Think of it as becoming your own public-relations machine. You can sit down and make a list of all the good things you do for the environment that your friends don’t even know about. You recycled your Christmas tree and got a seedling to plant in return? Donated money to a worthy environmental cause? Use your community’s freecycle-type program? Shop at Goodwill? Feed scraps to the dog rather than throw them in the garbage? Reuse that plastic dish from the fruit salad for this week’s potato salad?

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Freecycle is a free, web-based, nonprofit organization that promotes waste reuse among their members. Members may give and get things for free, in an effort to keep unnecessary waste out of landfills. For information, visit www.Freecycle.com.

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1) Stop buying water in plastic bottles. What comes out of your tap is excellent
quality and you’re already paying for it (like, it’s kind of free.) A major company recently admitted that they are bottling tap water and selling it at a premium! And don’t even get me started on protein waters, caffeine waters, and diet waters. You’d think it was Holy Water!

2) Buy less stuff. Just say no. Reject the Power of Cute.

3) Buy secondhand stuff. Check out consignment shops, Craig’s List and Freecycle.

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And finally, don’t forget the classic standbys Craigslist (craigslist.org) and Freecycle (freecycle.org). These deal more in local, in-person swaps, but they’re a great way to meet neighbors who want to keep your old stuff out of the landfill as much as you do.

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Freecycle.org seems to me to be the biggest of all the grassroots movements on the Web that seeks the Earth’s sustainability through re-use. The idea? Instead of throwing something out (perhaps something that can’t be picked up by the local recycling truck), post it on the Web to other members of your local Freecycle group as being free for the taking. Looking to get something for free? You can publish wanted ads too.

A friend of mine recently turned me on to the existence of the Freecycle group in my area. I’m not sure if all groups work the same but the one I’m a member of uses Yahoo Groups as the place to which four different types of posts get posted: OFFER, WANTED, TAKEN, RECEIVED. As a member of the group, I elect whether to have new posts forwarded to my inbox as they are posted to the Yahoo Group, or aggregated in summary form twice per day.Click here to read the blog in full

Though TreeHugger prefers Buy Nothing Day to the sheer madness of Black Friday, that doesn’t mean you have to live with less or even that you can’t acquire stuff; a great way to do this is with something like The Freecycle Network (it really works!). The big day has passed, but the Network rolls on, and remains a good way to both find and get rid of stuff without having to involve any money.Click here to read this and other fantastic green & recycling related articles at Treehugger.com

Tip 1: Make the Store Your Last Choice
Most people’s default response is to go to a store anytime they need something, but that’s not the only way to obtain a needed item. Ask yourself these questions:

Can I get it for free?
If you don’t need something right away, and you usually don’t, it’s worth searching on community ad sites like Craigslist or Kijiji, signing up with some local Freecycle groups, and asking around to see if anyone you know is getting rid of whatever you want.Click here to read the article in full

Several readers also mentioned Freecycle.org, in which people get and give back stuff with no money changing hands. I am unclear how it works, but it seems pretty cool. Not a seal of approval here, but check it out.Click here to read the article in full

Grass is Always Greener – top 10 environmental searches

1. Recycling

2. Global Warming

3. Freecycle

4. Earth

5. Pollution

6. Al Gore

7. Environmental Protection Agency

8. Live Earth

9. Hybrid Cars

10. Solar Energy

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Freecycle.org, for example, started in 2003 to help people “gift” unwanted stuff to strangers and help keep the landfills free of items that could easily be reused. Now the site has more than 4,000 local Yahoo groups, whose 4 million-plus members give away goods in 75 countries. In San Francisco, for example, the number of messages posted to the group has grown from 37 in January 2004 to more than 2,400 in the same period this year. As a result, the nonprofit said that it keeps more than 300 tons of stuff out of landfills per day, thanks to all of the donations from member to member.Click here to read the article in full