Happy Earth Day!

Interestingly enough, I remember celebrating Earth Day as a teenager, probably in the late 80s or early 90s, when Earth Day was just becoming popular again (or at least I was becoming more conscious of it). I distinctly remember making a recycling bin for paper for my bedroom when I was about 16 or so. I filled it up with paper, and then asked my parents where to take it to recycle it. They had no idea.

Now it's a whole lot easier to recycle. In fact, our apartment building has a single dumpster, but two large dumpsters and a smaller bin for recycling, and another small bin for yard waste (and leftover pizza, we've been told).

At any rate, in honor of Earth Day, I'm running a sale in my Etsy shop. All of the ice cream cozies and coffee cozies are buy one, get one half price! I read a statistic that says that if you drink coffee five days a week for the whole year, and use the cardboard sleeves that the coffee shops provide, that's approximately 6-7 POUNDS of garbage that goes into the landfill each year. (I suspect this is because most people don't remove their cardboard sleeves from their cups when they trash them.) With all the folks drinking coffee in Seattle, that's a LOT of garbage.

Text link now for when the mini changes

So if you've been eyeballing a couple of these, now is the time to buy! :)

Blog Action Day!

So for those who have not heard, today is Blog Action Day - a day for blogs around the world to focus on the same topic: the environment.

One of my favorite things about moving to Seattle has been the fact that we now have two dumpsters for recycling on the parking lot of our apartment building (and another one for yard waste / pizza boxes). This is a drastic change from Carbondale, where I'm pretty sure the only way to recycle was either to drive all of your stuff to a recycling bin or pay for the privilege of having your recyclables hauled away.

It's been a bit of a change from what we're used to, of course. I still have to refer to the list that I stuck to the fridge to check whether some things can be recycled or not. But it's becoming more of a habit, which is a good thing. I've been in favor of recycling since high school, when I was into so many environmentally conscious bands that it couldn't help but rub off on me. I've just never really been in much of a position to implement it as a large part of my lifestyle till now.

Of course, I also try to keep this in mind when I'm working on crafts as well. I've got quite a few things in my Etsy shop that are "upcycled," or made from repurposed materials. It's a lot of fun to take apart old sweaters and reuse the yarn to crochet with. And when I've outgrown a pair of jeans, they turn into some lovely purses. I also have done quite a bit with reusing paper, whether it's the scraps from another project, or collages made of magazine clippings and junk mail.

While I know that a lot of crafters prefer to work with all new materials, there is a lot that can be done with repurposed materials as well. And, if nothing else, crafters can donate their unwanted objects to GoodWill, where other crafters (like myself) will pick them up for materials! :)