Green Goodbyes
Part of being zero waste is doing your best to reuse, repair or repurpose things before getting rid of them. But of course there are limits on what we can realistically reuse, repair or repurpose, and most of us don’t have the time or space in our house to store objects that don’t have an immediate use.
Here are some of the places and programs I’ve found where my products can either get a new life or be disposed of properly.
Food & Yard Waste
If you don’t already compost, you should definitely look into it because when organics go to the landfill, they’re not able to break down as quickly and produce methane, a harmful greenhouse gas, as they do.
If you live in a house, you might be able to use the compost from your food scraps and yard waste for a garden
(bonus points if you’re able to grow some of your own food!). If you live in an apartment or gardening just isn’t your thing, there might still be programs in your local area that pick up your compost or provide you with a place to drop it off.
If you live in the Milwaukee area, you can sign up for Compost Crusader’s program, where they service your compost bin every 1-2 weeks depending on the season.
Plastic Bags
Did you know that plastic bags and film are not recyclable, even if they have the chasing arrows symbol? They gum up the machines at recycling facilities, so even though you may be trying to do the right thing by recycling these, you’re actually harming the process. Fortunately, there are collection bins at many grocery stores and other locations to collect plastic bags and films so they can be recycled. To find a location near you, enter your zip code here.
Appliances & Electronics (e-waste)
Did you know that all U.S. Best Buy stores accept old, unused, or unwanted consumer electronics for recycling, no matter where they were purchased, for free? Best Buy will send the products to a company that can determine whether they can be repaired and makes sure the potentially dangerous components
(like PCBs, mercury, used oil, refrigerants and insulating foam) are disposed of properly, and the metals, plastics and glass are separated and recycled or reused.
Beauty Products
There are a number of eco-conscious brands that will accept empty containers of their own products to their own stores and even offer a small discount on new products to customers who participate in these programs. Unfortunately, some of these brands don’t have a lot of stores, so taking advantage of their recycling programs may be easier said than done. I take my empty beauty products to the BeautyCycle box (at all U.S. Nordstrom stores). I don’t get a discount on new products, but the time I save by being able to drop everything off in one box is worth it to me.
Clothing
You can probably think of half a dozen organizations (Goodwill, Salvation Army and others) that accept donations of used clothing. Unfortunately, these places often get so many donations that they sometimes end up sending the donations to a landfill, or to a developing country, where the clothing disrupts the local economy.
I typically try to sell my gently used clothing first, by posting it on Facebook Marketplace, taking it to a local clothing consignment store, or by sending a bag of unwanted items to ThredUP. I have friends who also love selling on Poshmark and Mercari.
But if your items aren’t in good enough condition to sell (or even to donate), H&M will accept used textiles from any brand and works with a partner to determine which items can be resold as secondhand clothing (rewear), turned into remake collections or cleaning cloths (reuse) or shredded into textile fibers and used to make, for example, insulation materials (recycle).
Harper Wilde will recycle old bras and underwear of any brand and either upcycle the garments into yarns or fabrics or downcycle them into filling stock or padding.
Participating Nike stores will accept any brand of sneakers (but no sandals, dress shoes, boots or shoes with metal) and sell the materials to partner companies that make “everything from football fields to furniture” through their Nike Grind program.
Cotton, Inc. (the people who brought you those “fabric of our lives” commercials in the 1990s) partners with a rotating group of retail stores, including mall staples American Eagle, Madewell and PACSUN, to offer drop-off boxes for denim items in any condition, as long as they’re at least 90% cotton. That denim is then primarily used to make insulation.
Furniture
I find that there’s a pretty strong market for used furniture, especially real wood pieces. Crafty people are able to refinish old pieces, giving them new life and possibly making a buck in the process – kudos to them! I have had good luck selling furniture on Facebook Marketplace, but items that don’t sell can often be donated to the Habitat for Humanity Restore or other local organizations that help furnish homes for people experiencing poverty, escaping domestic violence, immigrating to the U.S., etc.
Shipping Materials
My local UPS store accepts plastic air pockets, bubble wrap, shipping paper and other materials often in boxes from online orders. Because the air pockets and bubble wrap can’t be recycled through your normal municipal recycling program, I like to make sure it gets used as many times as possible.
Paper and Junk Mail
One of my greatest zero waste “finds” was an app called PaperKarma. You pay for a subscription (a few dollars a month or $60 one-time fee for a lifetime membership), and you upload photos of the junk mail you receive to the app. Then they work to remove you from those senders’ distribution lists so you receive less and less junk mail, which in our house goes straight to the trash/recycling. I’ve been using the app for about 4 months and now receive almost no junk mail, which brings me a lot of joy.
Green Goodbyes
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