Going Green Tips for the Holidays:

The city of Tampa will collect Christmas Trees to be recycled on Jan 8 &9, 2009 depending on your normal yard waste day.

TPD will take your old cell phones to provide battered spouses and children with the ability to contact 911, TPD will use the cell phone holders to train the Police Dogs. So don’t forget to provide them with the cell phone accessories that you no longer need.

Consider recycling those no longer needed electronics. Recycle your personal computers, televisions, stereos and other components. There are several local companies that will keep the hazardous materials out of our landfills. (you can either provide a link [http://www.mygreenelectronics.org/ ] or list the closest or refer them to our website, let me know what you want to do)

Recycle those packages, cans, cards and bottles curbside. If you need additional recycling bins or need to replace existing ones use the link located on our website or call 348-1111 (extension 2).

Recycling Fun Facts
• We throw away enough aluminum each year that we could rebuild our entire commercial air fleet every 3 months.
• We throw away enough office paper each year to build a 12 foot high wall of paper from New York to Los Angeles.
• We throw away enough plastic soda bottles each year to circle the earth four times.
• We throw away enough motor oil each year to fill 120 supertankers.
• We throw away 20 million tons of grass clippings, dead leaves and branches a year.
• An average size family's yard waste can make about 300-400 pounds of finished compost (humus) a year!

Disposing of Electronics

With the holidays and the end of analog TV reception approaching, some of you will be getting new TVs soon. There are others that acquire other new techno gadgets from time to time. I know that we have several old desktops that need to be disposed of. I went looking around for advise on ridding my house and garage of these old clunkers. I have posted a couple of sites here, but was wanting to know if we have anyone locally that recycles used electronics.

City of Tampa Curb Side Recycling Program

The city of Tampa does have a curbside recycling program. The list of items allowed is continuing to grow and currently includes:
• Phone books,
• Paperback books
• Junk mail
• Cereal boxes
• 6-pack soda boxes
• Office paper and cardboard
• Magazines
• Newspapers & inserts
• Catalogs
• Plastic bottles (numbers 1 and 2 only)
• Aluminum and steel cans (including empty aerosol cans)
• Gable-top beverage containers (juice & milk containers)
• Glass bottles & jars (all colors)

Basically the only paper product that is not allowed are those coated with wax, i.e. anything that goes in the freezer or refrigerator. The wax coating causes problems for the machines that process the paper.

If you need additional recycling bins use the link, it is the quickest way to get one: Blue Bin Request