Saturday, April 19, 2008

Recycling Crayons

Heidi has inspired me to become more "green." It started when she gave me the green cloth bags for groceries, etc. I now have 5 such bags which I keep in my car and do my best to take them with me when I go shopping. Another way I have gone "green" is by using a washable plate, glass and real silverware at work. (This has always been my practice at home.) In fact, our vice president was at the same table as I was yesterday for our special Friday morning snack. I looked around and noticed everyone sitting at our table was eating their coffee cake from a Styrofoam plate and was using a plastic fork. 4 out of 6 of us were using washable, china cups; the other 2 were drinking from Styrofoam. I decided to ask him if he thought our office could try to be a little more earth friendly by purchasing dishwasher safe plates and bowls and stainless tableware to cut down on all of the plastic and Styrofoam we toss into the garbage everyday. We already have a cupboard full of dishwasher safe mugs. He pleased me by saying we will be doing this soon.

So, what about the title of this entry: recycling crayons? Well, just this morning a program on TV mentioned this: crayons are actually a fuel product (I had forgotten this), and old crayons simply do not "go away" when tossed into the garbage. Here is a web site for disposing of them. It's one more way we can help save our earth. What new ways are you trying?

3 comments:

Brian said...

Thanks Mom!! Good job!

MamaD4 said...

I wish I could tell you some of the ways I try to be green, but as it is, I have to sneak my recycling out to the bins because some people in this house find "being green" so offensive!

And no, it's not Josiah OR Annika.

Hans said...

Rachel, you should tell you mother-in-law about the article that you read that said that energy-wise, it is much much much better for the environment to use paper and plastic throwaway dishes than it is to use reusable ones. She might find it interesting to know that it takes almost a thousand times more energy to make one of those dishes than it does to just make a paper version of the same thing - oh, and you don't have to wash paper plates which saves even more energy.