Okay, so I searched the Earth911.com website for a close drop-off location. I found one a few towns over next to my Trader Joe’s. Last week I loaded the car with my boxes and headed over to the Town of Hempstead Department of Sanitation Recycling Drop-off. I got there and it was a zoo. A ton of people with trunks and backseats and flatbeds full of junk. “Where do I put my cardboard,” I asked. The guy in the blue shirt waved me over to Dumpster #1. I backed my car up to it, got out and looked in. It was filled with carpeting, bagged garbage and other debris. Wait, what happened to recycling? I could send my cardboard to a landfill by putting it in front of my house. I wanted to avoid that fate. There must have been a mistake. I went to another guy in a shirt. “Excuse me, I want to recycle my cardboard.” Again, I got a thumb in the direction of bin #1.

Now I was getting frustrated. I went to a third guy and explained my fate. “Do you have cardboard? Then put it into bin #1,” he said. “But that’s all garbage,” I said. He walked away without another word. I kept my boxes in my trunk and drove off close to tears. This was not what I wanted. I wanted to recycle. But I also realized that this, this feeling was not what I wanted, either. Recycling is supposed to make you feel good. I did not feel good. In fact, I felt a little foolish and nutty. Not to mention hot. (It’s crazy hot here in New York.) I came home and left the boxes in my car.

This weekend we went to my friend’s house. She told me that she puts all her cardboard — including cereal boxes — in her recycling bin and they are picked up and carted away. As long as I flattened all my boxes I could leave them there at her garage. Her mother-in-law, she said, did the same thing. She doesn’t like wasting resources, either, I guess. I left it, of course.

This morning, though, I wanted answers. (And a place to get rid of my cardboard that doesn’t entail pizza grease-caked sandals.) I called the town sanitation department. Seems like the guys in the shirts were telling me the truth. “That is just a sorting container,” the woman on the phone told me. “It’s a convenience for our residents. It goes up the hill where it is sorted. We try and recycle everything,” she said. Whew! I feel much better, but I also feel a little worse. I am so mistrustful these days when it comes to everything environmental. I really need to relax a bit. I know that. The point of this blog — the point of what I am doing, really, is to do the best that I can do. And that’s all anyone can do, right? So I’ll be back to the town dump next week, cardboard in hand and a cooler head, I hope.

Hey, are you following me on Twitter? Have you joined my Facebook Like page? Thanks in advance if you have!

Kenneth Cole sells shirts to support the Gulf cleanup efforts.

I have a big problem with plastic. It’s everywhere. Everything we buy — even at environmentally-conscious stores — is wrapped in it. Bread comes in plastic bags. Cereal is in a box. Inside the box: a plastic bag. Most cheese is wrapped in plastic. Even the paper milk cartons we use are lined with plastic. Very disheartening. It was making me really sick. With everything going on in the world today couldn’t I find a way to reduce my plastic use? Which brings me to my first Favorite:

PlasticBagRecycling.org. This site is where I found out I could recycle, “grocery bags, retail bags (hard plastic and string handles removed), paper towel and toilet paper plastic wrap, plastic newspaper bags, plastic dry cleaning bags and all clean, clear bags labeled with a #2 or #4.” Oh, and bread bags, Ziplock bags, potato bags, and others. Sweet. I was able to search for drop-off locations in my area, too.

Of course, there are other types of plastic that weren’t covered on the above site, which led me to my next Favorite:

1-800-RECYCLING.com. This site is wonderful. You click on the type of plastic (using the number on the bottle or packaging) you want to get rid of, enter your Zip code and receive a list of where you can take your junk. And it’s not just for plastic, either. You can also search and find drop off locations for electronics, paper, glass, metal, automotive, yard, household and hazardous waste, too. (Who knew Target takes Plastic #2?!?)

Once I get rid of all the plastic in my house I’ll need to tackle all the piles and piles of clothing I have. Especially since my little girl is outgrowing stuff and my husband is tossing a lot of his unwanted work clothes. I needed a place to get rid of everything in an eco-friendly way. Enter my next Favorite:

Bigwardrobe.com The site, which is finally making its way to the U.S., is part Craigslist and part eBay. Dedicated to clothing as well as a limited number of household items, you set a price, upload photos and sell. You can also find really nice stuff to buy. Right now most of the items are located in Europe, but it’s worth browsing around. Buying on the site is free; it will cost you one euro to sell, however.

And speaking of clothing: my last Favorite is from a press release I got via e-mail. Kenneth Cole is raising money for Gulf cleanup by selling t-shirts. All of the net profits will go directly to AWEARNESS, The Kenneth Cole Foundation, which is committed to supporting the Gulf efforts. They come in 14 colors and 12 slogans. (Cute and poignant: “We Can All Clean Up Well,” and “I Clean Up Well,” are two of the 12.) They are a little pricey at $35, but worth taking a look at. Oh, you can only buy them on the company’s Facebook page. Just thought you should know…

Hope you have a great weekend. By the way: Are you following me on Twitter? Find me @NaturalAsPosMom. I tweet pretty regularly throughout the day. Also, see the little brown button to the right? The one that says Top Mommy Blogs? (You might have to scroll down a bit.) Well, can you click on it and then click to vote for me? I’ve fallen out of the top 100 and I’d like to move back in. You can vote once a day…

M.A.C. Cosmetics. For every six pieces of M.A.C packaging that you send back to the company, you’ll receive a free lipstick via its Back to M.A.C. program. Yes, you have to mail it in, but the packages are pretty light so it shouldn’t cost too much — or create too large of a carbon footprint.

Origins. This company rocks. It just does. Aside from the fact that many of the products are organic and free-trade and are rated pretty solidly on the Skin Deep Cosmetics Database, they are willing to take back any and all cosmetics packaging for recycling or energy recovery. (Plus, you’ll take home a free sample of an Origins product.)

Aveda. While you can’t drop off your product bottles, the company will take back caps — all your caps, actually. From the website: “This includes caps that twist on with a threaded neck such as caps on shampoo, water, soda, milk and other beverage bottles, flip top caps on tubes and food product bottles (such as ketchup and mayonnaise), laundry detergents and some jar lids such as peanut butter.” Yes, you’ll have to get your school involved, but it’s such a good program!

EcoTools. When brushes go bad — or hand creams or body washes get old — you don’t have to throw them out. According to the company’s site, you can turn in old items and get coupons for an EcoTools equivalent. From the site: “For each item turned in, participants will receive a coupon for a free EcoTools alternative! [Up to $7.99 value, limit 2 coupons per person, per household]. To continue to show respect to the earth, items collected will be recycled.” Nice, right?

Bond No. 9. Got old perfume bottles? Heading to New York City? While you’re there you can bring your old bottles to the company’s store and it will take them for recycling and give you a free purse spray.

Know of any programs I’ve missed? Please let me know. Up until now what did you do with your old bottles, sticks and tubes?

My personal playground.

Take a look at the photo above. Ignore the fact that it is an obvious attempt to give my kids all the stuff I never had as a child. Also, that it looks like a daycare or a school. Then take another look. Know how much I paid for everything? About $300 total including the swingset. Amazing, right?

The swingset came from a garage sale. The woman just wanted it out of her backyard. I paid about $250 including the cost of having her “man” disassemble it there, drive it to my house and re-assemble it. I had Wood Kingdom, the place she bought it from, come and give it a good tune up, which included tightening all the screws, staining it and checking it all to make sure it was in good working condition. While I was there paying for the appointment I found the nice rock climbing wall. It was on clearance. My mom (and maybe my in-laws) picked it up for Katelyn’s birthday a few years ago.

The Little Tikes 8-in-one tube and slide combo was free. A neighbor was throwing it away. I got the first half of the pieces on Monday night. I brought it home and my husband was mad since there were so many pieces missing. He wanted to know why I brought home a bunch of junk. Don’t worry, I told him, I’ll be stalking the house on Thursday night. They will put the rest of the pieces out there and I’ll be there to grab them. They did, and we got a cool, much-sought-after item. That big playhouse in the back? $40 at a garage sale. The guy even dropped it off in my driveway. The triangle climber was $8. Another garage sale. I picked up the merry-go-round off Freecycle for free, of course. The sit and spin thingy was a Craigslist find. $20. I got the castle on Craigslist, too. I can’t remember what I paid, but it wasn’t too much. The two rollercoasters? I got one in the garbage and paid $5 for the other. Everything else was free from the trash.

The see-saw from last night's trash collection.

Last night I added another piece to my playground. I was driving home when I spotted a Kettler see-saw out with someone’s trash. It was beautiful except for a bent center piece. Knowing how wonderful that company is I grabbed it. This morning we called Kettler. Once I pay for a replacement piece I will have a beautiful quality piece of equipment that Keira has already pronounced, “Mine!”

Okay, so who cares that I am feeding my childhood issues with garbage? Everyone should. More than half of the items in my backyard were earmarked for the trash, including the steel seesaw. It makes me sick at heart to see how much stuff is just tossed out without a thought as to where it’s going to end up. You know where it goes, right? It all ends up in a landfill somewhere in Pennsylvania or Ohio. Lots of plastic that will never degrade. Metal, too. The sad part is that most of the items could have been put out on recycling day where they would have found new life as decking or building supports or whatever they would have been made into.

Anyway, I write this post to remind people to think before tossing. Can that item be put out to recycle? If it’s metal, does your town have a scrap recycling program? Mine does, and I’m calling it to pick up my old metal glider that rusted and broke in the big hurricane-that-wasn’t. Again, I’m not trying to make anyone crazy. I’d just love to see more of us think about our waste stream with a little more care. Recycle, reduce, reuse, right?

How’s your week going? Do you ever garbage pick? If so, what was your best find?

Smaller but just as important: cities across the country started banning plastic bags, and recycling is way up. Washington D.C. saw plastic bag consumption drop from 32 million per month to 3 million once a plastic bag tax went into effect. Another great example: last month the American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA) announced its 2009 stats for paper recycling. A whopping — and record — amount of paper was recovered and recycled. Close to two-thirds (63.4 percent) of paper found its way to a recycling plant.

Meanwhile, plastic water bottles, which litter our dumps, are getting lighter and smaller, according to analysis by the Beverage Marketing Corporation (BMC) for the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA). The weight of a water bottle is down 32 percent. The bad news, according to the same source: only 30.9 percent of all plastic water bottles are recycled.

Still, we’re talking about the environment. Most of us are doing something, too. Everyone is going to be writing a lot about the issue today, too so I’ll keep this short. But I did want to take the opportunity to thank you all for reading this blog and caring about the environment — and me. Have a great, green day!

I read another article this week. This one was from the New York Times. Appearing as the Off The Shelf column, ‘Green Gone Wrong’: Can Capitalism Save the Planet?, the article examines a new book from Heather Rogers: Green Gone Wrong: How Our Economy Is Undermining the Environmental Revolution. Ms. Rogers has a different take on voting with your wallet. She thinks, and rightfully so, that the environmental movement — when Big Business takes over — can actually do more to harm than good where the environment is concerned. I’ve reported on this, too. Right here on this blog. A lot of organic farmers, for example, aren’t acting so organically. They are nothing more than Big Agra companies wearing a green hat while hurting our environment. Many are simply clearing rain forests away to create organic farms and in the process hurting the true organic farmers out there. And don’t get me started on their carbon footprint created by producing goods a continent a way and shipping them here to the States. (You might as well just read my other blog post — Supermarket Confusion: Or Why Wal-Mart is Bad for the Organic Movement — here.)

So what’s the answer? Do you skip organic food? Do you use your own reusable bags? Do you buy natural products? Of course, but with some thought. I know that’s hard to hear and swallow. Aren’t we already thinking too much about all of this? Every time the TV comes on we’re hearing about more terrible environmental news. Every time we go to a Web site we see more disturbing images. The answer is yes. We need to be a little more uncomfortable. And, like the New York Times reporter says, we have to make good choices while simply consuming less.

And this will be my task between now and Earth Day. Every day I am going to track my buying. I’m going to share with you what I’ve purchased. I’m going to have to justify to you and to myself if my purchase was actually necessary or worth it. Essentially, I’d like to try and be spend-free for the next few weeks. (Aside from food, of course.) Can I do it? Will it be worth it? At the very least it will give us more insight into why we are in this mess to begin with.

What do you think your biggest green faux pas is? I’d like to hear about it.

Ecologic packaging. I have at least seven drinks in my fridge right now. Two cartons of orange juice, a carton of milk, a bottle of pomegranate juice, a bottle of apple juice, and a carton of strawberry banana juice. The cartons are all the traditional type: paper sheathed between two layers of plastic. They can’t go into a typical recycling bin because they need to be processed differently. The closest recycling center that can handle these cartons is 25 miles from my house. Bah. (Want to see if you’ve got a recycling option for your cartons? Go to the Earth911.com searchable database and enter ‘milk carton,’ and press Search.) This is why I was pretty jazzed when I saw Ecologic‘s fix: Packaging that can be separated into cardboard and plastic components. You can compost or recycle the cardboard, and stick the plastic pouch right into your regular recycling bin. Today, only one company — Straus Family Creamery based in California — is trying out the packaging, which can be found at the Oakland, Calif.-based Whole Foods. But at least there’s hope!

Reusable produce bags. Bet you don’t even think about how many bags you use in the produce aisle. You pick up some oranges. Maybe a bunch of broccoli, some sweet potatoes, and a bunch of apples. Each item goes into its own crappy bag that takes forever to open. Before you know it you’ve got ten flimsy, one-use plastic bags sitting in your cart. Their next stop: a landfill or, even worse, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. We’re all so good about using our own grocery bags, right? Now it’s time to make another change. There are eight different reusable produce bags for purchase at Reusablebags.com. Before you grumble about spending money on these, take note: They have nice drawstrings so your fruit won’t go rolling all over the place. They are made of polyester so they can be washed. Heck, you can even wash your produce right in the bags so you don’t have to worry about them rolling all over a dirty sink. Totally worth it in the end.

Reusable Takeout Containers. On Thursday we went out to dinner. We were there for about 30 minute when Keira said she had to go potty. So we went. She’s in underwear now, so we went fast. She saw the tiny bathroom with the big toilet and she was scared. We went back and forth three times before she said, “Mama, poop, HOME!” Sigh. I asked her to hold it, and we went back to the table. I asked the waitress for a check. My husband swooped over and asked if she could wrap my big girl’s uneaten meal. Damage to the environment: One aluminum tin, one plastic cover, one plastic bag. Uggg. Tonight I came home and ordered Tupperware’s FlatOut set, which squish down into nothingness flat enough to stick in my purse. I intend on bringing them to the deli when I order salads, too. Yes, I read the review that said they are tough to clean, but so what? That’s what soaking is for. Rubbermaid also makes a BPA-free version called Collapsibles, but I could only find them on Amazon.com — not the actual Rubbermaid site.

Reusable Coffee Cups. When I have the occasion to go into the city and visit editors and clients I take the Long Island Railroad. People coming off the train throw out two things: Newspapers and used coffee cups. With almost all of the major coffee peddlers (Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts, and 7-11 to name a few) willing to fill up your favorite cup with some Joe, doesn’t it make sense to skip the paper and Styrofoam? Even once or twice a week? I love, love, love the “I am not a paper cup” thermal porcelain mug, (although from the reviews it doesn’t look so hot) but really any one will do.

Coming next week: Two great give-aways and some more parenting angst, I’m sure. But in the meantime, relax, recycle, and enjoy your weekend.

The samples that they look at are saturated with tiny plastic particles. The conditions are actually worse that they expected, they said. I sat there watching and felt terrible. And helpless. And angry. At the end of my work day I went downstairs. It seemed like everything I touched was made of plastic. I cooked dinner. There was plastic wrap on my air-chilled chicken. The frozen broccoli I made came in a plastic bag. The sweet potatoes came in a plastic mesh bag. I put my kids to sleep. Their toothpaste was in a plastic tube. The toilet paper was wrapped in plastic. The light switch on the wall was plastic, too. I went downstairs and got ready to leave to meet friends for coffee. My ATM card is plastic. Most of the components in my car are, too. At the diner even the little chocolate mints by the front door were wrapped in, you guessed it, plastic.

I’m still so upset about what I saw on the video and what I see in my own environment, I don’t know what to write. Which is why this blog is late today. I feel like I should do something to change what’s going on. I’ll be exploring this in future blogs. For now, I’m logging out to make dinner. I’ve got a late conference call with an exec on the West Coast, and I hate the feeling of being at my desk from 9 to 9. Taking my fingers away from my plastic mouse and keyboard, removing my plastic headset, and turning off my plastic monitor. And realizing, after looking around my office, that it’s no wonder that we’re in such dire straights.

Have you seen the Vice video? How did you feel after watching it? Will you be making any changes in your life? I’d like to know I’m not alone…

The commercial shows an empty bag slowly decomposing into nothingness. The world’s first 100 percent decomposable chip bag. Text comes on the screen explaining how the new bags are made from plant materials, and how they are coming this April for Earth Day.

I loved it. We boat, and I can’t tell you how many empty chip bags I pull out of the water while tooting around the Great South Bay. I wanted to learn more so I went to the SunChips site. I was instantly excited when I saw the company’s marketing: “So you eat the chips. The earth eats the bag. And we all live in a cleaner world.” But once I read on, I was a little disappointed. Here’s the thing: the bag won’t decompose unless conditions are right. From the SunChips Web site: “What we have found is that under aerobic compost conditions at >55˚C the film structure breaks down very quickly – about 12-16 weeks. These conditions are typical for an industrial compost facility. Additionally, we have found that under anaerobic conditions (similar to what would be found in a landfill) no significant decomposition takes place. This means that the new film would not decompose in a properly maintained landfill.” It didn’t say anything about whether or not it decomposes while floating around in the ocean, but this means that if you throw away the bag, it’s still going to be around in 100 years.

I can’t really complain too much. The company is doing a lot for the environment. The chips are manufactured in a plant right here in the U.S. that uses solar power. Plus, SunChips are probably one of the healthiest mainstream chip out there. The ingredients are simple: Whole Corn, Sunflower Oil, Whole Wheat, Rice Flour, Whole Oat Flour, Sugar, and Salt. Not a bit of high fructose or hydrogenated oils anywhere. But there is more they can do. I’d like to see the Frito-Lay folks extend the bag into its other lines, and I’d like to see them make the whole must-be-composted thing more visible and understandable. If you watch the commercial, at first glance, you think it will decompose anywhere it ends up. And that’s obviously not the case.

And so, in the spirit of the Winter Olympics I must give Frito Lay and SunChips a 72.5 out of 100. Its new “costume” is memorable. In fact, it’s a great idea. It just needs a little more teasing out. Not to mention more visibility. People can’t dispose of the bags correctly unless they know how. It would be great if Frito-Lay actually helped sponsor a program to get people composting. Even those who live in apartments can compost with special trashcans that sit under the sink.

Do you compost? Would you? What do you think of the SunChips advertising campaign? Is the compostable bag all smoke and mirrors or a genuinely good idea?

Before recycling this paint would have gone into a landfill.

After spending yesterday thinking — really thinking — about all my actions, I came to a conclusion: I get why most people would rather skip the whole green thing entirely. It’s so much easier to do things quickly and move about your day. Case in point: One of my One Small Thing moves is recycling all the paper I come in contact with. I didn’t realize that my town will take cardboard food packaging. They do, though, so now — when I finish a box of something — I have to fold it carefully and put it in with the rest of the recycling. However, when I’m in the middle of cooking dinner, and I’ve got the big girl finishing her homework and the little girl screaming “why” after I tell her she can’t have more berries, it would be much easier to chuck everything in the garbage.

How’s this one: I’ve used cloth bags forever when it comes to my grocery shopping. However, I don’t always remember to bring a bag into Target or Barnes & Nobel. Wanting to stay true to the cause of not using any plastic bags, the other night I found myself carrying a pile of stuff — a board game, a prescription, some soap, a bottle of vitamins — sans bag out of Target. Yes, all those things in my arms. I know I sounded weird when I told the clerk I would go it without the bag. I know I looked weird balancing everything in my arms. Even one of my shopping choices was a pain. I picked a less-favorite-gum over a favorite pack because I wanted to cut down on packaging.

Another eco-annoyance: The two bags of Styrofoam packing peanuts that have been sitting in my front seat for two weeks. I got a gift in the mail and saved the peanuts that it came with so I could recycle them. That was back in December. I put them in my car, but since I work and have two kids, I never get a chance to stop at the place in Farmingdale that accepts them. Recently, I had to tell a friend to pay no attention to the two bags of peanuts under her feet. It’s not just me who is making these efforts and feeling the pain. Today, I feel really sorry for my husband who has to make two trips to the town hazardous materials recycling center. He’s going to drop off all the old paint and electronics we had sitting in the garage. It certainly would have been easier to bag them all up in black plastic bags and put them out with the trash, but he’s taking 45 minutes out of his day to do the right thing for the environment.

Still, with all the annoyances, at the end of the day I feel good that I’ve done all these things. People often wonder if one person can make a difference. I like to think that we can. Collectively, one person at a time making one or two changes can create monumental change. I know it, so I’m willing to endure a few annoyances for mankind. My husband, the eco-skeptic knows it, too. So just promise me you won’t laugh when you see me lugging unbagged stuff out of Target next week?

What’s the most annoying green change you’ve made? What’s the easiest? Will you go out of your way to do the green thing even though it’s a hassle? I’d like to know.