Hippy Green

Since I have been receiving some interesting about recycling programs such as swaptree and second rotation I decided to talk about a new one Green Sight.

Green Sight solves the problem of recycling old electronic good as well as created a program for retailers. To my amazement, Costco has joined up and you can not only recycle with them, but on SOME devices get PAID! Although to my laughter, I noticed their website had a MAJOR error, unless your buying your video equipment off of a truck, a CANNON (note the spelling below!) Digital MiniDV can get you $40 plus get it recycled.

I am pretty sure its Canon, but hey, it’s a Monday detail.

Anyway, I have a couple of CRT monitors and a old pentium 133mhz computer that should get recycled. Oh, and big note, only COSTCO member,can use this service, I have posted others ways to recycle on my blog.

I love hearing from other green blogs as well as stories/articles that are current or up and coming. Please feel free to submit any stories via our contact page. Thanks again for all of those who submit stories!

I recently received this story and wanted to post it up. This stories comes from the co-founder of Swaptree, Mark Hexamer.

As a former Vermonter let me congratulate you on a fantastic blog. Lots of great green tips, comments, and insights on there.

Since your both green and tech geek, I wanted to introduce you to a site I co-founded called www.swaptree.com. Swaptree is a unique website that allows you to swap and recycle your books, CDs, DVDs, and video games for free.

You simply list the items you have and the items you want, and Swaptree’s trade algorithms, instantly find the members who want what you have and have what you want. So on Swaptree one copy of Harry Potter The Deathly Hallows, can be traded to another member, and another, and another, saving trees and pollution in the process. After all do we really need 40 million copies of Harry Potter on the planet? Shouldn’t say 5 million be enough? Lets recycle all the paper AND all the books.

Moms (and their children) in particular may find Swaptree interesting. What mom hasn’t been frustrated when they buy a $55 dollar video game for their child, only for them to get bored of it 2 weeks later and want another, or when they spend $200 on Baby Einstein DVDs, only to have their child quickly move onto the Dora stage. With Swaptree, parents can trade through their children\’s\’ stages by simply listing what their children are no longer interested and trading them for the items they want now, for free.

Anyways I encourage you to take a look at the site and give it a try. I feel Swaptree is inline with the spirit of your blog, in that its all about sharing, recycling and consuming less.

Thanks in advance for your time, and let me know if you have any questions, and please keep up the good work.

Best

Mark Hexamer

Swaptree has also been covered on treehugger and on grist.org.

I took a look around Swaptree and am VERY impressed. I have always encourage recycling while moving as well as keeping green. Seeing this website I will be sure to test it out since I have over 200 DVDs. So take a look, give it a try, and comment below.

Just received a great article from Doug Fraim, Thanks! This is especially great because I have so many electronic devices that I need to properly recycle.

Today a company called Second Rotation announced a comprehensive service designed to give people an easy way to recycle unwanted items, be it an iPod, an xBox or an old GPS system. Second Rotation launched earlier this year and dedicated itself to giving people a place where they could trade in their unwanted gadgets for cash, keeping them out of the basement closet and most importantly, out of the trash, all while putting them into the hands of new owners. Now, you can now turn to Second Rotation to recycle items they have little to no value or are broken altogether and ensure that they never end up in the trash.
To identify which products it takes for recycling, Second Rotation has sifted through millions of online sales transactions for pre-owned gadgets to determine product values, and to identify products that are recyclable. In fact, a great deal of their research comes from monitoring eBay and seeing which items are not getting sold. Once a consumer identifies their recyclable product on www.SecondRotation.com, they can ship it for free in a box with another product they are looking to sell, or pay to ship it on their own. If the product in question is not listed in Second Rotation, consumers can contact the company and have that item added. With the addition of recyclable products, Second Rotation now tracks over 6,000 electronic products that it helps to keep out of landfills.

www.secondrotation.com

It seems everyone and their mom is jumping on the “green scene” trying to be “social responsible”, “organic”, and “environmental”. It just amazes me how much we have changed in the past couple of years, but then again we had help. (Thanks Al!)

Anyway, I was reading an interest article on small biz trends dot com about how their is a HUGE trend towards going Green!

Reading and seeing how companies like Eco Lips who sells organic lip balm has also pushed consumers to go “green” with other organic products. This article also gives facts such as 2.5 million plastic bottles are put into landfills every HOUR!

Anyway, I just see this trend with Big Business buying Green and wanted to stress that this is JUST THE START!

One thing that I have been MEANING To get off my chest is since my move out west I have seen HOW NOT GREEN ARIZONA IS!

Yes, you read that right, a place with at least 211 FULLY SUNNY DAYS a year, you would THINK this is PRIME REAL ESTATE FOR SOLAR! But if you live here, like I do, you will see that something as BASIC AS RECYCLING is MISSING!

My apartment complex DOES NOT have RECYCLING! I DID NOT believe this at first, but after much asking, they TOLD ME to THROW OUT ANY CANS, BOTTLE, ETC. UGH! Well, me being a bit Green inside, I collect all my recycling and drop it off at a friends house WHO DOES have recycling.

Think about this, we have a LARGE trend towards going GREEN, but something as simple as Recycling is NOT DONE due to (what I am told) COST! The city would RATHER DUMP BOTTLES then RECYCLE THEM! WTF!

On top of this, those towns WHO DO recycle put it ALL TOGETHER, so this means our TAX DOLLARS is PAYING SOMEONE TO SEPARATE IT! Growing up in New Jersey the “armpit of America” (from what I am told) will FINE YOU IF YOU DONT RECYCLE! I would ALWAYS see recycling in the cafeteria at schools, FORCED TO recycle batteries, boxes, glass, plastic, cans, etc. They have even mandatory a new ruling in the town I grew up, which requires you to “take the tops off bottles”. They WILL NOT take them if you DO NOT remove that CAP.

Okay, Sorry about that rant, but for a country that is divided we need to UNITE and NOT BY GOING TO WAR, but by looking within and HELP OURSELVES FIX REAL PROBLEMS then START NEW ONES.

Dreaming of owning a Tesla Roadster but knowing how much they costs has been keeping down, have now fear. For the cool $35,000 (and a sam’s club membership) you can pickup a FULLY ELECTRIC SMART CAR! Plus a bonus trip to to witness a space shuttle launching! I know I have thought about a smart car but more if I was in New York City (this car could park anywhere).

This 2007 Hybrid Technologies Lithium-powered Smart Car is PERFECT for any city environment as well as short nearby communities. This smart car is a REAL CAR, top speed of 80mph with a 0 to 60 time of 7.1 seconds! Yes, there is the 6 to 8 hour charge time, but you can travel about 140 miles per charge! This is a great commuter car and with the money your saving in gas, you could almost buy 2!

Now if your a bit more into the exotic hybrids, you should take a look at the aptera, the famous 330mpg trik. This car does NOT have to go through rigorous testing like other 4 wheeled cars, because of its design, this vehicle falls under a motorcycle and WILL be street legal in all 50 states! It comes in 2 options, fully electric or plugin. They expect to start producing these in the next 12 months and you can reserve your name on the wait listing for only $500, fully refundable!

Although I enjoy my fun prius I may have to sell if and move to this futuristic badass car!