26th March, 2010 - Posted by katherine - No Comments
According to the Statesman, the renegotiated deal with Greenstar that the council considered on Thursday would have “locked the city into a contract to process most or all of Austin’s recyclables in San Antonio through fall 2011 , even though an Austin recycling plant might be up and running sooner.” Check out the article for more details
9th March, 2010 - Posted by katherine - 2 Comments
According to this website, 300-400 million electronic items are thrown out each year, and less than 20% of that is recycled. Additionally, e-waste represents about 2% of America’s trash in landfills, but is about 70% of total toxic waste! 70%!
The City of Austin doesn’t accept electronic items, but you can check out their website for drop off information here. I had two very old computer monitors I didn’t need anymore, so I checked this website for a list of organizations in Austin that accept computer electronics.
I decided to drop the monitors off at Goodwill – their website says that they “institute economically and environmentally sound methods to recycling and reusing donated electronic equipment” and they won the 2007 Environmental Stewardship Award for “Recycling & Waste Reduction from Keep Austin Beautiful.
Thanks to a 2008 Texas law, you can also try and get the manufacturer of your monitor, desktop, laptop, keyboard, and mouse to collect and recycle those items. For more information check out this website.
3rd March, 2010 - Posted by katherine - No Comments
Last Christmas, my brother and his fiancé got me some beautiful multicolored yarn, some knitting needles, and this book that teaches basic knitting skills. I decided to make a scarf for my best friend because it seemed like the easiest possible project.
When I went to the store to buy some additional yarn like the yarn I had received for Christmas, I was surprised that yarn costs so much. Basically I could buy a scarf for less than it would cost to knit one. Since the yarn I was given was also acrylic, I wondered if there was also a cheaper, more environmentally friendly way to knit. I found a lot of information on the internet about using old sweaters to recycle yarn. The websites I looked at talked about finding a spot on a sweater where you can make one cut and then unravel the whole thing and have one long skein of yarn to reuse. Things didn’t work out quite that easily for me, but I still enjoyed this project.
First I purchased a used blue sweater from Goodwill. I still had my new multicolored yarn left, but I wanted to make stripes in my scarf using reused yarn. As you can see, I settled on this fashionable, mid-drift baring sweater. I liked the color, and I was also looking for a sweater that was made with thick yarn to match the thickness of my multicolored yarn.
Next I set about unraveling it. Maybe I wasn’t doing it right, or maybe because it was a machine made sweater it was unrealistic to expect it to unravel in one long thread, but basically it made many many 12-24 inch strands. I sorted them out and then tied the strands together to make something I could knit with. 
Even though I tried to pick a sweater made with thick yarn, the strands ended up being about half as thick as the multicolored yarn, so when I knit using the recycled yarn, I had to use two balls of the yarn at once. This could be avoided by just being better at gauging the thickness of the yarn you need. 
And many many episodes of Dexter later, here is the finished result!
As you can hopefully see from the pictures, the reused yarn doesn’t look quite as nice as the new yarn because of all of the spots were I had to tie the strands of old sweater together. The parts of the scarf using the recycled thread is not as soft as the parts using the new thread, but I think it makes it more interesting. Because the knitting in the scarf ended up being much denser than the knitting of the original sweater, I used up a lot of the sweater. 
This picture is deceptive but I think I used up three-fourths of the sweater. So now I have some of both kinds of yarn left over to trying making a matching hat!
If I did this project again, I would try harder to find a sweater that no one would want to wear again. The sweater I chose was not very fashionable and I could tell from the texture of it that it had experienced a lot of wear, but someone may have wanted to wear it again. I was constrained in picking it out because I needed a color that would match my multicolored yarn and I needed thick yarn, but it would be great if next time I could find a sweater with a hole or stain in it that no one would want.
In other recycling yarn news, Carsi sent me this interesting link to a company that makes yarn out of newspaper. I don’t think I’ll try that out, but it looks creative. And here is some information about eco-friendly yarn. Finally, Carsi alerted me that there is a company right here in Austin that takes old sweaters and unravels them to make yarn skeins you can buy. It looks like you can order online, but Carsi found out about them when she saw their stand at the Hope Farmer’s Market.
Happy knitting!
17th February, 2010 - Posted by carsi - 3 Comments
Photo Credit
As you probably know, Austin provides single stream curbside recycling for residential homes. This is fantastic for people who live in residential areas because all you need to do is just load up your recycling bin with all the items that are recyclable by the city and put it out on the curb. No separating, no driving to drop it off. So easy. But what if you live in an apartment?
Currently, the recycling policy of the city of Austin requires multi-family dwellings (such as apartment and condo complexes) with 100+ units to provide recycling for four or more of the following materials: aluminum cans, tin/steel cans, glass containers, plastic bottles, newspaper, cardboard, kraft paper bags, and home office paper. New residents must be informed about the recycling program, and residents must be re-educated about the program at least once a year. Also, adequate outdoor collection containers are required.
Complexes with less than 100 units currently do not have to provide any recycling services. If this is your situation, check out Ecology Action, a recycling drop-off center downtown that recycles everything the city does and more.
The Recycling Ordinance Reform Subcommittee is currently working on recommendations to change the recycling requirements to apply to more multi-family communities and to require recycling services for more materials. Although this change seems like a step in the right direction, at the most recent Recycling Ordinance Reform meeting, there were no discussions of having the city provide single stream recycling for complexes, as they do for single family homes. It looks like the financial burden of providing recycling services to apartments and condos will remain with the owners of those complexes. We’ll keep an eye out for any changes to the ordinance.
For now, if you find that your apartment or condo complex is not complying with any of the ordinance requirements, contact Keith Bible of Solid Waste Services at (512) 974-6492 or by email. His fax number is (512) 974-9048. Enforcement of the ordinance is mostly complaint-driven, so if you see something that isn’t right, speak up and get it changed!
15th February, 2010 - Posted by carsi - 2 Comments
Did you get any Hershey’s Kisses for Valentine’s Day? According to one of our favorite green blogs, all those little aluminum wrappers on Hershey’s Kisses are recyclable! Since 80,000,000 Hershey’s Kisses are wrapped each day, it’s a good idea to chuck those little guys in the recycle bin. Every little bit helps!
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