Recycle
1. Sign up for Recycle
The City of New Orleans offers curbside recycling on demand. Registration is needed to participate.
Register to receive a cart on the city’s website.
2. Bring Build Materials to The Green Project
You can recycle your usable paint and paint products, lumber, windows, doors, hardware, tools, plumbing fixtures, lighting fixtures, and all sorts of building materials at The Green Project, 2831 Marais St. NOLA
3. Check Sierra Club Website for Recycling
Check the Sierra Club website for their recycle guide pdf and recycling of specific items (i.e., newspapers, scrap metal, aluminum, etc).
4. Compost Food Scraps at the Library
Compost NOW is a free residential food waste collection project in New Orleans. Freeze your food scraps and drop them off at one of the New Orleans Public Libraries participating in the program.
5. Drop off Glass, TVs, E-Waste, Compost, Etc @ Elysian Fields Recycling Center
Bring glass, e-waste, TVs, batteries, compost and lots more to the city’s Elysian Fields Recycling Center. More info.
6. Give/Get Free Stuff at Freecycle.net
Freecycle Network is a grassroots movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns.
Join the New Orleans Freecycle Group
7. Recycle Cellphones and Ink Cartridges
Local Kinko’s, Office Depots, and Whole Foods Markets let you recycle your old cellphone and printer ink cartridges. Also, these sites will turn those items into charitable donations and trees: O2 Recycle, and Think Recycle.
8. Recycle E-Waste (Computer Monitors, Laptops, Printers and such)
Capital Area Corporate Recycling Council recycles electronic waste, including computers processors, monitors, keyboards, networking systems, printers and scanners, phones and cellphones, digital cameras, fax machines and copiers, and pagers, calculators, and video games. They also provide non-profits with electronic equipment and technical support at very low prices. Also, City of New Orleans offers drop off of e-waste.
9. Recycle Mardi Gras Beads @ Arc of Greater New Orleans
Arc-GNO accepts mardi gras beads that are then recycled and sold next year to float riders. Beads are accepted at the following locations: 925 Labarre Rd (in Metairie), 5700 Loyola Avenue (in New Orleans), and 333 Sala Avenue (in Westwego). For more recycling information, call 504-837-5105.
10. Use Google Maps to find local recycling options in New Orleans
Luckily, more and more companies are offering recycling in New Orleans…in order to keep up with this, we suggest using google search/maps to find them.
Reduce
1. Use Cloth Bags
Bring cloth bags with you to the store. Use them instead of taking plastic bags from the store. (If you are always forgetting the cloth bags in your car, simply leave your items in the cart plastic-bagless and fill up your cloth bags when you get to the car.)
2. Go Paperless
Receive bills, make payments, and check your account balance online. If everyone who uses paper checks made electronic payments instead, it would save about $4 billion in paper costs alone. If every household paid just its credit card bills electronically, it would save almost $2 billion a year in postage costs.2
3. Stop Junk Mail
Reduce the amount of junk mail you receive by registering with the Mail Preference Service. It costs a buck, but you can easily do it online: www.dmaconsumers.org. 2
4. Stop Getting Unwanted Catalogs
Reduce the amount of catalogs mailed to you. Catalog choice is a free service that lets you decline paper catalogs you no longer wish to receive. Sign up at: www.catalogchoice.org.
5. Stop Receiving Phone Books
If you don’t use the paper phone books, call to stop delievery and use the online telephone directory. Telephone books make up almost 10 % of waste at dump sites.2 When we asked Bellsouth/AT&T how to stop receiving phone books, they said to call the Service Center: 888-757-6500. Good Luck!
6. Get a Reusable Water Bottle
Instead of plastic disposable bottles, bring your own reusable water bottle filled with filtered water from home when you go to work/gym/school, etc. You could save an average of $200/year as well as 14 pounds of plastic. 2
Reuse
1. Use Cloth Bags repeating
Bring cloth bags with you to the store. Use them instead of taking plastic bags from the store. (If you are always forgetting the cloth bags in your car, simply leave your items in the cart plastic-bagless and fill up your cloth bags when you get to the car.)
2. Get Crafty
Turn that trash into artwork like this or maybe something cool from MAKE: or (using mardi gras beads) this cute doggie.
3. Swap Books/DVDs/CDs/Video Games
PaperBack Swap and Book Mooch let their online group of readers share books with each other for nothing more than the cost of postage! Decluttr is a service where you can trade unwanted films, cds and books for those things that you really want. Sounds like a lot of fun!
1It’s Easy Being Green: A Handbook for Earth-Friendly Living by Crissy Track
2The Green Book: The Everyday Guide to Saving the Planet One Simple Step at a Time by Elizabeth Rogers, Thomas M. Kostigen
