Secondhand Nation

It's Your Dick in a (Recycled) Box!

Figure 1:  A cardboard box.  Helpful when you have to move, but can't fit all your stuff in your pants pockets.  

Doubtless most of our transient student population has already settled in to their new digs, but in case you're finding yourself on the business end of an eviction order and don't want to skulk around grocery store dumpsters or liquor stores looking for boxes to store your hotpot and Pink Floyd posters in, Lifehacker's got it all dialed in for you already.

It's a bitch to break down cardboard and many communities won't recycle it.  Why not use boxes with a circular destiny involving many stressed-out, disorganized people who are moving to new places and rueing how much crap they've accumulated?

Check the direct links to U-Haul's recycled boxes program and Used Cardboard Boxes for more information on greening your next move.

P.S. Pink Floyd sucks!

Image via Wikipedia.    

Recycle This: A Blog for Eco-Obsessed

Last month, between the dark lows of Post-Potter Depression and the giddy highs of That Hottie Daniel Radcliffe is finally Legal Age?! Euphoria, I started wondering if I was going totally mental.* 

For one thing, I began wondering what I might do with my used Q-tip/cotton swabs so as to keep them out of landfills.

These types of twilight-hour considerations are not pleasant.  I wavered between thinking that I was becoming an acoustic-guitar brandishing, deodorant-eschewing hippie and the more reasonable idea that I was perhaps merely rising to the challenge that our new green consciousness is raising, which might soon become the standard in everyday life.   

Radical?  Mediocre?  Pervy?  Nuttier than squirrel shit? 

Well, like the fine ladies of Le Tigre once said, it turns out that mediocrity rules.  Apparently, I am not alone in my late-night musings on the rehabiliation of the humble Q-tip.  I should of have known. 

These days, if it ails you, there's a blog that'll cure it.

Next time these pressing recycling dilemmas attack, there'll be no need to flounder and waste time, because I'll just toddle over to Recycle This, a British blog dedicated to finding creative ways for people to re-use or recycle everyday items.

Wallah!  The answer:  How To Recycle/Re-Use Q-Tips...

With the current glut of green blogs, the simple format of Recycle This is refreshing, as well as genius.  The blog itself doesn't deign to have all the answers but merely poses questions for readers on how to recycle or reuse things like old swimming costumes, tyres - wasn't kidding about the British thing, was I? - old jumpers (that's "old sweaters" in American), medication blister packs and used staples.  Then interested readers comment with their suggestions and solutions.  Truly interactive and a godsend for for anyone perseverating over the fate of their manky old hot water bottle.

So far, August finds me feeling much more stable, thank you, now that I need not spend the wee hours speculating on the plight of my empty dental floss container.  May it be so with you as well. 

Now, if I can just get up the nerve to ask that dreamy Daniel Radcliffe to the prom...

*Check out my spoiler-laden review of the last Harry Potter book at Prose Matters.

Reminder for Locals: Plant Pot Recycling This Weekend

I know I just mentioned plastic plant pot recycling, but if you live in Minnesota and want to clear out your stash of plastic pots, my local rag  gives a quick mention here.

There are dropsites across the Twin Cities Metro area - click this link for addresses - and head out this weekend, June 23 and 24, Saturday and Sunday, between 9 am and 3 pm.

Pots of all colors will be accepted;  hanging planters should have the hanging cords removed. 

The pots will be ground up into tiny bits and used in recycled landscaping lumber and other kinds of crazy items. 

You know, I don't care if they make toilet bowls or King James Bibles out of them - just keep them out of the landfill!