Visit the third annual Lake Oswego Sustainability Resource Fair! Celebrate Earth Day and connect with diverse organizations across our community that are advancing sustainability.
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Closing the Loop
Finding products made with a high percentage of PCR content can be challenging.
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Styrofoam®: To Recycle Or Not?
If you’ve recently had to replace a refrigerator and now have a garbage bag full of Styrofoam® taunting you from the garage, you may be experiencing the paralysis of eco-anxiety brought on by recent articles calling attention to the negative environmental and social impacts of chemically recycling Styrofoam®. These articles are an essential part of being aware of both the pros and cons of the recycling systems we have in place, but what’s a gal to do? If I throw it in the landfill, I pollute the landfill and groundwater for the next 500 to 1 million years. If I take it to be recycled, I pollute my low-income neighbors…
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Can I Recycle This?
Oregon's Plastic Pollution and Recycling Modernization Act. This Act is a system-wide update that will make recycling easier for the public, expand access to recycling services, create a single statewide recycling list, and upgrade the facilities that sort recyclables.
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Recycle Or Not
This Portland-area campaign wants to reduce waste and make a big difference for the environment. Many of us are getting more packages in the mail these days. More packages mean more packing materials—and more confusion about what belongs in your trash can and what can go in your recycling bin. You can’t recycle plastic-padded envelopes at home or at work, but there are steps you can take to reduce your waste. When online shopping, consider bundling your orders, so items come in just one package. Or reuse them for shipping — be sure to remove old mailing addresses or barcodes and reseal them with packaging tape. You can also use…
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Is There a Monster in Your Closet?
Oregon E-Cycles: In Oregon, it’s free and easy to safely recycle TVs, computers, printers, monitors, and tablets through a no-cost statewide program known as Oregon E-Cycles After more than a year plus of COVID-19 quarantine, are you feeling a little cramped? Feeling like there’s too much stuff and not enough space? If your excess stuff includes electronics that you no longer use, you’re in good company. Over two-thirds of households in Oregon report that they have old, unused electronics taking up space in their home. And many share the concern that they want to dispose of them safely, to keep our state free from the hazardous materials they may contain,…
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Recycling Batteries
KEEPING CHEMICALS OUT OF LANDFILLS TO SAVE THE EARTH Did you know that Americans use and discard millions of single-use and rechargeable batteries each year? Our increasingly large taste for lightweight power tools, “smart” devices, and electronics has caused an explosion of these metal-containing entities. Unfortunately, some of the chemicals they contain are harmful to the environment, including mercury, lead, cadmium, nickel, and silver. Others contain cobalt, lithium, and graphite—which are difficult to obtain from the earth and may become unavailable before the end of this century. Single-use batteries include: • The old tried and true alkaline and zinc-carbon (tubular and rectangular) batteries.• The newer button-cell or coin batteries.• The…
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How to Compost in Your Apartment
While tossing orange peels and coffee grounds in the garbage might seem inconsequential, sending food waste to landfills has a real impact on climate change. When trapped without air, decomposing food in landfills produces methane: a greenhouse gas that’s at least 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide in the short term. As much as we try to cut down on food waste in our kitchens, there will always be leftover banana peels, apple cores and other things that can’t be used – much of which can be diverted from landfills by composting. Composting recycles organic material and allows for the natural processes that decompose food, yard waste and other organics to create a nutrient-rich, natural fertilizer. Compost piles heat up…
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Recycling in the Garden
If you are reading the Green Living Journal, you probably are committed to protecting the earth and reducing your drain on its plentiful resources. But the term “recycling” in the garden environment is often overlooked by mindful gardeners. Your garden is the most precious and vulnerable area you can impact and has all of the basics from which other recycling concepts arise. Consider: “they” are not importing atoms from Mars, or any farther planet, according to NASA. The particles that make up every rock, animal, plant, fungus, bacteria, or other earth forms—living or inanimate—were here at the creation of the planet. Our natural world is the simplest form of recycling.…
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Fix it Forward
When we first moved into our home 40 years ago, the front door lock didn’t work quite right. One day I decided to fix it. Ha! I learned that it just wasn’t that simple. In order to fix it, I needed to understand how it worked. If you want to fix something, it is wise to take the time to find out how it works, how all the pieces fit together. It has become evident that many, many things are out of balance and fundamentally needs fixing: the economy, health care, the food system, partisan politics, climate change and environment, social and racial inequities, and education. This long list can…
