DIY Diva

I use newspaper in my garden to keep weeds at a minimum! I place several sheets on top of soil, around plants, and then place cypress mulch on top. The newspaper and mulch decompose and nourish the soil.

Can you recycle the news paper after soiling them in lobster juice and butter/sauce?

Many mailing services accept plastic/styrofoam peanuts for reuse, so they are not exactly non-recyclable. In addition, the styrofoam peanuts you have surely saved from some other package are mostly air, so they are lighter to ship than paper packing, saving some energy.

1. Use Less Water in Your Garden About one-third of all residential water use goes toward lawns and gardens, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Unfortunately, much of this water is wasted through runoff, evaporation, overwatering, or inefficient landscape design. By adopting some simple landscaping techniques you can create a beautiful lawn or garden that uses up to 60 percent less water, requires less fertilizer and pesticides, and saves you time and money. 2. Plant a Tree! Did you know that trees improve water quality, reduce erosion, promote biodiversity, and absorb carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas)? The typical internal-combustion car produces 10,000 pounds of C02, so you would need to plant 200 trees to neutralize your carbon emissions in just one year. ZAP has set up a program to plant 200 trees for as little as $25. Learn more at www.zaptrees.org. 3. Use Alternative Transportation Leaving your car at home can be a life-changing experience! You probably don't realize it, but the average car can cost consumers thousands of dollars per year. Using a bicycle in place of your car can help you save money, get more exercise and have more fun enjoying the beautiful outdoors. Carpooling or mass-transit may seem like an inconvenience, but when you consider the spare time you can use for other pursuits, the time it takes to find parking, or even the opportunity to socialize, alternative transportation can be a rewarding, exciting experience. 4. Cut Your Junk Mail Did you know that each year millions of trees and billions of gallons of water are used to create junk mail that never gets recycled? There are several things you can do to reduce how much junk mail you receive. Get off of national mailing lists by sending your name, address, and signature to: Mail Preference Service c/o Direct Marketing Association P.O. Box 643 Carmel, NY 10512 When you subscribe to a magazine, buy something from a catalog or online store, or donate money, be sure to say: "Please do not rent or sell my name or address." If you don't want to receive catalogs or solicitations from the charitable organization, ask that your address not be added to any mailing lists. Call your credit card companies and banks to make sure your address isn't sold. Say no to credit card offers by calling the credit reporting industry's opt-out number: 888.567.8688. When you receive unwanted mail, take a minute to call the company to remove your address from its list. After using junk mail--and any other paper you don't need to keep--as scrap paper, recycle it. 5. Use Rechargeable Batteries Once they're all used up, recycle your rechargeable batteries. Did you know more than 350 million rechargeable batteries are purchased annually in the United States? When these batteries no longer hold a charge and are thrown away, they can cause serious harm to human health and the environment. About 75 percent of municipal solid waste is either sent to a landfill or incinerated. Neither of these methods is suited for the disposal of rechargeable batteries. You can ensure your rechargeable batteries (from laptop computers, cell phones, PDAs, cordless power tools, camcorders and remote control toys) will be properly disposed of by dropping them off at many large retailers. 6. Buy Local, Organic Produce These large-scale, agribusiness-oriented food systems are bound to fail on the long term, sunk by their own unsustainability. But why wait until we'' forced by circumstance to abandon our destructive patterns of consumption? We can start now by buying locally grown food whenever possible. By doing so you'll be helping preserve the environment, and you'll be strengthening your community by investing your food dollar close to home. Only 18 cents of every dollar, when buying at a large supermarket, go to the grower. 82 cents go to various unnecessary middlemen. Cut them out of the picture and buy your food directly from your local farmer. 7. Replace a Gas Vehicle with an Electric Even counting the emissions from power plants used to generate electricity, electric vehicles can reduce automotive emissions by more than 90 percent. Recently, the Department of Energy issued a report that millions of electric cars can recharge every day using nighttime, off-peak electrical generation, a vast, untapped renewable resource. For more information about exciting Zap! news including electric car transportation go to: www.zapworld.com

Line the bottoms of bird cages; the ink contains anti microbial compounds, I was told.

Wrap gifts in comic pages which are printed in colors- save money and trees!

5 Ways to Recycle Newspaper makes reference to using newspaper for "tablecloths" and a follow up question asks "Can soiled newspaper be recycled?". The short answer is YES absolutely. Just discard any food scaps (reference to boiled lobster) and recycle the newspaper as normal. Lobster juice, butter/sauce, etc. will readily be "processed out" musch as staples and glue from magazine binding is addressed once your recycled newspaper makes it to the papermill. FYI: I used to work in a major papermill (whose consumer products you have most likely used). I can personally testify that literally tons upon tons of recycled paper corrugated boxes are thank God being recycled every day. The net result being product/product packaging that makes it way back to the consumer market in forms that the average person would not expect without any compromise in quality. Furthermore every ton of material recycled contributes to a greener environment.

Is using these methods more environmentally friendly than just sending the papers to recycle?

Also, if you were to use it for glass cleaning, I assume it can't still be recycled?

by folding newspaper to fit into clay pots, these are ideal to add potting soil too and your seeds......then drop in hole you have dug and viola, instant garden.

Do you ever wonder what you could be doing with the plastic shoppings bags when you go grocery shopping, now you don't have to worry about having these plastic bags piling up in your house, because you can use the versacart, which is a folding shopping cart you can take when going grocery shopping or just about anywhere or anything you have to carry around. It is very portable and stable. More information can be found at http://www.versacart.us

After using newspapers with either water or vinegar to clean windows I use the used ones in the garden where I place tm under a thicker pile of "unwrinkled" newspapers for weed control. Vinegar kills weeds so I figure it canhelp kill the weeds I am tryng to control. (I am probably wrong and the minute amount makes no difference.)

Whether you reuse the paper or recycle it, it makes little difference if you do not buy recycled papers: for printing, toilet paper, etc.

I've stopped using paper towels and get those packs of a dozen cheap washrags that I use for spills and around the kitchen and then throw in the wash. When they get really stained they go into the "For Floors" pile.

Instead of getting disposable pads for the Swifter I have the set up and then use the For Floors rags instead. They just go o the wash when done.