My local Whole Foods recycles used batteries.
Staples, the office supply store, takes spent ink cartridges and recycles or refills them.
Even the mechanic around the corner would recycle my old oil filters– if I had a car.
Photo: riot jane
But after doing some spring cleaning this weekend, I was left with a bag full of objects I didn’t just want to throw away.
Was it possible to recycle them?
I did some quick research online and found out that all my junk was about to become someone else’s recycled treasure.
Here are five items you might not know you can recycle, along with the information you’ll need to get them out of your home and into someone else’s hands:
1. Old Keys:
Photo: Bohman
In the past 10 years, I’ve lived in at least 11 different apartments in three different countries. And somehow, I still had at least one set of keys from almost all of them.
I was sure the keys were destined for the landfill, where they’d take years to break down, but a family in New York collects used keys and recycles the scrap metal, donating all proceeds to the Multiple Sclerosis Society.
Just package up your keys and put them in the mail. All the information you need can be found here. This is not a registered charity and the website seems not to have been updated in a couple months, but I’m willing to accept this trade-off to feel better about not throwing those keys away.
2. Foreign Coins:
Photo: lgoose
What do you do with old coins when you come home from your travels? Maybe you have a collection.
I do, too, but it’s grown way too large, with coins I’ll never spend spilling onto the bureau.
Three organizations in the UK accept foreign coins, even those currencies that are now obsolete. The widely recognized Oxfam is one of the organizations; you can find drop-off locations and shipment addresses here.
If you’d rather support another cause, the Royal National Institute of Blind People accepts coins for recycling, as does Marie Curie Cancer Care. Both are registered charities in the UK.
3. CDs, DVDs, and Hard Drives:
As a travel writer who meets frequently with PR and marketing reps around the world, I get lots of promotional material– often stored on CDs or DVDs. While I’d like to keep these, the tiny size of my NYC apartment makes doing so unrealistic.
Yet I really hate the idea of throwing these items in the trash and I don’t want to store all of them until NYC’s next electronics recycling day.
I was happy to package these up and ship them off to Back Thru the Future, which recycles CDs, DVDs, and even hard drives. According to the company, a single CD can take one million years to decompose. And in the manufacture of just 30 CDs, an outrageous amount of resources is used: 300 cubic feet of natural gas, 2 cups of crude oil and 24 gallons of water.
4. iPods:
Photo: jay-oh-why-see-e
I wish I didn’t have to recycle my old iPod, but I dropped it in the ocean during a trip to Colombia last summer.
Though it prefers working iPods, which are refurbished and given to kids in hospitals, Recycling for Charities will accept my worse-for-the-wear device. They also accept used cell phones and other electronics. Check their site for a full list.
5. Wire Clothes Hangers:
Don’t ask me how a household accumulates so many clothes hangers because I just don’t know. But I want to get rid of them without pitching them in the trash bin.
There are lots of ways to reuse wire hangers, but I’m not particularly crafty. I’ll take this site’s advice and drop them off at a cleaner’s service, where they can be reused.
COMMUNITY CONNECTION:
Recycling is just one part of the “3 Rs” equation: reduce and reuse are the other ones. Check out Matador Goods to see how one company is turning used objects like rice sacks and magazines into handbags and jewelry.
Do you have some advice for uncommon recycling? Share them in the comments below.
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11 Comments... join the discussion!
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Extremely useful post. I know what you mean about wire hangers. Once they’re broken, they just lie unused somewhere or you end up buying a pretty pink dozen to replace the wiry ones. Now, I know what to do with them. Thanks
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Great tips! Also, many stores will accept plastic bags for recycling. This site seems like a good resource: http://www.plasticbagrecycling.org.
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Awesome information Julie! And I’m sure that’s just the tip of the iceberg too – if we can just be aware that there may be an alternative to tossing something in the trash, we’ll be better off.
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@Pinky: Ah! To live near the country dump!! I did as a child, and it’s exactly as you describe. It’s too bad larger communities don’t always have the same kind of spirit–we don’t see where our trash goes!
@Carlo: Glad you found it helpful. I’ve just decided to Google anything I’m thinking about throwing away from now on– chances are there’s someone out there who can use it! In New York City, there’s a fantastic program called Materials for the Arts that takes all sorts of donations–from furniture to things like keys and hangers–and lets non-profit organizations “shop” there (for free). The organizations may use their new treasures as props in a community organization’s play; an artist may use the materials as part of a sculpture or installation; and social service agencies may be able to trim their own budgets by getting some gently used office furniture. I’d love to see more programs like that one.
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Very informative, Julie. This strikes me as yet another unintended beneficial consequence of Internet connectivity. There’s probably somebody out there interested in every single object you want to throw away. All you have to do is find them!
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As the great republican depression presses on, and Obama swims upstream against its heavy currents, raw materials get scarce in America, and jobs of any sort are even scarcer! I remember a time in the initial panic of the recession, some folks planned to horde recyclables, much as they would cash or coins, or jewelry to be brought out later in the crunch, for a crust of bread! We are not past those days yet, and more than a few good folks make a living collecting and recycling aluminum cans! At one time, scrap dealers paid by the pound for iron, copper, aluminum, brass, bronze, glass, and plastics! Those days are soon upon us again, as the “American Dream” and “disposable everything” come to and end and realities of the 21st Century crash down on our heads. Recycling is good. Getting paid cash at the door by a collector is better! Just and example of one more job not filled in America, the long lost and well loved “Junk man” Usually named “Sal” and driving an old wrecked truck, and willing to take, for free or otherwise anything he could get! Where did he go after WWII?
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at our ngo we stich bags out of old pants and are slowly reducing the use of plastics.
the bags can be washed and reused for various purposes.
all of you can try it.it is simple.
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please add PRESCRIPTION EYEGLASSES to this list!!! You can donate gently used PRESCIPTION EYEGLASSES to awesome charities, such as”Unite for Sight” based our of Tennessee!!! They take them to countries in need and help distribute them among children and adults who otherwise wouldn’t have them.
There are some really awesome causes out there, consumerism needs to work for a cause…be mindful and proactive, and we will find our way! hand in hand
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I have a lot of old British coins does anyone know who might collect them?
If so please email me. Thanks so much. x↵
