This holiday week (for those of us in the US) think twice before disposing of waste before and after your event. You could be saving yourself some work in the garden come springtime if you start thinking ahead and start composting now!
You don't need a fancy gadget or special container to start composting -- just a space you can cover and maintain warmth and moisture with plenty of worms to start creating the best fertilizer for your spring plants. And what space would be better than your most-likely empty raised garden bed?
Even if you live in colder climates, you can utilize your already-constructed raised garden bed to begin a compost pile to use in the spring. All you'll need is something to cover it, and for good measure maybe a few worms to help the process along.
It happens to the best of us -- we go to hang our holiday lights only to find that they no longer work. Trying to find the burned-out bulb or shorted fuse is time consuming and frustrating, and often times strands of incandescent lights just go bad after a few uses.
So what do you do with your old holiday lights? Before you drop them into your trashcan and forget about them, consider recycling them instead. Not only will this keep electronic waste out of the landfill, but old holiday light strands can typically be ground down to particles that are divided by type (usually pvc, glass and copper) and used in other applications.
Not sure where to get started? Check with your city, town or municipality for recycling guidelines in locations. If you're in the Chicago area, for example, Naperville offers four light recycling locations in partnership with Elgin Recycling. A complete list can be found here, courtesy of the Naperville Sun.
We here at Charles & Hudson are always looking for ways to be as green as possible in our everyday choices, as well as be as economical as possible too. So when it was time to replace our old torn yoga mats, we got to thinking about ways to repurpose or upcycle them around the house.
Sure it's easy to recylce your mat with Recycle Your Mat or donate it through The Bolder Mat Company, both of which are awesome options to be green and generous. But we were curious about the different ways you could reuse your mat around the house to save money and help you in your DIY adventures.
So in no particular order, here are some ways your old yoga mat can be useful in home improvement:
This past weekend we had the chance to check out our city's monthly summer Really Really Free Market -- as in, yes, everything really, really is free -- and we're digging this latest urban trend. Really Really Free Markets are communal spaces where anyone can bring anything to share -- from food, skills, talents, to homegoods, clothing, kids' items, and pretty much anything else you can dream of -- and the only caveat is that absolustely under all circumstances everything is free to whomever wants it. That means no selling, bartering, trading, or any other kind of weighted exchange is allowed. Once you bring it to the Really Really Free Market, it's not solely your possession anymore -- it's anyone's and everyone's.
We were just looking for something inexpensive (read: free!) to do for an afternoon with our kids and a friend suggested it. So we got our best hipster duds on, did a quick once-over of our house to see what we could bring to share, and headed out. The day we went was still during that horiffic heat wave most of the country has been enduring for most of the summer, so the turnout wasn't as large as the Facebook group photos had illustrated from past events. Yet over the roughly hour-and-a-half we were there, a steady crawl of participants kept coming in, showing signs of sustainability. The whole thing is a giant DIY event, which made it border on the edge of festival as well as event.
