Season's Greenings - Recyled News You can Use...

On the one hand, we're exiting a year that is on record as one of the Top Ten HOTTEST...and I don't mean cool hot. I mean polar bears endangered hot. On the other hand, I'm pretty excited that as 2009 kicks in, all of the projects I'm scheduled to work on so far each are either bonafide environmentally conscious or at least have a tinge of green. That's pretty different from just three years ago when I was trying to get clients to at least let me purchase post-consumer waste paper for their sales kits.

But of course we still a ways from green streaks being mainstream speak.

Anyway, one of the projects will be the branding/marketing from the ground up, so to speak, of an eco-conscious improvement on an existing service-industry category (yes, that's all I can say for now!)... Another will be a mall tour for one of my mainstream media clients, but I got them to add an "e-cycle" overlay. It's this tour that got me thinking about sharing some of the stuff I've come across in researching electronics recycling providers.

At last year's Greener Gadgets conference (which is coming up again in February and for all you green gear heads out there it's a very cool event), I met the founders of three new companies:

1. Myboneyard.com, which pays you for a lot of the stuff you'd just drop off for recycling (but things change quick. Last year I researched what they'd pay for my old Pentium Toshiba and it was about $35. This year it's worth bubkus to them.)
2. Solio, which keeps your gadgets charged by the sun;
3. HyMini (an unfortunate name that comes from Hybrid and Miniaturized, but still. Clearly they didn't talk to Moss Appeal first about their branding), which keeps your gadgets charged by the wind or sun or handcrank.

But, like I said, things changed. Now there more cash-for-trash sites and portable powerpacks out there, even as Solio and HyMini have evolved more...and a ton of ways to e-cycle, even in Alabama. And if you're lucky enough to live in a house vs. apartment, you might check out the Power Cost Monitor to show you exactly how much you just saved when you turned off that appliance or shut off your laptop when you left the room!

So, as you clear out the old (my never ending battle in my world of packrat meets closet-challenged apartment) and try to welcome a little less of the new, here are good sites with links to some of the e-cycling centers that should help. If that's still to hard to deal with, Waste Management and other companies will send you a postage-paid box you can fill with old electronics, for a fee.

Season's Greenings, and an abundance of health, wealth and happiness in the new year to you all.