Introduction to Basic Home Recycling

I'm so excited! I found out our city offers a great curbside recycling program, so I quickly and easily signed up online. I signed up on Friday, May 1st and two recycling bins were delivered to my door on Monday, May 4th...FREE! Yes, it was that easy! Their Recycling Program is great! Not only is the program organized well, but again, it's FREE and easy to sign up. So if you live in the Roanoke City area, be sure to sign up! To find more information, and to sign up, please visit Roanoke Recycling Collection.

If you don't live in the Roanoke City area, just check with your local town/city office, your local yellow pages or you can search online using Superpages.com to find a local Recycling Program.

As for me, I have decided to keep one bin in my kitchen for item (& keep newspapers, mags, paper, etc. in trash bag within my kitchen bin) collection, and one outside, and will transfer the appropriate items to the outside bin according to the upcoming weeks particular item collection (i.e. this coming week is bottles & cans). So now I've accomplished another "Eco-Friendly" goal, yay! My Green accomplishments are good news for all of you out there wanting to "Go Green", but feel it's just to difficult. Why? Because if I can do it, anyone can! Okay, my next green goal, replacing all my light bulbs with CFL Bulbs!

*For for more great information and introduction to Basic Home Recycling, please visit eartheasy.com

10 Simple Go Green Beginner Tips

So you wanna Go Green, but have no idea where to start? Well I am here to tell you that you can "Go Green" easily by making these 10 simple small changes:

1. Keep the water off while your brushing your teeth.
2. Hang your clothes up to dry when feasible.
3. Run your dishwasher on the shortest cycle and let them air dry.
4. Turn your thermostat down (heat) or up (a/c) a degree or two, better yet, when feasible, bundle up in the Fall/Winter and open windows in Spring/Summer.
5. Use weather stripping around your windows and doors.
6. Change out at least one light bulb to start. Then work towards changing out all lights (Overhead lights in all rooms and your porch lights) with a compact fluorescent lightbulb (CFL).
7. Choose Organics that you most use and better yet, buy from your local produce stand or natural foods store. Kroger has a large selection of Organic foods/items. Seventh Generation offers great online Green Products and valuable coupons. And All Things Green offers a great variety of green shopping.
8. Unplug all electronics when not in use.
9. Drive sparingly (use rideshare, save up your errands and run them all at once, keep your tires inflated properly, and try to use your a/c sparingly and if/when you do use your a/c keep running on low.
10. Simply keep in mind to Reduce, Reuse & Recycle.

Check out some of my favorite Green/Eco-Friendly links:

Planet Green - Discovery Channel

Sara Snow - Green Living Expert & TV Host

The Green Guide - For Everyday Living