June 8, 2009 • 16 mins
These days, recycling goes way beyond glass and paper. How about old shoes? Prom dresses? Join Molly and Cristen as they discuss some of the surprising things you can recycle in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff mom never told you?
From House Towards dot com. Hey there, and welcome to
the podcast. This is Kristen and this is Molly. All right, Molly.
(00:21):
Even though we are well into spring and uh down
here in Atlanta, we are even farther on our way
into summer, I still need to do some spring cleaning,
do you know. Yeah, my room is just I don't
have any closets. That's the problem. There closets, some storage
closets in my house, but I have no closets to
myself in my bedroom, and so beneath my bed is
(00:44):
just a treasure trove of junk. And I don't want
to throw away because it's just things like old handbags
and shoes and random clothes that I just don't really
want to see ever. But I don't want to throw
them away, you know, fair enough. But the same time,
I don't want them under my bed anymore. I've got
so much stuff like this. So on that note, I
(01:07):
thought that we could use our podcast as a double
duty for me to find out some surprising things that
I can recycle to get rid of some of these
wastes in my room. Fair enough? Uh, first off, do
you have any prom dresses under your bed? Actually, Molly,
I I do have prom dresses. I have prom dresses,
and I even have homecoming dresses, which is kind of
(01:30):
weird because I wasn't really a fan of either of
those events in my adolescence, but I somehow still have
the mementos from it. Well. One of the first things
I think this is kind of interesting the commuter cycled
are all those prom dresses in your handbags that matched
and the shoes that matched. If you look for an organization,
the national one is called Donate My Dress dot org um.
(01:51):
What they do is they take all those formal dresses
and turn them around and give them out for free
to girls who can afford to buy their own for
the prom. So that way, no one, you know, it's
denied a prom just because they can't pay for it.
And they're you know, local chapters of this everywhere. UM
Chicago for example, has the Glass Slipper projects, so I
would advise looking into that for Numero Uno. Yeah, I
(02:13):
think how staff Works actually had had a prom and
homecoming dress drive last year for I think it was
something to do with maybe Hurricane Katrina, although that doesn't
make sense because that wasn't last year. This is a
terrible story that I'm feel like, So that's why I'm
going to move on to the next surprising thing that
you can recycle, um, which are cosmetics. I also have
(02:34):
a lot of old cosmetics that's like, you know, eyeshadow
that I'm like, well maybe I'll want that baby blue,
your early experiment experiments with makeup and terrifying um. But
I can actually send empty cosmetic containers back to some
cosmetic companies and they will recycle them for me, which
(02:57):
is pretty exciting because you know, you don't really think
about it. You just you have an old you know, uh, eyeshadow,
lip gloss, it's empty, you toss it. But we're actually
tossing a lot of cosmetics. So uh. Origins from Essay
Lauter actually just launched a new cosmetic recycling program and
they will accept any empty and clean cosmetic container at
(03:21):
any Origins counter and you can just take you take
the empty stuff and though they will recycle it for you. Yeah,
and if you're if you're pretty brand loyal, I know
that some brands have their own programs, like Mac has
one where I think it's six containers and you get
like a free lipstick out of it. So some of
them you might actually get a deal if you look
and recycling them that way. And you know old makeup
(03:41):
always good to like grind down uses an art supply. Yes, Molly,
I didn't know you were so crafty. I'm pretty crafty.
One craft I will say, Um, I don't know if
you do have any uh spare rolls of wallpaper lying around,
But I did have a teacher who was pretty crafty
with a leftover wallpaper, and she recycled that leftover wallpaper,
(04:01):
uh into books that we could draw our little stories in.
She would fold the wallpaper over, so some paper in
the middle of it while story book nice and Molly,
I'm guessing if you made storybooks, you could easily make
a thing. If you weren't planning to write a series
of short stories in wallpaper, I'm sure that you could
turn it into maybe greeting cards or um. There are
some I think the craft Zine magazine blog has a
(04:25):
has a whole list of you know, things that you
can you can do with with paper like this, such
as sewing it up and making cute little business card holders.
And Martha Stewart also has a whole list of ideas
for for things that you can do with leftover wallpaper scraps,
like just small snippets you might have that can work
as light, fix your coverings and backing for pictures, and
(04:51):
all sorts of creative ideas, because right now wallpaper comes
in so many neat patterns and textures it's kind of
a shame to to just toss it all. Um, use
it to aline your drawers. Yeah, drawerliner exactly. Yeah, wallpaper,
it's a wealth of opportunity. Yeah. And another thing, another
common thing that we use to decorate which might seem
(05:12):
kind of just easy to just toss away, sort of
like the wallpaper scraps, are old Christmas lights. Man, I
have a pretty impressive collection of old, unused Christmas lights
that I don't really want to throw away either because
well I don't really know why. It seems wrong too,
and you kind of think you'll use them again, even
(05:32):
though most of them are burnt out. Like, I don't
think I have a working strand of Christmas lights, even
though I have an awful lot of Christmas lights, and
you know you also don't want to have to go
through the trouble of detangling those Christmas and ust me,
that's the most annoying part of it. Um, Holiday l
e ed dot com and Christmas lights dot com I
believe will accept your strands of unwanted Christmas lights and
(05:55):
recycle them for you. Yeah. The Christmas miracles, Christmas racle
um and uh. Speaking of light bulbs, Molly. With the
whole green movement going on, one of the first tips
that people always tell you is to switch out your
old light bulbs for compact fluorescent light bulbs, right because
it lasts longer, better for the environment. That's great. But
(06:16):
when they burn out, if they ever do exactly they
ever do America workers, do you just toss them? What
do you do? Know? You can actually take them to
home Depot and they will recycle them for you as well.
I don't know. Some other hardware stores might do this too.
I'm not just trying to single out Home dam Depot
so she is, Um, but I know that that they
(06:37):
will recycle those kinds of green light bulbs to make
your life even greener. That's pretty green. Okay, So here's
the scenario. For you christim. Let's say you had gotten
all your Christmas lights out, strung them up and had
a wonderful Christmas party and you serve some refreshments as
we girls are want to do, perhaps a lot of
wine champagne, had a good time. I want to go
(07:00):
to that party. Come on over at Christmas at my house. Um. Anyway,
say you have that party, and of course you're gonna
recycle all those wine bottles, that's a given. But did
you know that if you keep all those corks, not
just as mementos of a good time, you can send
them back to a company and they'll recycle them for you. Fascinating, Molle,
it is. Let me tell you they have the company.
(07:20):
If you send your corks to recork America, they take
all of them, and uh they make all sorts of things.
They can manufacture the trails into flooring tiles, building insulation,
shoe soles, fishing round handles, bulletin boards, play SMATs. So
keep those corks, and I bet if you are a
crafty gal like yourself, Molle, you can keep all those
(07:42):
corks and make some fun craft items as well. Corker
if you if you're wanting to do so I don't
have the patients for crafts, but I would give you
my corks, Like, yeah, you can make your own up
like bulletin board out of corks. Yeah, donging it up
in the office, if you have a tolerant sort of office. Now, Molly, uh,
let's say I've gone to your fantastic holiday party and
(08:05):
maybe I drank a few too many glasses of wine
and champagne. Next day, I'm gonna wake up, probably go
to my medicine cabinet, maybe take a little a little
pain reliever. But before you do, check the expiration date. Okay,
there's well, there's nothing worse than taking expired medicines than
sting my opinion. Yeah. But speaking when I'm trying to
(08:26):
get at Molly, okay, is that there is a relatively
new programs that are popping up in let's see thirty
seven out of fifty states so far that are letting
people recycle medication. Really. Yeah, this sounds kind of strange
because you think of you don't really think of taking
used medicine. But according to a blog post on the
(08:49):
House Stuff Works blog Science Stuff posted by our science
editor Alison louder Milk, the US now has thirty seven
states that have passed drug reclamation or recycling laws, according
to the National Conference of State Legislatures, and they've got
a website up that will that will give out all
the guidelines for how you can UH recycle your medication.
(09:11):
But in general, UM, your donated drugs must not be
expired and they have to have a verifiable future expiration date.
Controllable substances defined by the U s d e A
are usually excluded and prohibited from recycling UH. State licensed
pharmacist or pharmacy has to be part of the verification
and distribution process, and each patient receiving one of these
(09:32):
recycled drugs must have a valid prescription form in his
or her own name. Some like that might be something
if you particularly if you're moving, you know, and you're
cleaning out the medicine chest and you have maybe some
UH medications that haven't expired that you might want to
try to pass along, because if you throw these meds away,
they might end up in the groundwater supply. There's been
(09:54):
all sorts of news stories about how discarded medications flush
them down the toilet is really not good for the
environment or good for our health. Stuff out there, so
it could be worth looking into. So kristin yesterday to
tall a little anecdote. I bought some new shoes, some
new um walking shoes. Um, but did you know I
(10:16):
can recycle the old ones? That's good because I have
my my shoes that I run in are are disgusting
and I need to well, I don't know that. Well
did they grind them up? Because I wouldn't want someone
else to wear them. I couldn't take them to a
thrift store, That's what I'm saying. Well, if you feel
you can take them to a thrift store. There are
plenty of programs that will take your old tennis shoes
and redistribute them to, you know, people who might be
grateful to have any shoe at all. But the program
(10:39):
I was most interested to find out about was one
that's run by Nike called Riggs a shoe and they'll take, um,
we're not athletics shoes from any brand, doesn't have to
be a Nike, and they'll grind them up and make
uh this material they call Nike Grind and then they
partner with um sports surfacing companies. So it might be
one day that you're playing on a basketball or a
(11:00):
tennis court and all of a sudden, you look down
like that's your shoe, Like your shoe made that basketball court.
That sounds like a much better way for my shoes
to go because they really smell, they're they're their way
over use, and I think that they would work really
well for Nike and thank you basketball court. Yes, yeah,
so all sorts of fitness flooring. Uh you could. It's
(11:22):
it seems very much like the circle of life, Like
you wear out your shoes on a court, and then
your shoes become the court. I like that mine. It's deep.
It's very philosophical. Um. Another thing that we can recycle,
um that can be put to good use or like
this whole circle of of life, if you will, Molly
that you're talking about cell phones. We know that we
(11:43):
should recycle our cell phone batteries, but did you know
you can actually recycle your physical cell phone, the entire phone,
and they can go back to good use. Some of
these programs will will take cell phones and then program
them to dial automatically and they will give them out
to women who are facing um domestic violence programs like
(12:05):
at UM domestic violence shelters and things like that. So
it's a pretty amazing second life for a cell phone.
There's this other cool program Christen called cell Phones for Soldiers,
and basically by collecting phones and selling them back, they're
able to create to raise the money to buy prepaid
calling cards for our brave men and women serving overseas.
(12:25):
So that's pretty cool. Yeah, it's great. Well, only speaking
of overseas and traveling, that reminds me of I think
one of your top five favorite movies of all time,
which is Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Part two. You know,
I actually much to mind, just may haven't seen that
one yet, but I do love I do love the
first installments so much. And uh, that tell involves girls
(12:47):
who are sort of the epitome of recycling, if you will,
because they take one pair of pants and managed to
make it work for all of them. But if those
pants should ever fail to work their magic, which seems
highly doubtful, they shood so they should send them to
a company called Bonded Logic. Because what Bonded Logic does
is they make installation for homes out of blue jeans,
(13:09):
which I just think is the coolest thing ever. Uh.
There have been like habitat for humanity houses built with these.
And the whole reason that Kristen brought up my favorite film, sister,
that traveling Pants is uh, the cotton people, the fine
people who make cotton. There's a big promotional push you
might have seen, like a big bin in the movie
theater to drop your jeans there because the cotton people
(13:31):
they have this website called Cotton from Blue to Green
dot org and they run a lot of the denim
drives that eventually, you know, they take all the denim
and they send it off to the to the people
who make it into installation. And it's yet another circle
of life thing. Yeah, taking our discarded clothing and cell
phones and all that and actually putting it to good use.
(13:53):
Because when a lot of us think about recycling, we
think about our cereal boxes and aluminum cans and newspapers
and sort of sort of the boring stuff, if you will, Molly.
But I like thinking of recycling like this, getting a
little creative with it and finding out how to get
rid of just see things like that are taking up
all of that space beneath my bed and in drawers,
(14:15):
and that I just don't want to throw away because
I don't want to waste it um. And good thing
to remember too is that while we have all of
these specific items that can be donated, there are wonderful
websites like freecycle, dot org, Craigslist and others that allow
you to literally recycle anything that you want. Freecycle is
(14:38):
such a great example because it's I mean, it's exactly
what it sounds like. You're recycling things for free. You
kind of do swaps with other people, like say, Molly,
you want my paperback edition of Sisterhood of the Traveling
Pants too, And I would like, you know, your new
pair of shoes that you bought yesterday. So I think
that we could probably make a trade. And there are
(14:59):
other a cool things going on like local clothing swaps.
I know there's one I think this coming weekend that
I'm going to be going to um and bartering markets
and of course my favorite the flea market, where you
can really just find a second life for for anything
that you almost anything within reason, a lot of things
that you need to get rid of. I say, if
you can get a use for those smelling gym shoes,
(15:22):
if you can't find a used or something else, you're
probably not thinking high enough. Yeah, So I think, Molly.
We have tackled this recycling problem, and I have a
lot of work to do when I go home tonight.
I need to get cracking. You do need to save
the plan at one room minute time. It's time to
do my spring slash summer cleaning once and for all.
I'm gonna do it. You have empowered me to do so. Molly.
(15:43):
Thank you. Wow, You're welcome. Well, guys, If you have
any questions or comments for me and Molly, or any
other surprising things that you can recycle that we did
not mention that you would like us to share with
our other listeners, please send us an email at moms
stuff at how stuff works dot com. And if you'd
like to learn more about how recycling works and how
to green up your life, head on over and read
(16:05):
some articles and all those things at how stuff works
dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics.
Does it how stuff works dot com. Want more how
stuff works, check out our blogs on the how stuff
works dot com home page. Brought to you by the
(16:27):
reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff mom never told you?
From House Towards dot com. Hey there, and welcome to
the podcast. This is Kristen and this is Molly. All right, Molly.
(00:21):
Even though we are well into spring and uh down
here in Atlanta, we are even farther on our way
into summer, I still need to do some spring cleaning,
do you know. Yeah, my room is just I don't
have any closets. That's the problem. There closets, some storage
closets in my house, but I have no closets to
myself in my bedroom, and so beneath my bed is
(00:44):
just a treasure trove of junk. And I don't want
to throw away because it's just things like old handbags
and shoes and random clothes that I just don't really
want to see ever. But I don't want to throw
them away, you know, fair enough. But the same time,
I don't want them under my bed anymore. I've got
so much stuff like this. So on that note, I
(01:07):
thought that we could use our podcast as a double
duty for me to find out some surprising things that
I can recycle to get rid of some of these
wastes in my room. Fair enough? Uh, first off, do
you have any prom dresses under your bed? Actually, Molly,
I I do have prom dresses. I have prom dresses,
and I even have homecoming dresses, which is kind of
(01:30):
weird because I wasn't really a fan of either of
those events in my adolescence, but I somehow still have
the mementos from it. Well. One of the first things
I think this is kind of interesting the commuter cycled
are all those prom dresses in your handbags that matched
and the shoes that matched. If you look for an organization,
the national one is called Donate My Dress dot org um.
(01:51):
What they do is they take all those formal dresses
and turn them around and give them out for free
to girls who can afford to buy their own for
the prom. So that way, no one, you know, it's
denied a prom just because they can't pay for it.
And they're you know, local chapters of this everywhere. UM
Chicago for example, has the Glass Slipper projects, so I
would advise looking into that for Numero Uno. Yeah, I
(02:13):
think how staff Works actually had had a prom and
homecoming dress drive last year for I think it was
something to do with maybe Hurricane Katrina, although that doesn't
make sense because that wasn't last year. This is a
terrible story that I'm feel like, So that's why I'm
going to move on to the next surprising thing that
you can recycle, um, which are cosmetics. I also have
(02:34):
a lot of old cosmetics that's like, you know, eyeshadow
that I'm like, well maybe I'll want that baby blue,
your early experiment experiments with makeup and terrifying um. But
I can actually send empty cosmetic containers back to some
cosmetic companies and they will recycle them for me, which
(02:57):
is pretty exciting because you know, you don't really think
about it. You just you have an old you know, uh, eyeshadow,
lip gloss, it's empty, you toss it. But we're actually
tossing a lot of cosmetics. So uh. Origins from Essay
Lauter actually just launched a new cosmetic recycling program and
they will accept any empty and clean cosmetic container at
(03:21):
any Origins counter and you can just take you take
the empty stuff and though they will recycle it for you. Yeah,
and if you're if you're pretty brand loyal, I know
that some brands have their own programs, like Mac has
one where I think it's six containers and you get
like a free lipstick out of it. So some of
them you might actually get a deal if you look
and recycling them that way. And you know old makeup
(03:41):
always good to like grind down uses an art supply. Yes, Molly,
I didn't know you were so crafty. I'm pretty crafty.
One craft I will say, Um, I don't know if
you do have any uh spare rolls of wallpaper lying around,
But I did have a teacher who was pretty crafty
with a leftover wallpaper, and she recycled that leftover wallpaper,
(04:01):
uh into books that we could draw our little stories in.
She would fold the wallpaper over, so some paper in
the middle of it while story book nice and Molly,
I'm guessing if you made storybooks, you could easily make
a thing. If you weren't planning to write a series
of short stories in wallpaper, I'm sure that you could
turn it into maybe greeting cards or um. There are
some I think the craft Zine magazine blog has a
(04:25):
has a whole list of you know, things that you
can you can do with with paper like this, such
as sewing it up and making cute little business card holders.
And Martha Stewart also has a whole list of ideas
for for things that you can do with leftover wallpaper scraps,
like just small snippets you might have that can work
as light, fix your coverings and backing for pictures, and
(04:51):
all sorts of creative ideas, because right now wallpaper comes
in so many neat patterns and textures it's kind of
a shame to to just toss it all. Um, use
it to aline your drawers. Yeah, drawerliner exactly. Yeah, wallpaper,
it's a wealth of opportunity. Yeah. And another thing, another
common thing that we use to decorate which might seem
(05:12):
kind of just easy to just toss away, sort of
like the wallpaper scraps, are old Christmas lights. Man, I
have a pretty impressive collection of old, unused Christmas lights
that I don't really want to throw away either because
well I don't really know why. It seems wrong too,
and you kind of think you'll use them again, even
(05:32):
though most of them are burnt out. Like, I don't
think I have a working strand of Christmas lights, even
though I have an awful lot of Christmas lights, and
you know you also don't want to have to go
through the trouble of detangling those Christmas and ust me,
that's the most annoying part of it. Um, Holiday l
e ed dot com and Christmas lights dot com I
believe will accept your strands of unwanted Christmas lights and
(05:55):
recycle them for you. Yeah. The Christmas miracles, Christmas racle
um and uh. Speaking of light bulbs, Molly. With the
whole green movement going on, one of the first tips
that people always tell you is to switch out your
old light bulbs for compact fluorescent light bulbs, right because
it lasts longer, better for the environment. That's great. But
(06:16):
when they burn out, if they ever do exactly they
ever do America workers, do you just toss them? What
do you do? Know? You can actually take them to
home Depot and they will recycle them for you as well.
I don't know. Some other hardware stores might do this too.
I'm not just trying to single out Home dam Depot
so she is, Um, but I know that that they
(06:37):
will recycle those kinds of green light bulbs to make
your life even greener. That's pretty green. Okay, So here's
the scenario. For you christim. Let's say you had gotten
all your Christmas lights out, strung them up and had
a wonderful Christmas party and you serve some refreshments as
we girls are want to do, perhaps a lot of
wine champagne, had a good time. I want to go
(07:00):
to that party. Come on over at Christmas at my house. Um. Anyway,
say you have that party, and of course you're gonna
recycle all those wine bottles, that's a given. But did
you know that if you keep all those corks, not
just as mementos of a good time, you can send
them back to a company and they'll recycle them for you. Fascinating, Molle,
it is. Let me tell you they have the company.
(07:20):
If you send your corks to recork America, they take
all of them, and uh they make all sorts of things.
They can manufacture the trails into flooring tiles, building insulation,
shoe soles, fishing round handles, bulletin boards, play SMATs. So
keep those corks, and I bet if you are a
crafty gal like yourself, Molle, you can keep all those
(07:42):
corks and make some fun craft items as well. Corker
if you if you're wanting to do so I don't
have the patients for crafts, but I would give you
my corks, Like, yeah, you can make your own up
like bulletin board out of corks. Yeah, donging it up
in the office, if you have a tolerant sort of office. Now, Molly, uh,
let's say I've gone to your fantastic holiday party and
(08:05):
maybe I drank a few too many glasses of wine
and champagne. Next day, I'm gonna wake up, probably go
to my medicine cabinet, maybe take a little a little
pain reliever. But before you do, check the expiration date. Okay,
there's well, there's nothing worse than taking expired medicines than
sting my opinion. Yeah. But speaking when I'm trying to
(08:26):
get at Molly, okay, is that there is a relatively
new programs that are popping up in let's see thirty
seven out of fifty states so far that are letting
people recycle medication. Really. Yeah, this sounds kind of strange
because you think of you don't really think of taking
used medicine. But according to a blog post on the
(08:49):
House Stuff Works blog Science Stuff posted by our science
editor Alison louder Milk, the US now has thirty seven
states that have passed drug reclamation or recycling laws, according
to the National Conference of State Legislatures, and they've got
a website up that will that will give out all
the guidelines for how you can UH recycle your medication.
(09:11):
But in general, UM, your donated drugs must not be
expired and they have to have a verifiable future expiration date.
Controllable substances defined by the U s d e A
are usually excluded and prohibited from recycling UH. State licensed
pharmacist or pharmacy has to be part of the verification
and distribution process, and each patient receiving one of these
(09:32):
recycled drugs must have a valid prescription form in his
or her own name. Some like that might be something
if you particularly if you're moving, you know, and you're
cleaning out the medicine chest and you have maybe some
UH medications that haven't expired that you might want to
try to pass along, because if you throw these meds away,
they might end up in the groundwater supply. There's been
(09:54):
all sorts of news stories about how discarded medications flush
them down the toilet is really not good for the
environment or good for our health. Stuff out there, so
it could be worth looking into. So kristin yesterday to
tall a little anecdote. I bought some new shoes, some
new um walking shoes. Um, but did you know I
(10:16):
can recycle the old ones? That's good because I have
my my shoes that I run in are are disgusting
and I need to well, I don't know that. Well
did they grind them up? Because I wouldn't want someone
else to wear them. I couldn't take them to a
thrift store, That's what I'm saying. Well, if you feel
you can take them to a thrift store. There are
plenty of programs that will take your old tennis shoes
and redistribute them to, you know, people who might be
grateful to have any shoe at all. But the program
(10:39):
I was most interested to find out about was one
that's run by Nike called Riggs a shoe and they'll take, um,
we're not athletics shoes from any brand, doesn't have to
be a Nike, and they'll grind them up and make
uh this material they call Nike Grind and then they
partner with um sports surfacing companies. So it might be
one day that you're playing on a basketball or a
(11:00):
tennis court and all of a sudden, you look down
like that's your shoe, Like your shoe made that basketball court.
That sounds like a much better way for my shoes
to go because they really smell, they're they're their way
over use, and I think that they would work really
well for Nike and thank you basketball court. Yes, yeah,
so all sorts of fitness flooring. Uh you could. It's
(11:22):
it seems very much like the circle of life, Like
you wear out your shoes on a court, and then
your shoes become the court. I like that mine. It's deep.
It's very philosophical. Um. Another thing that we can recycle,
um that can be put to good use or like
this whole circle of of life, if you will, Molly
that you're talking about cell phones. We know that we
(11:43):
should recycle our cell phone batteries, but did you know
you can actually recycle your physical cell phone, the entire phone,
and they can go back to good use. Some of
these programs will will take cell phones and then program
them to dial automatically and they will give them out
to women who are facing um domestic violence programs like
(12:05):
at UM domestic violence shelters and things like that. So
it's a pretty amazing second life for a cell phone.
There's this other cool program Christen called cell Phones for Soldiers,
and basically by collecting phones and selling them back, they're
able to create to raise the money to buy prepaid
calling cards for our brave men and women serving overseas.
(12:25):
So that's pretty cool. Yeah, it's great. Well, only speaking
of overseas and traveling, that reminds me of I think
one of your top five favorite movies of all time,
which is Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Part two. You know,
I actually much to mind, just may haven't seen that
one yet, but I do love I do love the
first installments so much. And uh, that tell involves girls
(12:47):
who are sort of the epitome of recycling, if you will,
because they take one pair of pants and managed to
make it work for all of them. But if those
pants should ever fail to work their magic, which seems
highly doubtful, they shood so they should send them to
a company called Bonded Logic. Because what Bonded Logic does
is they make installation for homes out of blue jeans,
(13:09):
which I just think is the coolest thing ever. Uh.
There have been like habitat for humanity houses built with these.
And the whole reason that Kristen brought up my favorite film, sister,
that traveling Pants is uh, the cotton people, the fine
people who make cotton. There's a big promotional push you
might have seen, like a big bin in the movie
theater to drop your jeans there because the cotton people
(13:31):
they have this website called Cotton from Blue to Green
dot org and they run a lot of the denim
drives that eventually, you know, they take all the denim
and they send it off to the to the people
who make it into installation. And it's yet another circle
of life thing. Yeah, taking our discarded clothing and cell
phones and all that and actually putting it to good use.
(13:53):
Because when a lot of us think about recycling, we
think about our cereal boxes and aluminum cans and newspapers
and sort of sort of the boring stuff, if you will, Molly.
But I like thinking of recycling like this, getting a
little creative with it and finding out how to get
rid of just see things like that are taking up
all of that space beneath my bed and in drawers,
(14:15):
and that I just don't want to throw away because
I don't want to waste it um. And good thing
to remember too is that while we have all of
these specific items that can be donated, there are wonderful
websites like freecycle, dot org, Craigslist and others that allow
you to literally recycle anything that you want. Freecycle is
(14:38):
such a great example because it's I mean, it's exactly
what it sounds like. You're recycling things for free. You
kind of do swaps with other people, like say, Molly,
you want my paperback edition of Sisterhood of the Traveling
Pants too, And I would like, you know, your new
pair of shoes that you bought yesterday. So I think
that we could probably make a trade. And there are
(14:59):
other a cool things going on like local clothing swaps.
I know there's one I think this coming weekend that
I'm going to be going to um and bartering markets
and of course my favorite the flea market, where you
can really just find a second life for for anything
that you almost anything within reason, a lot of things
that you need to get rid of. I say, if
you can get a use for those smelling gym shoes,
(15:22):
if you can't find a used or something else, you're
probably not thinking high enough. Yeah, So I think, Molly.
We have tackled this recycling problem, and I have a
lot of work to do when I go home tonight.
I need to get cracking. You do need to save
the plan at one room minute time. It's time to
do my spring slash summer cleaning once and for all.
I'm gonna do it. You have empowered me to do so. Molly.
(15:43):
Thank you. Wow, You're welcome. Well, guys, If you have
any questions or comments for me and Molly, or any
other surprising things that you can recycle that we did
not mention that you would like us to share with
our other listeners, please send us an email at moms
stuff at how stuff works dot com. And if you'd
like to learn more about how recycling works and how
to green up your life, head on over and read
(16:05):
some articles and all those things at how stuff works
dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics.
Does it how stuff works dot com. Want more how
stuff works, check out our blogs on the how stuff
works dot com home page. Brought to you by the
(16:27):
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