate and reduce the waste I’m producing in my everyday life. From the get-go, I knew that my use of plastic cling wraps, disposable Ziploc style sandwich/storage bags, and single-use to go containers was an unsustainable pattern in my life.

I subsequently sought reusable alternatives to all of these and have been using these alternatives fairly consistently and effectively since then.

Growing up in a home of avid lunch packers (cold lunch kids for life!), plastic cling wrap was a staple in my household. Everything from sandwiches to dinner leftovers were typically wrapped in a secure bundle of plastic cling wrap. It got the job done and it was convenient. However, as with the numerous other sources of single-use plastics in our lives, this convenience did not come without a cost. 

Similarly, it was exceedingly convenient to grab a plastic Ziploc bag and toss some snacks into it.

And, when we would go out to eat growing up, we’d bring our leftovers home in single-use plastic containers, the worst of which were made of Styrofoam, which under certain environmental conditions essentially never breaks down. In fact, some estimates find that Styrofoam can take up to 1 million years to break down.

As with all single-use plastics, the disposability of these products has devastating environmental impacts. Once disposed of, these products end up in landfills where they take up to 1000 years to decompose, leaching chemicals into the environment all the while. Plastic products that are improperly disposed of contribute to the ongoing plastic pollution crisis whereby they enter our natural world and are further degraded into microplastics by exposure to sunlight or wave motion. This macro and microplastic pollution accumulates toxins, contaminates our waterways, and endangers wildlife by choking animals and clogging up their digestive systems. 

In addition to their environmental impact, these single-use plastic storage options can also negatively impact human health in their ability to transfer chemicals into our food, especially when exposed to heat.

Luckily, in our planet’s growing awareness around the profound problems posed by plastic pollution (read more about the historic agreement on plastic pollution reached by over 180 countries worldwide), reusable or more sustainable alternatives to these single-use plastic products are becoming more readily available and commonplace.

US households use an estimated 24 rolls of plastic wrap per year. However, single-use, plastic cling wrap can be avoided by storing food in reusable containers with lids. Likewise, sandwiches and other commonly-wrapped foodstuffs can be stored in reusable sandwich boxes or small Tupperware containers instead.

ETEE FoodWraps via Amazon

There also exists reusable beeswax food wraps. I ordered an assorted pack of these beeswax wraps, and although it took some adjustment and practice to get used to, I found that they function just as well as plastic wrap. Unlike the wasteful plastic/cling wrap which readily clings to itself, these beeswax food wraps are “heat activated” and need to be warmed by rubbing them in your hands before they stick to themselves. However, once activated they readily adhere to themselves or to the edges of dishes you may be covering. Best of all, they can be cleaned and reused up to 150 times.

There are a variety of beeswax food wraps available such as the ETEE reusable food wraps that I ordered from Amazon. I encourage you to shop around and explore the product reviews and information for yourself to get a better idea of how these alternatives to cling wrap work. (Please note: buying local whenever possible rather than ordering and shipping from online is better for the environment!)

Similarly, I phased out my use of plastic Ziploc bags by investing in reusable alternatives. With fun patterns and a variety of styles, these sustainable alternatives met my various snacking needs. I could fit sandwiches, chips, cheese and crackers, or really whatever I was looking to snack on at work or on the go. These alternatives can be made of cloth, silicone, or PEVA / EVA non-chlorinated plastics. The average US household uses 500 Ziploc or off-brand equivalent plastic bags each year, according to Design-Life-Cycle of the University of California, Davis Department of Design. Swapping out the single-use bags for reusable alternatives can therefore significantly reduce plastic waste output while simultaneously saving you money.

If you do continue to use plastic Ziploc bags on occasion or consistently, be sure to rinse and re-use these bags as they can be cleaned out and used multiple times.

Take-out and to-go orders have also contributed an estimated 269,000 tons of plastic pollution in the form of cups, plates, cutlery, straws, and containers. Many restaurants have invested in biodegradable, compostable alternatives to plastic/Styrofoam containers and cutlery. However, these products are often only compostable at an industrial level. Therefore, even when more eco-friendly alternatives exist, it is best to forgo the conatiner altogether by bringing your own to-go container in the form of a reusable Tupperware made of plastic or glass. Also, be sure to go without straws, napkins, or plastic cutlery that may be offered in conjunction with your to-go, and choose instead to use reusable straws, cloth napkins, and non-disposable cutlery—all of which will help cut down your plastic footprint. Pro tip: keeping a reusable spoon or other cutlery and a reusable napkin in your bag, purse, or car can help you have access to sustainable alternatives while on the go.

Additionally, I keep a Tupperware or two in my car. This way, when I go out to eat and have leftovers I’d like to take home, I can grab my Tupperware from my car.

Many of these alternatives are in fact plastic. Sometimes a sturdier, PVC/BPA-free plastic alternative is the best option in terms of portability and durability. However, it is also worth noting that glass containers, jars, and Tupperware offer plastic-free storage alternatives that are definitely worth consideration.

So, this week, I urge you to work on phasing out these single-use plastics from your kitchens and from your daily lives. If you feel intimidated by the prospect of doing away with plastic Ziplocs, cling wrap, and single-use to-go containers all in one go, pick just one to start with. Your goal this week could even be as simple as putting a reusable container into your car for future use.

Whatever you decide to do, know that you are taking an important step on your continued journey toward greener living, and, as always, let us know how it goes in the comments section below.

~Sam

Plastics Purge Part III: Reusable Water Bottles to the Rescue!

Greener Living’s Plastics Purge Series continues here with Part III. If you haven’t yet had the chance, be sure to check out previous posts in the series, including Part I  on disposable plastic shopping bags and Part II on single-use plastic straws.

In this week’s post, I’ll be delving into an additional source of unnecessary, avoidable plastic waste: single-use, disposable plastic water bottles—a topic near and dear to my heart.

In an alarming trend of disposability, roughly 40 percent of the now more than 448 million tons of plastic produced every year is disposable. This is according to a National Geographic article by Laura Parker, which details the problematic nature of our dependence on plastics.  Globally, only 18 percent of plastic is recycled, up from nearly zero percent in 1980. Even though plastic bottles are one of the most widely recycled products, they are still a serious contributor to our global plastics pollution problem. They are also seriously unsustainable in their oil and water consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and prevalence in landfills.

Last year alone, Americans used a staggering 50 billion plastic water bottles. With bottled water consumption reaching an all-time high in the United States and other parts of the world, the time to act is now.

Although it is easy to demonize plastic water bottles from an environmental standpoint, I would like to first acknowledge that plastic water bottles can serve a vital function in bringing safe drinking water to people who don’t have it. However, in the context of addressing superfluous waste in our everyday lives, the unnecessary nature of single-use plastic water bottles applies to those of us with access to clean, safe drinking water.

People with access to clean, safe drinking water who choose to utilize bottled water instead of tap water typically do so as a matter of convenience, status symbol, preference in taste, or perceived increase in health benefits or safety.

However, in both the US and Canada, tap water has more strict safety regulations than bottled water. Additionally, 45% of all bottled water is actually sourced from the tap, and, in instances of blind taste tests, the majority of people choose tap water as the better tasting alternative to bottled brands.

As for the matters of status and convenience, in a perfect world the sheer unsustainability of the bottled water industry would render the use of such a product as socially stigmatizing and unacceptable. Likewise, the few extra minutes in a day it takes to refill a reusable bottle from a tap or water fountain are far less costly than the alarming environmental ramifications of a continued reliance on single-use plastics.

Environmentally, single-use plastic water bottles are incredibly costly, requiring unsustainable levels of energy and resource input in their manufacturing, transportation, and disposal. For example, the manufacturing of a plastic water bottle requires three times the amount of water needed to fill it. Furthermore, the production of plastic water bottles requires up to 17 million barrels of oil and releases 2.5 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year. Resources are needed to transport the bottled water as well, using additional fossil fuels and releasing additional greenhouse gases in the process, with some estimates finding that it takes 76 million barrels of oil annually to produce, transport, store, and dispose of the plastic bottles used in the US. That's enough oil to fuel 4.3 million cars for a year!

The water going into the bottles poses additional environmental concerns, as this water is often being sourced and harvested from water-scarce or water-insecure regions such as drought-plagued California and Fiji, ultimately draining local water supplies and framing access to healthy drinking water as a commodity rather than a human right.

The disposal of plastic water bottles poses yet another environmental concern. Each year, as little as 12-30% of plastic water bottles end up being recycled. The rest end up in landfills where it can take up to 1000 years for the plastic to decompose. Moreover, those bottles that are sent into the recycling stream aren’t truly recycled, but are instead often shipped to China where they are “downcycled” and converted into fabric, rugs, and clothing which requires additional fossil fuel use and energy inputs. 

With energy-intensive manufacturing, packaging, and transportation processes, low recycling rates, and inefficient recycling processes, the best thing we can do for the environment when it comes to bottled water it to avoid it altogether.

In addition to the positive environmental impacts associated with avoiding single-use, disposable plastic water bottles, your wallet will thank you too, as utilizing a reusable water bottle can result in significant financial savings. On average, a reusable water bottle costs anywhere from $5-$30. Single-use water bottles typically range in price from $1-$3. So although single-use plastic water bottles are cheaper at the individual price, they are much more expensive in the long run (both financially and environmentally). In fact, as clean energy provider Arcadia Power outlines in their blog post on reusable water bottles, you could save as much as $3,000 annually by using a reusable water bottle over single-use plastic ones—not to mention you'd be saving close to 1500 plastic bottles every year!!

In comparing the costs of bottled water vs. tap water, finance blogger Amy Livingston of Money Crashers cites data from both the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which points to bottled water being a staggering 600 times more expensive per gallon than tap water. Single-serve plastic bottles, which account for 65% of all bottled water sales, cost even more per gallon comparatively and are 3,785 times more expensive than what you’d pay for the same amount of water from a faucet.

Bottled water is expensive on an economic, environmental, and social scale. The ubiquity of bottled water and the power and influence of the big corporations that produce, market, and profit from the lucrative bottled water industry may seem overwhelming. However, you as an individual can make a difference by following these steps:
1. Avoid bottled water whenever possible.
2. Invest in a reusable water bottle. With so many different designs and styles out there, you can find a bottle that meets your needs and expresses your commitment to moving away from single-use plastics. Not sure where to start? Check out this list of the 26 Best Water Bottles of 2019.
3. If you do use a plastic water bottle, consider using it multiple times before making sure it finds its way into the recycling stream.
4. Don’t throw away plastic water bottles, as these will end up in landfills and take thousands of years to decompose.
5. Reduce your consumption of single-use plastic water bottles. Even cutting out as few as two single-use bottles per week prevents 104 items from polluting our planet every year.
6. Advocate for your friends, family, office, company, school, town, state, etc. to do away with single-use plastic water bottles. Learn more about how to raise awareness, educate others, and work toward enacting bottle bans at Ban the Bottle.

So, this week, let’s help out the environment by pledging to reduce our single-use plastic consumption. Literally, visit National Geographic’s Planet or Plastic? to pledge to cut out plastic bottles from your everyday life (along with other sources of single-use plastic). With the ability to customize your pledge, challenge your friends, and calculate the real impact of cutting down on single-use plastics, this tool is a great resource to help you say no to single-use plastics!

In the meantime, I wish you all a happy journey on your path toward greener living…
~Sam

De-junk your mailbox: It’s Part and “Parcel” of greener living!

There’s nothing that quite compares to the excitement and joy of receiving a physical piece of mail. In our increasingly technologically-based world, a physical piece of mail addressed just to us can often be a delightful, welcome addition to our day. However, receiving hordes of mass-distributed, unsolicited “junk” mail is an unwelcome and downright wasteful byproduct of today’s pernicious capitalist economy.

According to The Story of Stuff Project’s “The Story of Junk Mail,” the average American receives 40 pounds of catalogs and other unwanted junk mail every year. Over 40% of this unwanted mail goes directly to landfills without even being opened. In addition to cluttering up our homes and mailboxes, this quantity of junk mail also has a substantial environmental impact.

Every year, over 100 million trees are cut down to produce the paper used in junk mail. The process of making and distributing all that mail releases as much CO2 into the atmosphere as 9 million cars. Furthermore, the process of producing and recycling all this junk mail consumes a staggering 28 billion gallons of water, annually一and that’s just in the US.

On average, a US household receives 848 pieces of junk mail every year. The vast majority of junk mail distributed in the US comes from Direct Mail Advertising (DMA) from restaurants, car dealerships, political parties, and credit card companies. Ultimately, this unsolicited and often undesired mail stream consumes valuable resources in the form of trees and water, fills up landfills, and contributes to climate change through its links to deforestation and fossil fuel consumption. 

If you’re looking to get a handle on your junk mail situation, there are several steps your can take to fight back against unsolicited junk mail as outlined in a HuffPost article on Stopping Junk Mail for Good:

1. Stop junk mail at it’s source by enrolling in the DMA’s screening program known as DMAchoice. For $2, this program allows you to opt out of a variety of junk mail solicitations based on your personal preferences in ten year intervals.

This week, I signed up for said service, providing my name, mailing address, and email address. I entered my credit card information to pay the $2 processing fee, and was then able to choose to receive or opt out of mail offers from catalogs, magazines, and other mail offers. This included subscription offers, newsletters, periodicals, other promotional mailings, donation requests, retail promotions, cable and phone offers, bank offers, and generic mail addressed to”current resident.” For those of us who want nothing to do with any sort of promotional mail, there’s even an easy one-click option to remove your name and address from all unsolicited promotional mail, which is the option I chose.

As the site explains, it can take anywhere from 30-90 days for your updated preferences to go into effect, and you can always update and change your preferences/information (including your address) as needed.

2. The DMAchoice website also has a link to a free resource you can use to opt out of pre-screened credit offers. This resource, OptOutPrescreen.com, is offered by the major credit bureaus and allows you to opt out of receiving unsolicited offers of credit or insurance policies for five years or permanently, with the option to opt back in at any time. The process entails providing your name and address and also asks for your social security number and birthday, although the latter two pieces of personal information are not required. You can also call toll-free 1-888-5-OPT-OUT (1-888-567-8688) to access this service.

3. In addition to DMAchoice and OptOutPrescreen, ceasing some junk mail may require contacting organizations directly via phone. This specifically applies to any company or organization that you’ve donated to or purchased from in the past, in which case the DMAchoice resource will not effectively remove you from their mailing list.

When I arrived home to my permanent address after two years of traveling around the country, the stack of junk mail that had accumulated on my desk was truly staggering. The main perpetrators included, ironically enough, organizations like The Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund, and the Environmental Defense Fund as well as my alma mater and numerous airlines offering me company-specific credit card deals. I set aside a few hours and subsequently called every organization, contacting their customer service department and requesting that I (my name and mailing address) be removed from their mailing list. Several months later, my junk mail stacks have significantly dwindled. I was able to find most customer service phone numbers with a quick internet search, but you can also find contact information on each company’s respective page via DMAchoice.

4. You can also utilize Catalogchoice.org, a free alternative to DMAchoice that allows you to unsubscribe from catalogs one at a time. So far, Catalog Choice has saved over 500,000 mature trees, 1.1 billion pounds of greenhouse gas, 400 million pounds of solid waste, and 3.7 billion gallons of water by enabling folks to opt out of receiving junk mail. (These savings estimates were calculated using the Environmental Paper Network’s calculator tool, which is a neat resource that is definitely worth checking out!)

5. You can also utilize additional tools to aid you in the process of unsubscribing, like the PaperKarma app which allows you to take a photo of the unwanted mailing with your smartphone and then attempts to do all the unsubscribing work for you. Oh, technology…

6. It is also worth briefly mentioning that opting in to paperless billing and correspondence for things like banking, credit card statements, and insurance policy documents can also help save a lot of resources.


Ultimately, getting your junk mail under control does take some front loading in putting in the initial time and effort to opt out of these wasteful correspondences. However, doing so will save significant quantities of trees and water, reduce the amount of materials being sent to landfills, and decrease the consumption of fossil fuels and subsequent output of greenhouse gas emissions which the junk mail industry currently contributes to. It will also help to de-clutter your life and make your mail receiving experiences more noteworthy, cherished, and sustainable.

Do you have experience tackling the pervasive junk mail complex? Are there other tips/tricks/strategies you can share? Let us know in the comments section below, and as always, I wish you the best of luck on your continued journey toward greener living.

~Sam

Sustainable Travel Tips: How to Explore Our World without Destroying It

For all those avid Greener Living readers out there, I do apologize for my prolonged absence. As some of you may know, I was on a bit of a whirlwind adventure and inadvertently got preoccupied with my solo travels, which I followed up by taking a new job and moving to Maine.

While I admittedly allowed my life to hinder my commitment to this blog, I continued my commitment to sustainable living and finding ways to reduce waste in my daily life throughout the course of my travels. Thus, we arrive at this week’s blog topic: sustainable travel!

I would first like to acknowledge the privilege inherent in my ability to take three months off and travel to Puerto Rico, Iceland, Scotland, and Ireland. I happened to be at a point in my life where I had the time, the money, and the desire to do so. That being said, these tips can be applied to all types of travel and even aspects of your non-traveling daily life.

First, let’s address the glaringly obvious: air travel is bad for the environment. Aircraft engines emit heat, noise, particulates, and gases which contribute to global pollution and climate change. I knew this to be true before setting off for my travels, and, simply put, the best way to reduce air travel emissions is to fly less frequently. However, if you are going to be traveling by plane, consider incorporating these tips for reducing or offsetting the environmental impact of your flight:

1. Pack light: the more a plane weighs, the more carbon emissions it produces. Packing light will also likely save you money by avoiding checked and overweight baggage fees—an added incentive!

2. Pack snacks from home in reusable tupperware or snack bags to avoid the waste generated from heavily packaged airplane/airport food and snacks (this tip will also save you money! Just be sure to comply with TSA guidelines as outlined by Trip Savvy’s TSA Rules for Traveling with Food)

3. Similarly, bring a reusable water bottle and refill it as you go to avoid purchasing bottled water.

4. Purchase carbon offsets: These offsets are basically a form of trade in which you fund projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions based on a calculation of how much carbon your mode of travel consumed. You can learn more about how carbon offsets work by checking out this website. These offsets can be calculated and purchased directly through many airlines or through organizations like Cool Effect.

My island hopping itinerary of mismatched one-way flights accounted for a staggering 28.5 total hours in the air. Using Cool Effect’s calculator tool, I learned that this emitted a hefty 2.65 tons of Carbon. I subsequently donated a surprisingly reasonable $22.42 to carbon-reducing projects around the world. The process was simple, quick, and transparent in that it provided me the opportunity for follow up information on the impact of my contribution and how it is being used. 

5. Choose to travel with more eco-friendly airlines and do your research to determine which airlines are able to best meet your desired criteria for an eco-conscious business model and flying experience.

If you’re able to cut out flights altogether and take an alternative form of transport from point A to point B, doing so can cut carbon emissions significantly.

Along these same lines, once you arrive at your destination (via plane, train, bus, or automobile) take advantage of public transportation, which is better for the environment than private transport. According to the Federal Transit Administration, heavy rail transit such as subways and metros produce on average 76% lower greenhouse gas emissions per passenger mile than an average single-occupancy vehicle, light rail systems produce 62% less, and bus transit produces 33% less. These modes of transportation also tend to be less expensive than say renting or hiring private transport options.

In addition to flying less frequently, offsetting your carbon emissions from travel, and utilizing public transit systems, you can also practice greener tourism by packing some sustainability essentials as highlighted in previous blog posts. These essentials include reusable tupperware (to pack up leftovers or store other food in), a reusable to-go cup (for all those cute cafes you’ll go to), handkerchiefs, a spork, a reusable straw, a reusable water bottle, and a reusable shopping bag. These items pack easily and are relatively light weight. In the course of my travels, I was able to take care of my runny nose, stay hydrated, shop for food, and store leftovers and pre-packed picnics for myself all without generating any waste.

While traveling abroad or domestically, you can also consciously seek eco-friendly or eco-conscious accommodations: Green travel blogger, Charlie on Travel, has a great post on finding green accommodations while traveling, offering key tips on what to look for and what to avoid. Generally speaking, as Charlie affirms, smaller or locally run accommodations will have a lower impact than big hotels or resorts. You can also utilize the good ol’ world wide web to research sustainable accommodations with a multitude of resources such as the search platform Ecobnb, which enables users to search for a variety of “ecosustainability” criteria such as electric car charging access, bicycle rental services, and 100% renewable energy.



One final tip/trick for staying green and reducing waste / environmental impact while traveling is to make conscious choices about the food you are eating. Consuming a vegetarian, organic, and local diet whenever possible whilst out and about and/or abroad can help reduce the high impact of animal-based, global food systems. (For more on that, check out my previous blog post on the benefits of a plant-based diet).


In the interest of full transparency, did I eat haggis in Scotland, meaty Full Irish breakfasts in Ireland, and the famous street hot dogs of Iceland while traveling? I did. But I also made an effort to eat primarily vegetarian when I wasn’t occasionally indulging in non-vegetarian local delicacies.

Traveling, whether for work or leisure, can be an eye-opening, productive, and rewarding experience. However, if we aren’t deliberate in our commitment toward greener living, it can also prove to be an inherently wasteful and environmentally destructive practice. Making conscious decisions and taking the time to plan ahead can make all the difference. By utilizing alternative modes of travel to airfare or purchasing carbon offsets when we do fly, packing intentionally with sustainability in mind, taking advantage of public transit, seeking eco-conscious accommodations, and eating local/vegetarian meals during the course of our travels, we can continue to explore our world without destroying it.

So, the next time you pack your bags and head out on that plane, train, bus, bike, or automobile, I hope you’ll take the time to plan ahead and commit to an eco-conscious experience using the tips and tricks learned here. As always, I welcome any thoughts or questions in the comments section below, and I hope you’ll eagerly rejoin me on our shared journey toward greener living.

~Sam