I want to share a shout-out to my neighbors for their efforts and offer some ideas for ways you can help be a little more green/zero waste. I’m sharing the results of several collections my neighborhood all did over the last couple of weeks: They provided three big boxes of paper grocery bags for reuse…
You can schedule a FREE PICKUP from Trashless for them to reuse those ice packs you receive with your meal subscription or food delivery. Trashless will “sanitize them, and reuse them with our own zero-waste, local, sustainable grocery delivery service.” It’s a great way to reuse these and keep it local. If you’ll recall in…
Easy and helpful Rethink: Jumbo binder clips, chip clips and a random clothes pin to air dry reusable menstrual pads. Then those can all be reused for their original purposes at a later date. Honestly, I’m still working on being 100% comfortable normalizing talk and publishing images about menstrual equity and menstruation topics, but I…
Earlier this month my son turned 4 years old. This is the first year that I thought he would really remember what happened at a birthday/event, and since it was the first time in awhile both sides’ grandparents were going to be able to visit, I wanted to do something a little extra special. For…
My neighborhood collects plastic eggs to reuse each year. Each year we hold a neighborhood egg hunt. See if there is a neighborhood organization, church group or craft organization that would be interested near you. Submit eggs closed to help the volunteers. Recycle broken plastic eggs in your curbside recycling if your provider will allow,…
It snowed and iced a lot here in Texas last week. We were not prepared clothing-wise. Austin doesn’t get real snow, mostly ice when it does get cold enough, and our family does not participate in any winter sports. Because kids’ feet grow so fast and it also doesn’t rain that much here, we also…
Most people have lots of paper bags and other grocery bags right now. Many of us are doing curbside pickup and delivery for daily essentials. You may think you have run out of options to donate and reuse, and are trying not to recycle all of the rest. One of my neighbor’s recently shared about…
This is a repost of my January 2021 article in the Mueller neighborhood newsletter, The Front Porch Flyer. In the world of zero waste, one of the big books is Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale by Adam Minter. The book does a great job of balancing what’s going on in the world…
Cooking Oil and Grease can be cleaned and reused sometimes. You’ll need to check with your local utility or search for local businesses and options that may collect and recycle the oil. If you live in Austin, you can drop used cooking oil and grease off at the Recycle & Reuse Drop-off Center at the…
Austin Wildlife Rescue can use your old jeans! Reuse before Recycle in the hierarchy of the Rs. Contact Austin Wildlife Rescue to coordinate dropping off your old jeans for hammocks and burrows for the wildlife they are rehabilitating. They tie the legs closed to make safe and fun spaces for racoons. 5401 E. MLK Jr.…