(image source, also a great article on recycling)
Monday was Earth Day and all week long people have been celebrating this beautiful remarkable planet we all call home. I thought a great way to celebrate Earth week would be to share some ways to keep our planet a little cleaner by recycling!
Recycle Old Cell Phones
Do you have a little graveyard of old phones? There are several great places to donate your cell phone here are a two of my faves.
Cell Phones for Soldiers: Cell Phones for Soldiers provides our brave soldiers cell phones and precious minutes to communicate with their family back home. Since 2004 they have supplied over 181 million minutes of free talk time, mails approximately 12,000 free calling cards A WEEK, and has recycled over 10.8 million cell phones. Definitely a worthy cause and a great home for your old phone.
HopeLine from Verizon: The statistics on domestic violence are staggering 1 in 4 women, over 3 million children and 1 in 7 men will be victims of domestic violence. Since 2001 HopeLine has provided 151,000 phones to survivors giving them a safe way to ask for help and stay in touch with family and friends.
(source here)
Donate to Animal Shelters
Animal shelters are a great place to donate all kinds of things. Here’s a list of things to donate to your local shelters.
- Old Towels, Blankets and Linens: Your sheets that have worn thin or towels that have lost their luster will still work to keep animals dry and warm. Bring them to your local Animal Shelter for a new life.
- Cleaning Supplies: Have you consolidated your cleaning solutions? Any duplicates under your kitchen sink? Animal Shelters need constant cleaning and that requires a lot of supplies and they can definitely use yours.
- Plastic Bags: Poop happens, duh, the plastic bags that are really hard to recycle can at least lend a helping hand to animal caregivers.
- Office Supplies: There is also a lot of administrative work that goes into running a shelter, if you have any extra supplies consider giving your local shelter a call to help them along.
Use this website to find an animal shelter near you.
Donate Hair Care and Skin Products
A shampoo or lotion may have not have been your cup of tea so now it’s just taking room on your bathroom shelf. Why not donate it to a cause who will use your products to help people in need.
Homeless Shelters: Personal care products are always in need at shelters. Shampoo, conditioners, lotions, that toothbrush from your dentist office or travel kit…all these things can be donated at a shelter near you and be put to good use.
Use this website to find your local shelter.
Beauty Bus: I love this charity. Beauty Bus provides beauty services to the terminally and chronically ill patients. A little gift of pampering and beauty goes a long way and they accept donations of hair care products, makeup, and nail polish. They only accept unused product, but this is a great place to donate that gift set you never used or that lipstick you received in a goodie bag.
So friends, do you have any recycling secrets?! I would love to hear them! Hope you all had a wonderful Earth Week!
What an awesome post!! I don’t have any old phones, but I must donate to Hopeline when I do, and I never thought of donating those items to an animal shelter.
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I never knew that cellphones could be recycled or bought until I saw a sign one day while walking in the mall! Thanks for the reminder. I used Verizon so I may just look more into Hopeline 🙂
Great post and wonderful ways to recycle. We have recycled our very old mobiles before we upgraded to touch screen addictions in the past. I think eBay does that as well, no? Sometimes I save the samples that I never use from hotels, and events that I go to, especially since I have allergies, I typically cannot use most of it, and just donate the rest! 🙂 Hope you’re dong well my friend. xx
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Thanks for sharing the animal shelter recycling tips! I always wonder what I can do with things after they’re a little more worn out, but the blankets and towels for animals idea makes perfect sense.
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Wow beauty bus sounds like such a great idea!
There should be a service where you donate stuff so bums can spruce themselves up if they have a job interview. I remember seeing some sort of sign on a dry cleaners in the US where they’d clean homeless people’s clothes. That was pretty awesome.
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These are awesome tips on being green and make such a huge impact on our world. I believe everyone should go green. I wish we had solar panels but I don’t. Although i am starting my own challenge. I am not longer using plastic bags. I will see how i last for a week then i will try to make it a habit to not use a single plastic bag. It is harder than it looks. I have a website actually that explains more and hopefully inspires people to go green.