Decluttering in the New Year - Recycling everything!

Well, we're keeping up our attempts to declutter our way through 2009.

One of the barriers I have to decluttering is holding on to things that cannot be recyled curbside but should be able to be recycled.

Upon investigating, here are the places that will indeed recycle those items that have piled up at our house!

Plastics #2-7 including caps and lids:

• Charlotte - Tuesdays and Saturdays
• Leslie - 24/7

Styrofoam: Various Dart Container sites

• Charlotte - Tuesdays and Saturdays
• Mason - Monday through Friday, plus a small drop-off shed (My foodie husband says folks recommend stopping off at City Limits Bowling Center while you are in town to check out the acclaimed menu.)
• Lansing Delta Township - Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Saturdays

Cardboard and Boxboard:

• Lansing Granger - 24/7
• Lansing City - 24/7
• Holt - Daily hours
• Lansing Delta Township (No boxboard) - Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Saturdays

Shredding:

• Lansing - Freidland Industries - Quick, easy, inexpensive residential paper shredding available Monday-Friday 8:00 am – 4:30 pm.
• Free document destruction day: Saturday, April 18, 2009, 8 am to noon at Freidland Industies.

Clothes that aren't good enough for donating:

• Ingham County - Book and textile recycling on April 4, 2009

Computers, Printers, TV's, electronics

• Lansing City - Fee-based appliances & electronics recycling event on May 2, 2009
• Search by zipcode at Mygreenelectronics website - (I'm trying to contact each of the sites listed in our area to verify their services/costs.)

Books, magazines, telephone books

• Ingham County - Book and textile recycling on April 4, 2009

Expired car seats, baby swings, etc.:

• There is still nothing available locally, but you can ship these items to babyearth in Texas and receive a $5 coupon from their store.
• However, the folks in the Portland, Oregon car seat recycling program suggest that the environmental impact of shipping the items is worse than landfilling them. I'm wondering if the use of freight train for shipping the items would be more environmentally sound. I've heard that Amtrack is the cheapest way of sending large packages.
• Check out this blogger and trying to get a nationally mandated car seat recycling program in place and this blogger about how to start programs in your area. I've already been working on that but it seems we have no local market for these items.

updated 3-9-2009