The UK has been taking some aggressive steps to reduce their solid waste production.  One market where they have come up with some innovative solutions is Milk.  Rather than the traditional carton or jug, there are several more sustainable milk containers on the shelves of UK stores…

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Here’s a team of UPCYCLER’s with style…  Seth and Jonathan of Graypants design describe themselves as, “architects incapable of keeping their collective creative vehemence at bay.”  I don’t know what that means but their “Scrap” collection is a great demonstration of the ability to make beautiful, interesting, and functional things from trash…

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Here’s a cool, eco-friendly and seemingly magic DIY bookshelf project from Instructables.  It will keep you guests scratching their heads plus when you are through with it, the book can more easily be recycled than those cheap PVC or particle board shelves. All you need is an old book, an “L” bracket, some screws and some glue.  

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TerraCycle has partnered up with OfficeMax to sell a line of eco-friendly office products.  To start they are going to be selling recycled pencil cases, binders and trash cans but plan to roll out more soon.  The Pencil cases are my favorite.  TerraCycle runs the Drink Pouch Brigade, where schools collect these traditionally un-recyclable pouches and send them to TerraCycle.  TerraCycle pays them $0.02 per pouch then turns them into the pencil pouches among other products.  This is a great way for schools to raise money and we love products that are conspicuously made from recycled materials.  They are eco-chic, plus it raises awareness for recycling and upcycling.

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These striking pieces from One Eighty Designs are made form reclaimed washers that were found at the junkyard, and the wall hanging vase was made from a recycled wine bottles.  This just goes to show that one mans junk can be another mans treasure.  These designs will ad an interesting and eclectic flavor to your decor while reducing the waste building up in our landfills.  My favorite, the washer pendant light will throw interesting shadows across your walls and ceiling creating a truly unique ambiance. 

Take a close look at how they spelled Virginia!

What to do with all those t-shirts that get printed and never worn?  The Cotton Spaghetti Rug from Gaiam is a good solution.  Made from recycled unused T-shirt remnants this is a much better place for these victims of poor proof-reading than the landfill.

Two new customer buy back programs aim to reduce the amount of e-waste pouring into landfills every day.  Both ecoNEW and TechForward pay consumers for their old electronics equipment hoping to encourage new purchases and to keep these products, many of which contain harmful chemicals, out of our landfills.  The reclaimed electronics will then be refurbished and sold online, or broken up into salvage parts. 

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We have a few more details on yesterdays post about the e-waste recycling mail back program…  The USPS will run the pilot program for 90 days in which time they will determine if the consumers response to this program warrants a nation wide roll out. 

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Recycling our bottles, cans and paper is as easy as walking down to the curb once a week, but what about those other things our town doesn’t give us a bin for? The United States Postal Service has answered this question with this weeks launch of a pilot “Mail Back” program. The program make it easier for all of us to recycle our discarded small electronics (inkjet cartridges, PDAs, Blackberries, digital cameras, iPods & MP3 players), as easy as walking down to your mailbox.

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I used to have a pile of cracked, nasty old plastic jewel CD cases cluttering my car, bedroom, living room, office, basement, shed, garage….you get the point. The Resleeve by Sustainable Group is a green solution to this mess. Constructed of 100% recycled fibers, the Resleeve is great for storing those burned CDs, DVDs, or computer software discs in a space saving and eco-friendly way. These come available with both center hole for CD viewing and no-hole version depending on your lifestyle choice…who am I to judge. Sustainable Group makes a wide variety of similar products to satiate you dripping desire to save the world!

Now what to do with all those old CD Containers? Here’s a few creative uses and links to the instructions on how to DIY…

1.  Jewel Case Photo frames from PhotoJojo.com:

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