Holiday Tree Recycling
Now that the holidays are over, you’re probably starting to think about getting rid of your tree and your decorations. It may be tempting to just dump the tree on the curb, but that means it will end up in a landfill and contribute to global warming. Fortunately, there are many opportunities for you to be an environmental holiday hero and recycle your tree. There are a number of community drop off events this weekend (see below) or you can take your tree to one of the three city drop off centers.

Make sure your tree is free of all decorations, ornaments and tinsel before taking it to get recycled. For the community sponsored events, a $5 donation is requested to help cover the cost of the labor to chip the trees. Bartlett Tree Experts donated the chippers but the community and civic associations are paying the cost of the labor for the people running the chippers. The city drop off centers are free and trees will be recycled at the facility in Fairmount Park.

Can’t make it to one of the above tree drop offs?  You can also drop your tree off for recycling between Saturday, January 9 and Saturday, January 16 from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm at the Streets Department Sanitation Convenience Centers:
• Southwest: 3033 South 63rd Street
• Northwest: Domino Lane & Umbria Street
• Northeast: State Road & Ashburner Street.  

For more information on how to green your holiday, including Christmas light recycling, please see the article in the December issue of GRID Magazine (pages 8-9). Two options for recycling incandescent lights include HolidayLEDS.com and  and Christmas Light  Source Recycling.  

Got new stuff? Freecycle your old usable items
With the holiday season comes a whole lot of new gifts. But what can you do with your old items? Try Freecycling them! PhillyFreecycle  is a free online materials exchange that helps keep items with use out of landfills. You can find new homes for just about anything from kitchenware to clothing, even to non-working electronics!

Sign up today and start unloading your unwanted items, or find items that you can provide a new life for!

Don’t forget to sign up for Philadelphia Recycling Rewards
Philadelphia’s Recycling Rewards program, run through RecycleBank will begin in February in North Philadelphia, and will expand to an additional neighborhood each month after that, becoming citywide in July. You can earn 100 bonus points by signing up now, so make sure you’re ready when RecycleBank comes to your neighborhood.  Go to www.phillyrecyclingpays.com or call the rewards customer service line at (888) 769-7960.

Events:
Compost Matters: Community Food Systems, Food-Based Composting and Sustainable Landscape Management
February 10, 2010 8:00 a.m. -2:30 p.m.
Ben Franklin Hall, American Philosophical Society
427 Chestnut St, Philadelphia PA

The Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) and the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society are sponsoring “Compost Matters,” a one-day conference on the status of composting in the Delaware Valley that will feature presentations about Delaware Valley food composting facilities, a keynote from Will Allen, Co-Founder and CEO of Growing Power and closing remarks by Katherine Gajewski, Philadelphia’s Director of Sustainability.

Scheduled tours of local food composting facilities will be held on Saturday morning, February 13 (pre-registration will be required to attend the tours).  For more information contact  Linda Knapp at lknapp@ilsr.org or 215-438-6912.

Busting the Myths of Recycling
Myth: Bottle caps cannot be recycled
Truth: True AND False

Metal bottle caps and lids are recyclable. So feel free to throw your beer bottle caps, coffee can lids and other metal tops right into your recycling bin.

However, plastic caps are not currently recyclable. If they go to the recycling facility, they end up in the glass and are separated prior sending the glass on for processing. Caps are polypropylene and can technically be recycled, however, there are containment and transportation issues that make them very challenging. For instance, caps cannot be baled, so there is not easy way to contain them. Without a mean for containing caps, in say a bale, the result is low density which makes transporting them to an end market prohibitive.

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