by Tao Oliveto, Carrboro, NC

I hope you had a happy, hopeful new Year’s celebration. Although, in many ways, I’ve landed with a thud at the bottom of my mountain in 2009, a little battered and bruised, I’m still feeling ready to pick myself up and continue on the path towards change (after all, as Joseph Campbell reminded us, “The warrior always says yes.”).

I usually have a feeling of settling down and “cleaning things up” when January arrives and although I’ve toned down most of my past holiday raceabout, I still get in this groove this time of year. It’s tempting to want to simply sweep things up and out to the curb – gift boxes, decorations, packing materials, food containers and the like…but don’t get stuck in that moment! More things are recyclable than ever before and you can start your New Year off well by getting the job done right.

Don’t know where to start? Go to EARTH911.com and find out why, how and where to recycle anything in your area (conveniently listed by zip code).

For instance, my most exciting holiday gift was a cd rack that found for $4.00 at the thrift store – I happily spent some of New Year’s Day FINALLY pulling year’s worth of cds out of shoe boxes and arranging them for more convenient access, discovering long lost and favorite music along the way. I ended up with a couple dozen “dead” disks, which I am shipping off to GreenDisk.com to be recycled.

I’m cleaned up at home without messing up the planet – ahhh!

Happy, Healthy Year! Tao

Tags: recycle

This entry was posted on Friday, January 2nd, 2009 at 1:25 pm and is filed under activism, environment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.