Go Greener Tips

Are you a person who watches someone throw an aluminum can out of their car window and nearly cause an accident skidding to a stop just to pick it up for proper disposal? Do you cringe when you see plastic piling up in your neighbor’s trash and take late night trips to their bin just to empty it out? If any of this behavior sounds familiar to you, then you might be a recycle junkie. But don’t worry; it’s not a bad thing because in reality there need to be more people like you in the world. And to make you feel even better, you’ll be happy to know there is a home for you. If you an adamant recycler and are always looking for ways to not only get involved more deeply in the process, but always promote getting others involved, then Earth 911 is right up your alley.

Who is Earth 911?

Earth 911 is known as the “nation’s premier environment resource.” It is a division of the cause media company, Global Alerts, and is based in Scottsdale, Arizona. Global Alerts is one the leading cause media companies in the country and is best known for its world-class Mass Notification System, which includes Earth911.com, Pets911.com, and AmberAlert.com. Because of its dedication to alerting the country of the emergencies of our society, we are able to stay abreast of what is most important.

The mission for Earth 911 is to deliver local information on the environment in a way that empowers people and causes them to act upon their community in a positive way, live responsibly, and contribute to sustainability. One of the major ways they accomplish this is by encouraging communities to recycle their goods instead of sending them to a dump as waste. Some of the other ways they help the community is by promoting green shopping, learning how to live green, energy conservation, beach water quality alerting, understanding the dangers of household waste, educating children on how to recycle responsibly and care for the community, composting, and environment education – and all of these services are free to the public.

Why Recycle?

According to Earth 911, recycling is the one of the three R’s (Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle). When you recycle you take a product or material when you are finished using it and turn it into a useable raw material, which enables it to be made into another product. The greatest benefit of recycling is that it stops materials from ending up in landfills and incinerators.

Earth 911 explains that recycling has grown considerably in the past years, and now 50 percent of all paper, 34 percent of all plastic bottles, 25 percent of all aluminum beer and soft drink cans, 63 percent of all steel packaging, and 67 percent of all major appliances are recycled. This allows us to stop having to cut down trees and creating new products with newly found resources, while other resources are burning in incinerators, creating a great deal of our world’s population. In other words, recycling creates a win-win situation for the world.

Since 2005, almost 9,000 curbside recycling programs have been existence; there was only one in the mid-80s, so the world is definitely embracing recycling more and more. And now, it is common to not only have a recycling bin found in a central location within an office setting, but many companies also provide smaller recycling bins that sit next to each employee’s trash can in the cubicle and office. The world is finally catching on, and I bet you want to know how you can too!

How Can I Get Involved?

Earth 911 provides a resource right on their website that allows you to enter your city and state or zip code along with the item you wish to recycle, in order to find out information on recycling in your area. Since I have several cell phones that I no longer use, and are no longer able to have refurbished, I decided to enter information for my zip code to find out where I can take them to avoid throwing them away. When I entered the keywords “cell phones” and entered my zip code, I was quickly provided with a comprehensive list of locations in my area, sorted by distance that will accept my cell phones.

While some of the places on my list did not surprise me (i.e. Goodwill), I was surprised by a few. On my list were RadioShack’s Commercial Drop-Off location, AutoZone, Batteries Plus, and Best Buy to name a few. I realized that every company has become involved in recycling and now it is time that all others follow their leads.

If you don’t want to begin your own recycling campaign, it is understandable. People have busy lives with children and work, and often times are busy with their own chosen cause, so developing a program of this nature does not always fit into that criteria. However, you can always contribute where you see it makes sense. Instead of throwing your old, non-functioning computer into the trash can, take the time to call around to see who will dispose of it responsibly. And if you have a family that constantly drinks soft drinks, whether in aluminum cans or plastic bottles, find ways to make your contribution by building those items up in your home then taking them to a recycling center on a Saturday afternoon while you’re already out shopping.

In your lifetime you may have heard that standing by and doing nothing is almost as bad as being a contribution to the problem. You may feel that you have no obligation to make this world a better place because you don’t feel as though you’ve contributed in making it a bad place. However, if you have the opportunity to recycle your goods and you don’t, you are contributing to the problem just as equally as the person who throws his or her can out of the car window. Earth 911 is proactively making a difference in this world by teaching us why we need to recycle. All we have to do is follow their lead by moving forward down the road they’ve already paved. So what road will you choose? Will you contribute to the problem? Or contribute to the solution?

Jeffrey Meier at Jam727 Enterprises at http://www.thearticlehome.com blog offers even more detailed information on a wide variety of topics.

Author: Jeffrey Meier
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Digital economy, mobile technology