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:- 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.)
- Solio, which keeps your gadgets charged by the sun;
- 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.
This week has given me the opportunity to reflect privately and publicly about all things ecological and not so logical. I sent a note to some clients and prospects right around Earth Day, and have been pondering how in less than a year, that became a borderline faux pas. Ad Age published my reaction and plenty of others to their article about marketers glomming on to the event like a materialistic Christmas grinch. I'm a little optimistic about good green intentions, despite the "road to hell" and all that. But it did give me pause.
I'm constantly "checking in" and running through a mental check list about my own eco-actions. They say it takes three weeks of doing something consistently to start to form a habit. I know my reasons for not eating meat started from reading "Diet for a Small Planet" (still a great book) back in the '70s, but I sometimes think now it's more a habit than anything; I'm just USED to skipping to the vegetables and fish on a menu and not even considering any other options. But that's a 30 year old "habit" by now!
I've always loved antiques and the concept of "repurposing" perfectly good items (influenced that childhood favorite book, "The Boxcar Children," from even longer ago, perhaps?) And I have pangs of guilt if I toss so much as an envelope into the garbage instead of the recycle bin, so I guess that's a habit.
Motivated by saving green and going green, I tried to break an unconscious shopping habit by forming a new NON-shopping habit. I forswore buying anything other than replacing necessities, except for dinners out, etc. That meant I passed by ALL the January post-holiday sales (except for one shirt I got with an expiring gift certificate) and even worked to work my way through the old travel size shampoos I'd stored up like a squirrel before allowing myself to indulge in a new full sized bottle.
Then spring happened. And conspiring with that like the perfect storm was a big going out of business sale at my favorite store. Four dirt-cheap but fabulous skirts and shirts later I felt like a glutton after a midnight snack. Truth be told, I'm still pretty proud of myself. I was on the wagon for for 15 weeks of purchasing only necessities, and intend to get right back on.
Lots of people have done this, and done it better; there are plenty of blogs and books describing the experience in different levels. It's astonishing to look around at all I have, and see all I don't need more of. And it was (make that is) a big deal for me, a recovering shopaholic, and was an important habit to FORM, just like recycling or buying local.
I may fall off the wagon again, but I believe I'm officially in the conscious consumer camp now...daycamp perhaps, but
