Here is a recent story from Fox4KC, announcing that Goodwill stores around the Kansas City will be collecting old electronics in an effort to prevent electronic waste in landfills.

KANSAS CITY, Mo.— Kansas City area Goodwill stores are collecting old electronics. They’re trying to gather 100 tons of e-waste. They’re looking for items like old computers, printers, t-v’s and more.

The items can be recycled and put to good use as opposed to going into landfills. Often times one person’s trash is another person’s treasure.

“This is an initiative, emphasis in the month of April we are continuing it on through the year,” said J. Stuart Hoffman with Goodwill. “Bring e waste items to any of the Goodwills throughout the Kansas City area.”

All of the items donated will be recycled or refurbished through a partnership with Dell. None of the donated items will land up in landfills.

Goodwill has recently decided to launch free computer recycling. Many businesses remain unsure of what to do with their leftover electronic junk. Furthermore, Goodwill has devised a plan to take action and recycle their out-dated electronics for a better cause without any fees. Here’s a recent report on nebraska.tv, by Steve White, that further explains their recycling plan:

The report stated that Goodwill Industries of Greater Nebraska has teamed with computer-giant Dell, sensing people don’t have a place for this stuff. Kathy Langley, Vice President of Retail said, “In some cases there isn’t any option and in others people have to pay to get rid of computers and this is absolutely free.”

For Goodwill it also creates about five jobs and it’s a status boost compared to tasks like sorting shoes.”People we serve find a real status working with computers and it’s just a great job for them, a lot of job skills,” Langley explained. Goodwill pays for shipping, and only hopes to break even from the fee they receive per pound.

Langley said, “As long as we’re creating jobs and keeping computers out of landfills and out of bad places it’s a good thing for us and good for the environment.” Goodwill has a long history of recycling through its thrift stores. Carrie Custard said this is a natural extension of that, and it’s in line with the mission of creating jobs for those with disabilities.

It’s part of Dell’s Reconnect program, with 2,200 collection sites across the United States and Canada. A press release indicated they expect to divert about 5 million pounds of e-waste from landfills every year. They will accept computers, monitors, speakers, scanners, keyboard, mice, and power cords. However, they do not take television sets. For a complete list of items that can be donated, visit www.dell.com/recycle.

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Thank you to The Recycler for featuring InkCycle and its project aimed at decreasing electronic waste. According to the article, Inkcycle celebrates the success of it’s e-waste project, the company diverted 493 tons of e-waste and recycled 588,209 pounds of inkjet cartridges and 397,718 pounds of toner cartridges in 2010.

InkCycle, a company with a recycled line of ink and toner cartridges known as grenk, is celebrating the success of its e-waste project. The company believe that its media campaigns have been a key to its recycling efforts after working to educate national media, trade press, consumers and businesses regarding the benefits of recycling e-waste.

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Here is an article I would like to share form cnet.com, written by Candace Lombardi about the possibility of the world running on renewable energy in the next couple of decades.

Study: By 2030, world can run on renewables

Scientists from Stanford University and the University of California at Davis have crunched the numbers and come up with a plan for how the world might economically and feasibly make the move to renewable energy in the next 20 to 40 years.

In a two-part paper (Part 1 PDF, Part 2 PDF) published in the journal Energy Policy, Mark Z. Jacobson and Mark A. Delucchi show in great detail the who, what, where, and how of implementing a renewable energy-run world. It includes solutions to economic, material, and transport issues.

Jacobson, an atmospheric scientist and professor of civil and environmental engineering, is director of Stanford’s Atmosphere/Energy Program and senior fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment and the Precourt Institute for Energy. Delucchi is a research scientist with a background in economic, environmental, engineering, and planning of transportation systems at the Institute for Transportation Studies at U.C. Davis.

This latest study is an in-depth analysis of a plan originally put forth by Jacobson and Delucchi and published in the November 2009 issue of Scientific American.

The most interesting determination made as a result of the team’s due diligence to the world of energy creation and use was just how much energy the world wastes producing and transporting other energy.

The scientists estimated that the world could reduce its overall energy demand by as much as 30 percent just by transitioning away from combustion processes to more efficient electric processes for producing energy and hydrogen fuel cells.

Jacobson and Delucchi claim that the world’s energy could be originated from 50 percent wind, 40 percent solar, 4 percent geothermal, 4 percent hydroelectric, and 2 percent wave and tidal power. They also agree that financial incentives and management systems aimed at conserving energy during peak demand times would be key

(read more)

Many families are greening up their holiday traditions this year. According to a blog post, written by Nicole Bennett from http://simpleorganic.net/, consuming less or getting creative with recycled wrapping materials are great traditions that can help green up the holiday.

The article suggests that to make the holidays greener people should consume less by buying less presents, producing less wrapping waste and spending less money.

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Christmas is not only one of the biggest holidays our country celebrates each year but is it also known as one of the most environmentally unfriendly holidays. Some holiday traditions include families traveling, unwrapping presents, and stringing up holiday lights. These things are polluting our environment and causing large amounts of waste.

Yahoo.com provides a list of things we can do to help cut back on waste and make this holiday season a little more environmentally friendly.

Make Christmas a Heart-Warming, not Global Warming Holiday

Fortunately, there are things we can do to minimize the environmental impact of our celebrations without making the season any less festive and enjoyable. By taking these few simple steps to make Christmas a greener holiday, we can make it a more heart-warming and less global warming holiday season.

Reduce Christmas Travel Mileage

While the most eco-friendly thing to do would be to avoid long-distance travel altogether, Christmas just isn’t Christmas unless families can come together to celebrate. So let’s just try to minimize travel. If family is traveling from several locations, try to hold the family festivities in either location where the greatest number of people don’t have to travel at all or choose a central location that offers the lowest average miles per person.

Reduce Waste on Wrapping Paper

There are several ways to reduce the waste on wrapping paper. The first, and most effective, of course, is not to use any. Again, though, watching the kids tear through the wrapping to discover what’s inside is a big part of what makes special Christmas memories. What we can do is to use and re-use gift boxes and decorative bags that can be used over and over, year after year. Another option is to use recycled wrapping paper. As a child, I even received some gifts that were wrapped in the funny pages from the Sunday newspaper. Not only does this re-use existing paper, but it slows down the mad frenzy of unwrapping, as kids pause to read their favorite strips before tearing them up. At my grandmother’s house, we were always careful to break the tape and unwrap the gift rather than tear it open because my grandmother insisted that the wrapping paper be saved for use again the following year. A frugal and eco-friendly option.

How Much Electricity do Christmas Lights Use?

To calculate your Christmas light energy usage, multiply the wattage of each bulb, which should be included on the package or instruction sheet, by the number of lights in the string. This is the total wattage used by each string of lights. A typical string of 150 incandescent mini-lights of 2.5 watts each uses more electricity than three 100-watt light bulbs, for example. Averaging just two such strings of Christmas lights per household around the country really adds up to a lot of coal and oil being burned to make that extra electricity.

Choose Energy Efficient Christmas Lights

Brightly colored Christmas lights, again are a big part of traditional Christmas celebrations. Obviously, manufacturing and shipping Christmas lights from overseas factories is not ever going to be an environmentally friendly option. We can, however, choose lights that use less electricity and be more careful about when the lights are on. Look for the lowest per bulb wattage when choosing Christmas lights. You may find they range from as much as 9 watts to as little as half a watt per bulb. The light option with the lowest energy usage is LED lighting. LED lights use about 1/20 of a watt each. That’s a huge reduction in electricity usage and a difference that you’ll notice in you electric bill especially if you have lots of lights.

Read More environmentally friendly holiday tips here:

Earth911.com recently posted tips about what the green consumer should look for when buying or leasing electronics.

According to the article –

Review Green Purchasing Details:

When buying electronics, assess the overall environmental impact. Here are a couple of resources that may assist with market research:

1. Northwest Product Stewardship Council Green Purchasing Content
2. U.S. EPA: ENERGY STAR

Green Leasing Options:

If you desire electronics with the smallest environmental impact and intend to upgrade within a year, leasing electronics may be a better choice.  Here are a few companies that provide leasing options:

1. Apple
2. Hewlett-Packard
3. IBM

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Officesupplygeek.com recently reviewed grenk and gave away samples to be reviewed by consumers.

Remanufactured Ink Cartridges by Grenk – Review and Giveaway

Officesupplygeek wrote, “Typically I don’t like to review an available office supply product if I can’t get it in my hands to test for myself, so when the nice folks from InkCycle offered to send over some of their grenk remanufactured ink cartridges I was quickly frustrated when I learned that my newer printer was not supported.  Not wanting to turn down the opportunity to review a cool new earth friendly office supply, I decided to share this opportunity with the awesome folks who have signed up for the special additional content that I share with them in my my newsletter and monthly giveaway.”

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I would like to share an article found on treehugger.com regarding the EPA’s recent concern with e-waste after years of paying little attention on e-waste issues.

According to EPA Administrator, Lisa Jackson, e-waste is one of the top five priorities for the agency. Paying particular attention to companies who say they recycle electronics, but cut corners. Companies such as Dell and HP are hoping to lead by example and have pledged responsible recycling practices.

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A lot of what we use these days runs on batteries, and a lot of times when those batteries no longer work we immediately toss them in the trash. Those batteries will eventually end up in landfills across the country creating more hazardous waste because of the toxins they carry. I would like to share a video from latimes.com about a new battery recycling program called My Call to Recycle which aims at informing people about the benefits of recycling batteries as well as providing places to recycle.

Watch it here.